XPost: comp.lang.c++   
   From: tkoenig@netcologne.de   
      
   David Brown  schrieb:   
   > On 11/02/2026 06:57, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   >> On Tue, 10 Feb 2026 18:57:21 -0600, Lynn McGuire wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> It is very hard to compete with the price of free.   
   >>   
   >> Tell that to the sellers of bottled water. ;)   
   >>   
   >>> DWSIM has a very loyal following and many of them participate in the   
   >>> programming of new features.   
   >>   
   >> That’s the way Open Source should be. Too often we see people   
   >> complaining that some app doesn’t have features that they desperately   
   >> need, so they have to go back to paid proprietary software. Completely   
   >> overlooking the fact that, if they put some of that money they would   
   >> pay the proprietary software vendor towards sponsoring the development   
   >> of some of the features they need, the result would benefit everybody.   
   >   
   > But would that be an advantage to that user?  Benefiting everybody means   
   > benefiting your competition as well.  I have no idea how competitive or   
   > cooperative the users of chemical simulators is, but it is not always   
   > the case that "benefits everyone" is a win for the person or company   
   > stumping up the cash.   
      
   The know-how is usually in the models, not in the tools.  When   
   running chemical simulators, or more generally scientific/technical   
   software, people are usually glad if they work for them at all.   
      
   I have to admit that there I do not work with chemical   
   simulation software.  There is an equivalent that I am more   
   familiar with.  https://openfoam.org/ , an open source CFD   
   software.  (There are actually two versions of OpenFOAM, but   
   that is another issue).  This software is developed by a few core   
   people and supported by a consortium from the chemical industry,   
   https://openfoam.org/chemical-process-engineering/ .  Each company   
   pays a certain amount and can influence the work done on the   
   program proportional to the money they contribute.   
      
   OpenFOAM is a bit special because of it is script-based and has   
   a fairly steep learning curve.  Universities use it a lot because   
   it is free of cost to them (unlike commercial programs like Ansys   
   Fluent), and somebody doing a PhD also has the time to learn it,   
   unlike in industry.  With the licensing policies of companies like   
   Ansys, which make software for universities very expensive, they   
   are disconnecting themselves from their own potential user base   
   of the future.   
      
      
   > kIn many markets, there is room for pure   
   > closed-source commercial software, pure free and open source software,   
   > and many combinations in between.  Simplistic "everybody wins" arguments   
   > are rarely applicable.   
      
   Very much so.   
      
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