2.2. Open Systems Technology

Proprietary software is a non-standards-compliant product of a single vendor. That single vendor controls the form and function of the software through many iterations of product releases. When today's systems are built, they are dependent upon commercial software to varying degrees. Commercial software is the primary form of software reuse and in practice is a much more effective form of reuse within individual enterprises.

One reason why commercial software is a more powerful form of reuse is due to an economy of scale. Large numbers of copies of the software are distributed to customers, and the software can be debugged and quality controlled to a degree which exceeds the in-house development capabilities of even ...

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