The last time the owners of Amiga made any money would have been, oh I dunno, about 1992.
That doesn't really contradict anything he said.
He's on to something though.
An open system will continue to grow and develop in all sorts of interesting directions. A closed system will survive only as long as its developers make it so.
Its always funny to me though that the microsofties will talk all day long about how apple is "closed off" and how they don't want that.
Apple has an open source version of OS X. Microsoft never dared to do this.
People cry about ipods and iphones being locked down (though I can use my ipod fine on linux) but are apparently fine with 360's and kinects being locked (remember, microsoft threatening legal action when the kinect was being hacked?)
If people somehow think that microsoft is the saviour of open computer standards and apple is somehow the devil, I am inclined to believe they are either ignorant, undereducated or criminally insane.
Amiga was and is a dirty word to many software houses for this very reason. The ratio I've read is anywhere from 10:1 to 20:1 Pirated:Genuine. It was even happening when the platform was on its last legs and the big names had left, and all we had was the odd bedroom programming team, or small independent programmers publishing on their own or through small publishers.
This was on the last page, but this isn't much different from what PC game developers are facing today. For OS and applications, piracy rates in north america (the lowest region globally) are estimated at 40%. Games generally estimated at 90%, even in cases like the humble indie bundle, where you could pay as little as a damn dollar.
It has nothing to do with this or that platform. Rather, people as a general rule:
A: Want things for free
B: Feels they are entitled to said things for free, and can make up any number of excuses to do so (trust me, I've used my share)
C: Don't give a shit about the developers
