Using Arbitrage on the Price of Software

Via the Big Slash, comes ONLamp.com: Calculating the True Price of Software, which applies arbitrage - looking for price differences between two things that ought to be exactly the same - to warranties and - more to the point - software, and software maintenance.

the conclusions are interesting :

a) that the free and open source software folk have stumbled across the financial engineering insight that a significant portion of the value of software is the embedded "derivatives"--options or warrants--on future maintenance and enhancement.

b) the major difference in worldview between open source advocates and proprietary software license advocates is explainable as a differing opinion on the correct value of the volatility of maintenance and upgrade pricing.