No special machines or expensive additional resources are required, unlike almost all physical goods and products.
This made commercialization of software for the mass market in the beginning of the computing era impossible.
In 1969, IBM, under threat of antitrust litigation, led the industry change by starting to charge separately for (mainframe) software[6][7] and services, and ceasing to supply source code.
[10] Additionally, the growing availability of millions of computers based on the same microprocessor architecture created for the first time a compatible mass market worth and ready for binary retail software commercialization.
This research and development model … based on the importance of intellectual property rights [was the] foundation in law that made it possible for companies to raise capital, take risks, focus on the long term, and create sustainable business models….
This is a fact that the Free Software Foundation emphasizes,[13] and is the basis of the Open Source Initiative.
This includes products from Red Hat, Apple Inc., Huawei, Sun Microsystems, Google, and Microsoft.
A report by Standish Group says that adoption of open source has caused a drop in revenue to the proprietary software industry by about $60 billion per year.