Reuse library interoperability and the World Wide Web

Abstract

Shortly after the collapse of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, a Polish housewife was interviewed by National Public Radio. She complained that the introduction of free enterprise to Poland was a great inconvenience. Now, instead of shopping at the most conveniently located store, secure in the knowledge that prices were uniform, she had to go from store to store comparing prices, in order to be sure that she was making the best buy. `Why should prices be different at each store?' she complained. `After all, they are all selling the same things.' On the surface, her remarks seem to make a great deal of sense. If we can find the fallacy in her thinking, we will learn a small lesson about a very important subject, free-market economics, and more relevantly, a big lesson about a less important subject, software reuse libraries.