""Jérôme M. Berger"" <jeber...@free.fr> wrote in message news:gqn80v$17g...@digitalmars.com... > > Ask RedHat, or any of the increasingly large number of companies > that *do* make money on free, as in libre, software. Basically, you > make your customers pay for specific developments and > customizations. Once the software is released you still get paid for > tech support and maintenance. >
Hmm, gaining income from "specific developments and customizations" is an interesting business model for a free software company (free as in "both", because really, how often is "free as in libre" software ever *not* available at no cost? Heck, how often is that even realistically possible?), I didn't realize Red Hat was doing that. But I've never been a big fan of the idea of using tech support as a business model for free (as in both) software. The way I see it, that creates a conflict of interest. The better a piece of software is (almost by definition of "better"), the less tech support it really needs. If I were creating a program that had enough tech-support-income-potential to support a whole company, I'd be ashamed to call myself a software developer.
