--- Dustin Puryear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 10:55 AM 7/4/2003 -0500, you wrote: > >The move to free software will no more eliminate > commercial software > >companies than publishing laws eliminates law firms > or medical texts > >eliminates hospitals. Practical software companies > will adopt free > >software and earn their living by implementing it > for people. The threat > >we here from M$ and the RIAA, that without closed > source and copyrights > >there would > > Your comment about software companies making money > by "implementing it for > people" brings up a good point. I don't think that a > model based on > developers doing nothing but contract work is going > to work, either for > them or the consumer. > > Let's say I am a potential client and I need some > software. A word > processor would be a good example of this. So I get > an open source > developer and contract them to build the software. > Under this model the > client bears the entire cost of the development > because the cost cannot be > spread across other clients (this is how mass-market > commercial software > works). > > How do we make this kind of model affordable to the > client? > >
Dustin: I think you are intentionally ignoring history for the sake of an argument. Let us take the internet for example, instead of a word processor. Arpanet was developed by the US Govt. for the purposes of research and communication. We all paid for it via taxes. You could make the same argument for Mosaic, as the gentlemen that wrote were on our nickle. However, TCPIP, HTTP allow a lot of very bright people to make a lot of money from the thing that is the internet. I pay for access, but once on, I can create what I will, and share what I can. Or, take Linux. It started as an exercise in thought, but is now a movement and an industry. How are so many people feeding their families with something that started as a thought experient? Via the power of human ingenuity. Who bears the cost of development? The people that benefit. This is a basic model. Who pays the farmer? I assume you are making a tounge-in-cheek argument, but your point is at the heart of a lot of FUD. Nothing is free. Someone always pays. Questioning an existing model, for instance Open Source Software, on the basis of cost is not a legitiment argument. All it says it that the complainer did not research the structure. If a model exists, and it is functioning and growing, it is being paid for, and nurtured. The only question is how. That is just grunt work, research plain and simple. A better question is how do I get a piece of the pie? For that, again, the answer is research. No one likes to do it, but that's how you find where the money went. ===== Warmest Regards, Doug Riddle http://www.dougriddle.com http://fossile-project.sourceforge.net/ http://www.libranet.com -- "Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the Peoples' Liberty Teeth." - George Washington -- __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com
