On Dec 17, 5:50 pm, Michael Neale <michael.ne...@gmail.com> wrote: > > The first two aren't really safe - look at Red Hat Enterprise Linux, > > where you have a free, code-identical offering (CentOS) and somebody > > else offering support at half of Red Hat's price (Oracle). > > Ask Oracle how the sales are doing on that front.
Ok, Oracle apparently failed to gain much traction here - see http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10108675-16.html. However, when Springsource recently changed its maintenance policy to only publish binaries to the open source community for three months after a major release and to not tag the public CVS repository with the other, enterprise-customer-only releases, Rod Johnson cited Oracle Linux "cashing in in open source" as the specific example for not tagging (http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss? thread_id=50727#269625). They later changed that policy due to the PR backlash. I think when you support a product whose roadmap somebody else drives then you're always at a disadvantage, but if you're big enough or just want to hurt the other guy, you may try nevertheless (I think Oracle was just pissed at Red Hat for whatever reason). > > Apart from > > that, support doesn't seem to be a great way to make money for open- > > source companies, and it kinda sucks business-wise (revenue is a > > multiple of your bodies, > > Not true ! You really convinced me here. ;-) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
