On Thu, 2006-01-26 at 14:37 -0600, Greg Woodhouse wrote:
[KSB] <...snip...>
> runs on a commercial OS. With regard to platforms: VistA runs under
> InterSystems Cache' (a commercial M implementation) and GT.M (an open
> source M implementation). Historically, it has run under DSM, OpenM,
[KSB] Greg, that was a somewhat unfortunate choice of words, because
your words imply that GT.M is not commercial. We are very much
commercial! We have developers that need to be paid and lights that
need to be kept on. Although both GT.M and Cache are commercial, an
important difference is in the licensing. GT.M on x86 GNU/Linux,
Alpha/AXP OpenVMS and Alpha/AXP Tru64 UNIX is offered as Free / open
source software (FOSS) under the Gnu General Public License (GPL).
The critical difference is in the business model. A business model
based on the GPL means that while the software license is free, we must
earn our revenue from the sale of services. A GPL based business model
empowers the users, among other reasons, because it means that the
vendor can never charge unreasonable support fees, cannot arbitrarily
declare a product obsolete & require customers to replace it with
another (more expensive) product, etc. Conversely, a GPL based business
model also puts some responsibility on the user because although the
software is free, the users who use it to generate revenue should
support the vendor (for example, in our case, by purchasing support) so
that the software stays current into the future.
One of the myths that is part of the FUD spread by vendors whose
business models are not based on open source licenses is that software
based on open source licenses is not commercial. Please do not
inadvertently help spread this myth.
Thank you for your consideration.
Regards
-- Bhaskar
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