From: "Robert White" <rwhite@casabyte.com>
To: "Timothy Miller" <miller@techsource.com>
Cc: "David Woodhouse" <dwmw2@infradead.org>, "Larry McVoy" <lm@bitmover.com>,
       "Werner Almesberger" <wa@almesberger.net>,
       "Stephan von Krawczynski" <skraw@ithnet.com>,
       <miquels@cistron-office.nl>, <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: [OT] Re: Troll Tech [was Re: Sco vs. IBM]
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 15:55:03 -0700
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-----Original Message-----
From: Timothy Miller [mailto:miller@techsource.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 3:34 PM

> Robert White wrote:
> >
> > 2) If software is the only thing you do, you are screwed because that
> > immense return on investment is payment in kind so there is no "cash
margin"
> > from which to draw profit.
>
>
> No, if the software economy changes so that you can't sell it then,
> you'll be screwed.  Until then, people see software as something which
> can be sold, so they're going to do it.

I guess I was a bit vague there on number 2.  What I was aiming at was the,
I thought implicit (like that helps 8-) point in the context, question of
"pure software sales" in the age/realm/reality of software derived from or
participant in the OSS domain.  I guess I lost that in my urge to get my
word-count down.  8-)

> There are some types of software that are very difficult to organize in
> the bazaar fashion.  Only a full-time, focused team can do the job in a
> reasonable time period, if at all.  Sometimes, free software developers
> receive the necessary funding, but much more often, only a company which
> is bringing in revenue as a capitalist entity would be able to succeed.

I agree.

In fact that particular "focus" then becomes, in the OSS model, the
_whatever_ that is being provided "along with" the software.  Focus,
commitment, service, responsiveness and so on are *all* primary examples of
the "other than just software" that makes a company feasible.  The current
business models really only value that other when it is hardware or similar
tangible feature, which is ridiculous in our so called "services economy".

The question then, for each company, in an OSS model, can a particular
_whatever_ or combination thereof support the company.  After all, the
software itself is free.

There are contra positives like is OSS the only means to disentangle the IP
claims of what are, for all real purposes, idea squatters?  Can any company
claim sacrosanct autonomy of their software if they use the common public
paradigms of programming like menus and "chrome" and array processing, and
multi-processing and such?  If a company can not "morally" make such claims
because they themselves are engaged in mimicry, how seriously should we take
their claims that they need protection from the mimicry perpetrated by
others?


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