2009/8/4 Alun Rowe <[email protected]>: > > Yes I have but it is fairly unique.
RHAT is the only free software company in the S&P500, but there are several direct competitors and many smaller and very different free software companies. > How would you obtain funding for an idea which had no IP of it own? Red Hat started. How did this happen? There are hundreds of small companies that only supply free software. How did they start? I know, and, clearly, you don't, but since you have seen the evidence that such companies exist, I find your position quite strange; rather than saying, "I don't understand the economics" you say "The economics cannot possibly work." > Like I say I love the utopian model but I can’t see it happening for a long > long time. Companies NEED to be able to maintain their own technology > without simply passing it to their competitors on a plate. Red Hat has been doing very well for a long long time. This isn't a utopian model. It is an ethical position with a proven business model. > Anyway it’s no surprise people pay Red Hat for support. Mere users don’t > stand a chance with anything Linux based. It’s far too geeky to use still. Try telling that to the millions of school kids whose schools provide them with GNU/Linux desktops. As a percentage of the whole software industry, how much revenue is generated by the casual home users I assume you are referring to? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
