That is a complicated question, but one of the simple reasons is Sun
bought StarOffice and open sourced it to form Open Office.org because
they wanted to do to Microsoft what Microsoft did to Netscape when
they released Internet Explorer for free.
On Aug 15, 2007, at 5:48 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi, my name is Ash Roskell,
Your product was recently recommended to me be a nice chap at PC
World. I had never heard of it before. Upon looking at what it
offers I am very tempted to download it. However, call me an old
cynic, but I keep asking people, why is the product free? What's
in it for the producers of the product? What am I missing?
Clearly people are working hard to promote and expand the use of
this product; and somebody has worked hard to create a major
program which seems to rival Microsoft in its capabilities.
Yet, without knowing what the agenda of the company producing Open
Office is, I hesitate to embrace it. Something for nothing is a
rare event which defies the laws of physics, let alone human
behaviour. I'm sure that there is a very obvious and benign reason
for the existence of this product, which is not obvious to me; but
I would love to know what it is? Please could some one tell me?
I believe, and seem to be born out though various discussions I
have had, that, if it was made clear and obvious on your first web-
page (and believe me, I have been looking) why free, high quality
software, which rivals that of the top companies, is being
distributed on the net, people would be less suspiscious of the
motives for the actions of people whom I feel sure are nice
altruistic individuals really. In short; Why not tell people, up
front, why it is free? I can't find out by going through your site
pages, though I have probably missed the explanation somewhere.
My e-mail is [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please get in touch, God bless. Ash
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