> 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?
In the case of OOo (which I suspect is a lot more Open Source than Free
Software), I'd expect that ethical motives are not at source of the decision
to free the source code.
Instead it's probably due to the following problem: it's very difficult to
make money by selling software. Microsoft may give you the impression this
is not the case, but really it's difficult, especially when you have MS as
a competitor.
Most software brings money instead in indirect ways, typically via
consulting, name recognition, destruction of the market and hence the
competitor's source of revenue, or vendor lock-in.
An Open Source program hence may make perfect sense commercially by its
indirect benefits, coupled with the fact that you can then tap into the
thousands of volunteers on the net who will be happy to freely help you
debug and improve your program.
Stefan
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