In a message dated: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 06:19:56 PDT
"jim t.p. ryan" said:
>Derek,
>
>I'm still confused. How was sendmail and Apache originally created? What do
>those people do for a living? How do they make their money?
Sendmail was written in either the late '70s or early '80s by Eric Allman who
was at the time a PhD student at Berkely. I don't know what he did for a
living between then and now, but now he runs Sendmail Inc which is a company
that provides commercial support for Sendmail.
Apache was a group of people who used to work at CERN I believe and took the
original NCSA Mosaic web server code and kept patching it up, hence the name
Apache, for it's "a patchy" server. They are mostly computer/Hi-tech
professionals who work on OpenSource software in their spare time because it's
fun.
> I'm not being a wise guy here, I really want to understand how software
> would work in a comple
>tly open source world. I mean if I'm a programmer by trade and I want to feed
> my family how do I do it in this model? Maybe I'm being overly simplistic bu
>t I like the concept, I just don't fully get it.
Sell services to support your product. Sell the documentation for your
software. Sell integration services. Look at this way, musicians make very
little money on selling their albums. Of the $15 price for a CD, they're
lucky if they make $1. Most musicians make the majority of their money
selling their "services" in the form of live appearences, t-shirts,
concert guides, etc.
Also consider that we're not necessarilly advocating that *everything* be free/
opensource. It would be nice, but it's not a reality. There just aren't
enough people out there who want to spend time writing software license
management software, therefore, we have Globetrotter who distributes FlexLM.
Who wants to write ATM software for banks? What banks would trust it? etc.,
etc.
The business perspective of the OpenSource world is a little confusing I
guess, but look at things this way. Computer companies are no longer making
their money from selling computers. The margins aren't there, you can't make
money off of hardware. So, where do they make their money? Support
contracts. Dell and Gateway make far more money off their tech support
contracts than they do off of selling PCs. Compaq didn't by DEC because they
have great hardware and the best commercial Unix around. They bought DEC
because they instantly acquired the world's largest, most divers, and most
experienced hardware support/professional services organization available.
Wang used to be a leader in the high-tech computing arena, they're now known
as Wang Global, and are nothing but a tech support services company.
(actually, now they're known as someone else, since they were bought out, but
I don't remember by who).
This "new economy" we keep hearing about is not a "technological" revolutions,
it's a services revolution. To rephrase a popular political campaign:
"It's the support stupid!"
(No insult meant here.)
Does that help any? Or did I confuse the issue even more :)
--
Seeya,
Paul
----
"I always explain our company via interpretive dance.
I meet lots of interesting people that way."
Niall Kavanagh, 10 April, 2000
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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