On Thu, 19 Sep 2002, Raja Guha wrote:
> Can anyone provide authoritative info on how the various OSS projects > are funded? You will never find a single URL on this any more than you will find a single URL on "What business models exist in Free Market economies". Open Source isn't about a single business model, but more about excluding "creation of an artificial monopoly" as being a legitimate business model. It is about allowing the full range of business models of free markets to be possible. Some projects are funded by the software's largest users -- a form of co-opetition focused on 'use value' rather than 'sale value'. Some projects are funded as a form of philanthropy, or as part of the advancement of science, education and the arts. Some are simply offering software as a part of a product or service where the software isn't where the money is made at all (Eric Raymond calls this "Widget frosting"). The business models of "Software Manufacturing" are actually the oddball businesses that people should be questioning. These business models require extreme forms of government protectionism (IE: protection against competition in a free market) in order to artificially create scarcity in software. The economy in general is harmed by this artificial scarcity, especially when most software has use-value that is considerably greater than its sale-value. To read more, do a search on "The Manufacturing Delusion of computer software". --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions Submission to Innovation Strategy | No2Violence in Politics http://www.flora.ca/innovation-2002.shtml | http://www.no-dot.ca/ -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/help/faq_list.html
