On Thu, 2012-04-26 at 12:56 -0400, Robert Ryley wrote: > Tom, > > I'm quite familiar with all of these claims. But they don't address > the fundamental *business* question of how to support an open source > *project* more effectively, which is more than just development. Some > comments to follow: > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Tom Davies <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi :) > > I guess it depends what you mean by "pay" and "free". A vast amount of > > people get sucked into the Free Software World and > > then start helping people or programming or putting their valuable time > > into the projects in other ways that benefit the project. > > The pay-off is that they tend to reduce their outgoings so there is less > > need for them to spend money on things they would >normally have to spend a > > lot of money on. > > > > This is focused on *cost* as opposed to *profit* and is trapped into > the commodity mindset. Costs are irrelevant if you have no sales. It > is also why FOSS has trouble (with a few exceptions) selling itself > outside of a few niches. > > > The Free Software Foundation are very clear in their GPLs and such how > > people can legitimately earn money through Free >Software. The ones i > > noticed were through providing technical support and selling the software > > on media such as Cds/Dvds > >/Usb-sticks. For the devs i guess that means tier3 support? > > That model worked when having tangible media was a value added > service. Is that model really relevant now when you can download > fully functional software and install it automatically? > > Software is more than just the code. It is the documentation and > education of users. Education of users is *the* most effective > marketing I know of, because educated users then become marketers for > you. There is less benefit to open sourcing these aspects than there > is to just open sourcing the code. > > > A lot of devs are paid by the company they work for to work on FLOSS > > projects. The pay-off for the companies are things like >NOT paying a > > rival competitor vast sums of money for license fees. Also being able to > > target specific issues to suit the company >rather than waiting for a rival > > company to get around to it (whatever "it" happens to be that month). > > Helping produce >something that undercuts their rivals products is an > > off-shoot. > > The companies that support FLOSS are large companies that have profits > from other areas, so their activities are in essence a subsidy. How > would you justify pursuing FLOSS development strategy to a start-up, > without the cash to burn? That is my concern. > > > Copenhagen hospitals are apparently set to save millions by moving to > > LibreOffice. If they spent a fraction of that saving on >developers time > > then they could end up with something practically purpose-built for their > > precise needs. A small boost to the >local economy rather than having that > > money disappear off to a foreign country. > > There are economic fallacies here, but I don't dispute that > LibreOffice is a viable alternative to MS Office. I provide help > (unpaid) to professional writers who need to use it to do things that > MS Office does not, after all. > > I want developers to be able to earn a *very* good living from > developing and supporting FLOSS as an alternative to working for some > large organization that happens to permit contributions to some > projects. I have seen no effort to encourage the development of ISV > to make money via support of LO, or by offering value added > extensions.
Hi, http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDFCertification Thanks, //drew > That would go a long way toward spurring the use of LO, > as well as providing an alternative funding source for the TDF. The > TDF could act as a lead generator for ISV, who then pay for this > service as a marketing expense for their business. They also help > contribute to testing, etc. > -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
