Drew, Thanks for the link. While this is a viable route for funding TDF and LO, it has some drawbacks from a business POV:
1. It continues to encourage the commodification of techincal personnel. People just become "certs" as opposed to intelligent, independent individuals with value to bring to an organization. This is a mindset that *must* be broken for FLOSS to be viable. A commodity pricing business strategy is like the Highlander series -- There Can Be Only One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlander_%28film%29 Do you want to engage in life or death struggle every day, where either you chop your opponent's head off, or he chops yours? 2. In whose interest is the TDF working for -- the developers of LO and its extensions, or the corporate enterprise? Commodifying the value of your members is questionable business strategy. The TDF already encourages adherence to standards. That is something that can easily be assessed by potential buyers. The TDF, as an organization, should be focused on enabling members to achieve pricing power, not encouraging competition on price. If the corporate enterprise wants some measure of technical competence, then they should create a standards organization, hire experts (from the TDF membership), and then develop it. The TDF and LO should not accept that as its mission. > On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 1:33 PM, drew jensen <[email protected]> > wrote: > 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 -- 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
