One note on the "ubiquity" argument:
If you don't monetize something somewhere, then it doesn't really help
if OpenSolaris is used everywhere. In fact, it hurts. Because you
spend more time supporting and debugging things that are not necessarily
supportive of your own priorities, and are not generating revenue.
"We're losing money on every download; but we're making it up in
volume!" doesn't really work in the business world.
If giving stuff away free does lead to *revenue* (and this was *part* of
what an Open Source Solaris product was about -- enabling sales of Sun
hardware), then great. (The other part was an attempt to contribute to
breaking the Windows monopoly on the desktop. I think Linux has done
more here though.)
So unless you can figure out how having OpenSolaris running on millions
of devices everywhere ultimately translates to revenue, I doubt Oracle
mgmt will be impressed. Business is only a popularity contest when
people vote with dollars.
A "support model" can work, but I think that the support model used for
OpenSolaris was a commercial failure. Hardly anyone bought commercial
support for it. (Heck I wouldn't have, not when you can find such
excellent support for free on the Open Solaris forums.)
So here's a challenge for everyone who wants to make our product even
more Open. Show us a plan for how that will ultimately generate revenue
for Oracle? The "just do it and see what happens" idea won't fly --
management will need to have a real plan. Ideally backed up with some
research (marketing numbers, etc.) or other evidence. Remember, this is
a real business with millions of real dollars invested in it -- its not
some high school economics research project.
-- Garrett
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