> Delaying source release and the sort of ARC cases > that were previously open reduces participation; not > only contribution, but useful feedback. I can't > guess > whether e.g. Apple, FreeBSD, or Nexenta using some of > the > OpenSolaris code cuts into Oracle's profits, although > since > Oracle seems to only be interested in customers with > deep > pockets, I'd be inclined to suspect that while it may > make > some difference, the difference is not large, and may > not > be worth the lost good will. > > Separate from that is the issue of the license being > free > _only_ for the purposes of developing, testing, or > presentation > of developer apps. Desktops, and student and home > user access > (at low or no cost to those groups) are essential to > holding and > growing mindshare, some of which eventually become > paying customers, > and most of which wouldn't be able to pay something > like $1000 per > year per socket anyway. It's not lost revenue, it's > cheap (the cost of > the download bandwidth) advertising!
How did that mindshare, good will, and free advertising help Sun be successful? What other companies that compete with Solaris in the enterprise market offer their products for free desktop, education, home or development use? Do they offer free access to their source code? Was Solaris a successful product before Sun open sourced everything? How much has the enterprise market changed since then? eric -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
