On Thu, Oct 26, 2000 at 10:59:20AM +0200, Aaron Ardiri wrote:
> > Market share gets you a) power, b) respect, and c) opportunities. Just think
> > about projects which have hundreds of thousands of satisfied users. Then
> > imagine that *one* guy is the focus of all that energy and can bring that to
> > your business. That is opportunity!
>
> and then, you start flooding your users with banners and crap like
> that - all because the "business" needed some funding.. :)
Like television ads? But to your point, most Palm programs aren't
economically viable in themselves, that is if you charge programmer's
time at market rates they represent a loss even if they are shareware
instead of free. There are some notable exceptions.
But please explain handfax/mail/web and WinFax Mobile since these were
commercial and there was nothing left to write, only sunk costs.
To make clear, if it isn't already, there is room for fully
commercial, shareware, freeware (binary), and opensource products in
the Palm economy. Neither the former two nor the latter two should be
ignored.
> > I have no problem with releasing sources under GPL, and in certain cases
> > where the code just isn't substantial releasing it into public domain. The
> > way I see it, it just invites opportunity and gives me exposure in a way
> > which fits into the "big picture." After all, releasing under GPL et al
> > doesn't prevent the copyright holders from licensing differently in the
> > future.
>
> unless everyone does open-source, this wont work.
>
> you may own the copyright to the "concept", but, whats to stop someone
> that sees your code (its all there) and just takes it, rewrites it a
> bit.. and closes the sources, and claims they wrote it all themselves.
> so much for "owning" the concept.
Or the converse - someone takes your closed source code, duplicates
the function, and Opensources it, leveraging other programmers to fix
compatibility problems or add features, while you struggle to afford
buying the next new model palm or visor to update your code.
> > There isn't a benefit to keeping software a secret any more. The new
> > Entrepreneur is about building things so vast which touch millions of people,
> > and doing it in such a way that it can all be focused like a laser on one
> > individual. Free software is a great way to do that!
>
> why? trade-secrets/patents is what gets investors.
Considering what has happened with the Nasdaq the term doesn't quite
fit. I think the term is mark or pidgeon. If current behavior is any
indication, the greater the losses or burn rate seems to create the
greater pop. And Opensource can win here easily :).
If you want people to invest and not merely speculate you need a
revenue model. Palm has a very low barrier to entry for software, so
merely having an idea or even code isn't sufficient.
The economic models are changing, and closed software systems now are
like the Mainframes of the late '70s - "They control the market".
The problem is the market is being turned inside out.
> jimmy software (CE/PPC) is known to produce awesome games.. they have
> "focus".. if they opensourced, they wouldn't have that focus. call it
> greedy.. but.. thats business!
They would have a different focus. And it isn't Palm anyway.
Proprietary platforms might imply proprietary software for their
proprietary marketshare.
If they opensourced there would likely be a palm port or two now, if
not ports to desktops.
Will they run on an iPaq running Linux?
> then, you have projects that shouldn't be open source. giving out the
> source code to device specific things or something that can total your
> device (if used incorrectly) is not a good thing.. in the wrong hands,
> it can produce more harm than good.
I think such information is on the web site of the chip suppliers, if
not, then you can usually get a databook free. This information is
open, just no implementation so far.
Note that by opensourcing your trojan scanner, anyone can use the
original destruct routine since that is what is scanned for and is
there in your data array (not to mention they can find what bytes to
transpose to break the scanner). What happens if someone simply does
a function call on your data array?
> lets move OSS vs PayForPlay to the forum that should have it?
This is part of the protection and licensing thread. If that was on
topic, this is.
--1-:**-F1 mutt-deimos-2668-28
(Fundamental)--L85--All----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
!
!
--
For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see
http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/support/forums/
