>>If there is no money in it then there is no business case for it. Plain and
>>simple. Open source is not all about some utopian vision of free wheeling
>>and fancy free give aways. It is business.
>>-
>>Dennis Clarke
>
> Huh?? Not everything in life is devoted to the purpose of making money or
> getting rich.
"rich" is the wrong word. The word you are looking for is "viable".
> Every business case is not written with the purpose of making
> money.
I think that you would have a very hard time at the Harvard School of
Business with that attitude.
> Business is business - but a business operating on the purposes of
> generating money **only** is a bit foolhearty in the long run.
No one suggested that. I simply said that no one, and no business will drop
a million dollar investment into an R&D project for the sake of just playing
along. The R&D labs at Bell have long since shut down and no commercial
enterprise that I know of anymore is doing pure research for the fun of it
right now. Correct me if I am wrong.
> I'd think
> you'd want to provide a service or product to the community as one of
> those top goals.
absolutly.
> So I'd think we'd talk about the NEED or WANT of such a product
> or service as one of our top discussions.
It always was. I'm not too sure where you are going .. or why.
> Something like:
> 1. Does anyone, on planet Earth, need or want an OpenSolaris-based
> PowerPC port?!?
need ? I don't know. Want ? Maybe IBM would.
> 2. Can the port be marketed and sold commercially or academically?!?
Again .. I don't know and you are asking a business question not a
research question. There are questions you take to R&D and there are
questions that you take into the boardroom. They are not the same
questions. You just asked a boardroom question. I can help answer that
question with you if you would like?
> 3. Can we utilize existing sponsorship (Genesi) or seek out new
> sponsorship (IBM/Sun/Blastwave/etc..) with interest in our idea(s)??
Be more precise.
What do you mean by "utilize" and what do you mean by "seek out"?
> Question #1 should take precedence in this case. Needs and wants help
> create DEMAND. Without demand for the product or service (i.e. Polaris
> or OpenSolaris/PPC (/POWER)), the business case or venture is
> eventually short-lived whether through sponsorship or 'out-of-pocket'
> expenses.
Listen .. I am okay with out-of-pocket expenses and I like the idea of
looking at the POWER6 and heck .. I even like the 32-bit SoC EFIKA because
it works real real well. There must be a reasonable direction to go with
this thing. A result that is self supporting.
> In theory, it only takes one person or business (internal/external) to
> create a demand... ;o)
In that case we have piles of demand with just you, and I and Cyril Plisko
and William Kucharski and Tom Riddle and who else ?
Dennis
