Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 15:44:29 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: dan@langille.org, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman now claims authorship of Linux Message-ID: <15076.37933.231003.442843@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <200104231926.MAA07119@usr08.primenet.com> References: <15073.19371.99471.534039@guru.mired.org> <200104231926.MAA07119@usr08.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> types: > > > > Yup. Their lack of vision is going to drive them bankrupt. > > > How would a "visionary company" fund R&D, IYHO? > > Depends on the software they're trying to produce. I've already > > described a number of different business models for recovering R&D > > costs, including selling services and improving staff efficiency. > > Focusing on one particular business model - whether it's > > productization or improved efficiency - leads to idiotic claims like > > "The GPL will reduce programmers to penury." > I don't see a lot of good GPL'ed code being funded out there. The restriction on "good" is another one of those "multitude of sins" type things. Everybody doing Linux development to provide better ISP services (I have the impression that a lot of the BSD development comes from that as well) is funding GPL'ed code. Tivo is as well, but they're about the only company I know of that's obvious about it. Of course, you can simply claim that's not "good" code. > Unfortunately, the GPL model means I _must_ give my source > code out, even if it happens to be for something strategic. That indeed limits the places where you can use that software. In particular, any business model based on selling software is pretty much shot. If you are stuck on making money providing software, that is indeed a heavy restriction. Fortunately for us, real people (i.e. - not us geeks) don't buy software; they buy solutions. Once you shift your focuse from "Gotta make money providing software" to "Gotta make money using software to provide solutions", it isn't nearly so bad. When I first ran into this argument in the late 70s and early 80s - as part of an argument against monopolies in general - I did a bit of research. At that time, companies that produced software to provide as part of a solution, or to improve corporate efficiency, produced more software than was produced by companies planning on selling the software. That doesn't count the software produced by the various governments in the US (state and even local governments also produce software), none of which was ever offered for sale by the government. They produced more software than all the commercial companies combined. Given that something like 80% of the software written was never offered for sale, eliminating all the jobs funded by the sale of software wouldn't make a major impact on programmers. It would make a noticable impact, but probably not as bad as the recent tech stock crash. > Really, you need to consider your exit strategy when starting > a new business. For a Linux based product, the strategy is > almost completely limited to IPO, and not acquisition. That's > just bad business planning. Acquisition seems to have worked for a number of companies doing GPL'ed code. But yes, you do need to consider those things. The question is - is the loss of the potential acquisition $'s worth the up front money required to provide the functionality you're getting from GPL'ed code? <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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