Re: A Linux Today story has been mailed to you!

[Biju Chacko <biju@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2001 at 05:35:13PM +0530, Raju Mathur wrote:
> But that's the whole point:  Free Software is made and will continue
> to be made by people who do it as a hobby.  Just as an artist cannot
> live without painting, a programmer cannot live without programming.

no argument there.

> The way to make money from Free Software is through services.
> Companies which rely on Free Software products to make their money are
> going to be out on the street very soon.  Companies which provide
> services and support based on Free Software, on the other hand, are
> what the future is IMNSHO.

Thats just my point. Whereas you and I can turn a profit on services, I
seriously doubt whether the Red Hats and SuSEs of this world can. They're
sinking large amounts of money to make sure that people like Alan Cox can
support a fulltime hobby. But where are the profits? Are profits possible?
Will commercial Linux distros survive? For all this and more, tune in next week
for the next episode of "The Bald and the Not-so-Beautiful". (Sorry, couldn't
resist that).

Unfortunately, a "service" has no intrinsic value -- only what the customer
places on it. The service of assembling a cohesive operating system has lost
it's value -- customers are not willing to pay for it in the
$free_software_philosophy world. In comparison, the _other_ services, manuals,
support, and so on, are in lesser demand and probably cannot sustain the distro
makers.

Without them, it will be a lot harder for a lot of hackers to sustain their
hobbies. Thats what I meant when I said that $free_software is a luxury. Unless
_somebody_ can make large anounts of money off of it, it will always stay in a
niche.

Biju


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Biju Chacko        | biju@xxxxxxxxxxx (work)            
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