How Can Companies Profit While Giving Code Away?

An anonymous reader writes "In an almost philosophical essay replete with references to everyone from Larry Lessig and Tim Bray to to Professor Yochai Benkler, Sun Micrososystems evangelist Simon Phipps explores the metaphor of subscription (well, of course it's not just a metaphor any more from Sun's point of view) as the way that companies will make money off of deploying open source solutions. His distinction between OS developer and OS deployer is useful, but the crux is his contention that, with a "system" such as Sun has put together like the JDS, 'You don't buy the software from Sun - instead you subscribe to the editorial outlook.' It's an alluring analogy - Sun as the editor-in-chief of a 'publication' (JDS) with readers who may or may not choose to subscribe. Worth reading."

Comments

all software should be free

[Anonymous Coward]

and get people to pay for hardware and services

use your expertise to help get the software customised - and no you won't get priced out of the market by "small developers" because there will be no monolithic company behind the software, only small developers. The GPL is anti-corporation, pro small-business.

And have a commodity hardware market with open drivers, so the distinguishing point is quality and price of hardware. No special software packs, no tie ins, no incompatabilities.

IBM benefits from helping linux because they sell hardware and they sell services. But sooner or later they will be squeezed out too, because corporations can't move fast enough.

This is a good thing. It returns us to what capitalism is all about, hardware trading on equitable terms (no lock-ins) and service trading without mega corps. It is pure capitalism.

The future just happened, although there are a few people who don't know that yet.