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Getting the "Free" Business Model Wrong Doesn't Mean the Model is Flawed
While "free" seems to be an increasingly popular business model, there are quite a few people who seem to be completely bungling what to do with "free" and then complaining when it doesn't work. Techdirt takes a look at some of the arguments surrounding why free as a business model may or may not work and why many of these arguments, while prevalent, just don't hold water. "you give away the infinite goods, not the scarce goods. Your time is a scarce good. No one is saying that everything needs to be free -- they're saying that infinite goods will be free, because of it's very nature in economics. In fact, Poole's argument is particularly weak when it comes to programmers, because most programmers don't earn any kind of royalties for the software they write. They are paid a salary, for their time -- but not for the software itself (which is an infinite good). And, I won't even get into the number of programmers who work on open source projects for free ... or the fact that Poole is blogging for free ..."
I wish I could be so lucky. My boss won't let FOSS anywhere near the system with the exception of one lonely PC set up as a webserver. He knows commercial software has its problems--his biggest problem with FOSS is "lack of support." I've tried showing him that there is support available, but when he wants support, he wants to be able to pick up a phone and get an answer the same business day.
Of course, this is the same boss who says "I'm not using anything I need to compile myself." Go figure!
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
I wish I could be so lucky. My boss won't let FOSS anywhere near the system with the exception of one lonely PC set up as a webserver. He knows commercial software has its problems--his biggest problem with FOSS is "lack of support." I've tried showing him that there is support available, but when he wants support, he wants to be able to pick up a phone and get an answer the same business day.
He can buy that kind of support. Of course, it is probably expensive!There's the OS model as manifested by Ubuntu, RH, SUSE, and others. Each has different market motivators and success.
There's the cool-app model, like MySQL, Apache, and others that depend on application support and transparency across a lot of software disciplines.
There's the vertical app model, like Asterisk, that uses hardware/software/extensions to motivate the community, each making a few cents in within sub-markets.
There's the 'fringe' app (not said in a deragotory way) that uses a shareware-like valuing through paypal, donationware, and other 'love of the art'/hacker's bent.
And these are only a sampling of general categories. F/OSS in the Stallman model doesn't have to be a vow of poverty. On the contrary, we're only scratching the surface of how F/OSS makes money.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Ask him when the last time was he picked up the phone and called MS and asked them for support? What kind of response did he get? How much did they charge? Then look at the kind of and cost of support available for products like Red Hat. Ask him how what MS provides is better.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
So, since the software itself is free, and all revenue is generated from service contracts and tech support, who pays for the time that went into the original software?
If the software was perfect, ie the original programmers had put enough time into it to completely debug the code, the user interface was simple and intuitive, no conflicts with other programs arose, etc...
there would be no need for tech-support
there would be no income from the software
So by giving away the software free, does that encourage buggy programming?
ABIL
And what's the value of something that doesn't exist? Until someone comes along and creates the work you consider to be available in infinite quantity, it's only available on zero quantity. Given that that is the extreme end of scarcity no amount of money will allow you to buy it. Does that make the act of creation of infinite value?
Maybe you shouldn't try and hang your economic philosophy on old ideas of supply and demand?
I recently got paid for my time developing a product, negotiated an open license for it, and retained copyright to the code. I think if more programmers were simple aware of these options, and knew how to show their customers the benefits of such arrangements, we'd have a lot adoption of this practice.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Score, you know better than that and you shouldn't be trying to use inflammatory rhetoric. The fact that a price/demand curve tends to a 0 price in no way implies that it goes infinite price.
In some cases there is no pre-creation demand, because no-one knows they want it. Examples include music from unknown artists, fiction from unknown authors, etc. In other cases the demand is better (though not perfectly) known: a new Radiohead album, an Indiana Jones movie, or spaceflight for tourists.
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Oh. I always thought the word Free in the movie title Free Willy actually meant to free something from its bonds, not that someone gave away a whale.
c++;
Your boss does not want support. He just wants to cover his ass. If you have downtime because of a MS bug that takes months to fix, he can point the finger to MS and probably get away with it.
If this happens with a FOSS product, upper management will start asking questions and eventually blame him for the choice of software. Your boss knows this.