"Was it stupid business plans? Venture capitalists with unrealistic expectations? "
The venture capitalists was stupid because they listened to hippies who had no idea what so ever how to run a business and totally clueless on how much revenue is needed to just survive.
If you try to charge money for this software a bunch of open source developers will develop a free alternative and you will have major problems sell this.
My point is: The PS2 is quite expensive today since they have not much competition on consoles that fast. However, when new consoles in the same performance class arrive they have to lower it to the normal console prices (it may be xbox, it may be gamecube, I don't care witch one and it doesn't matter one bit).
They sell the PS2 at loss today and with normal console prices they sell at huge loss as all consoles do.
If people don't use it for games (witch they get royalties for) they end up selling hardware at huge losses. Can't be that good, can it?
...to make all kind of toys for the machine (like hard disk). After all, then the price is lowered a bit (they will be forced to when the Xbox arrived) they sell the hardware at loss and are supposed to make it up on the games.
But what happens is people use it for other things and done give a damn about the games?
Keyboard, harddrive and internet connection and it can be a really cheap computer at Sonys expense.
I don't agree with your statement that privacy should not exist; I think some privacy is a right.
However, I don't think that the possibility to be anonymous is good either. You shouldn't be able to write threats, harass people or committing crimes online under anonymous accounts.
A bit less anonymity online would be a good thing.
What is the big deal with that? If someone makes a piece of software that works with their software it's wise to support it. It's not like they are GPLing their own software.
If you look a little longer than your nose you will notice that the fnordserver is written by somebody else but is put on the Microsoft site because it works on W2K.
It isn't Microsoft's software; it's just hosted there.
"You can charge whatever you want for distributing a GPL'd program, you just can't restrict those people from redistributing it (under the GPL). "
So, lets take an example...
If five programmers work on a project for one year the cost for this is about 5*3500*2*12. Those figures come from: 5 people each making $3500/month. The typical cost for a person is twice the salary (vacation, sickness and some unchangeable time makes this typical). And they work for 12 month. This makes a total sum of 420 000 for the year.
That money has to be made in order for those people to be able to pay their bills and be able to put food on their tables, right?
Now, you say I can charge anything I want, right? Ok, lets say we charging $50 for each copy we distribute, this makes it an absolute must to distribute at least 420000/50 copies. This requires that 8400 individuals or organisations buy it for this figure.
But, anyone can redistribute it. Either for free or for basically the cost of the media. Now, you see, we can't do that since we have spent 420000 on developing it, the others who distribute it do not have this cost and can distribute it allot cheaper. Say some other (like redhat) includes it on their CDs or sells it for $10/copy.
Is it really THAT hard to understand that the unrestricted rights for anyone to redistribute it makes it impossible to charge for it in reality?
Who the hell is going to buy the CDs from us? You tell me.
Your post shows exactly why geeks have to broaden their narrow sight.
"Open Source is a very savvy capitalistic move in a chess game between the centralists (e.g. Microsoft) and the individualists (John Galt, RMS, and a lot of/.); "
It is not capitalist or individualist oriented to give things away...EVER!
I can't believe I'm reading this. You are joking, right?
The GPL forced programmers to give away their work for free. Why would anyone pay people to develop software that they can get developed for free? And how could they if it's developed else ware for free?
How can you even possibly call it "individualist" oriented when it's all about giving your work away to the community (the word communism comes from the fact that in those society the community comes first and the individual doesn't own anything)?
It's very true that most programmers don't make their income on selling software, but that doesn't matter one bit. No one can pay you to develop software when it must be given away for free or when others develop the same kind of software and give it away. It would be an insane business model!
How come that each and every time some person post an observation that companies the must give their work away gives them financial problems they get modded down as trolls?
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"Was it stupid business plans? Venture capitalists with unrealistic expectations? "
The venture capitalists was stupid because they listened to hippies who had no idea what so ever how to run a business and totally clueless on how much revenue is needed to just survive.
"Being stabbed in the back is not a recent dot.com kind of thing"
The dot.com companies stabbed themselfs in the back.
That is just pathetic!
If you try to charge money for this software a bunch of open source developers will develop a free alternative and you will have major problems sell this.
Is OnSite open source? If it is, they will have no chance surviving on that either.
Free market?
There are tons of developers on Linux that lives on their parents (lives at home) or on the tax payers (goes to school).
How can anyone who actually has to make a living on their own compete with someone that doesn't have to have any income?
My point is: The PS2 is quite expensive today since they have not much competition on consoles that fast. However, when new consoles in the same performance class arrive they have to lower it to the normal console prices (it may be xbox, it may be gamecube, I don't care witch one and it doesn't matter one bit).
They sell the PS2 at loss today and with normal console prices they sell at huge loss as all consoles do.
If people don't use it for games (witch they get royalties for) they end up selling hardware at huge losses. Can't be that good, can it?
...they sell at loss.
That is my point. If they sell at loss and people use it for other things than games they may have a problem.
...to make all kind of toys for the machine (like hard disk). After all, then the price is lowered a bit (they will be forced to when the Xbox arrived) they sell the hardware at loss and are supposed to make it up on the games.
But what happens is people use it for other things and done give a damn about the games?
Keyboard, harddrive and internet connection and it can be a really cheap computer at Sonys expense.
Now I can surf on my TV :)
I don't agree with your statement that privacy should not exist; I think some privacy is a right.
However, I don't think that the possibility to be anonymous is good either. You shouldn't be able to write threats, harass people or committing crimes online under anonymous accounts.
A bit less anonymity online would be a good thing.
...have more privacy online than in real life?
Why should you be able to harass people or doing various types of crimes with the possibility of being anonymous?
So...?
What is the big deal with that? If someone makes a piece of software that works with their software it's wise to support it. It's not like they are GPLing their own software.
If you look a little longer than your nose you will notice that the fnordserver is written by somebody else but is put on the Microsoft site because it works on W2K.
It isn't Microsoft's software; it's just hosted there.
For christ sake...
"You can charge whatever you want for distributing a GPL'd program, you just can't restrict those people from redistributing it (under the GPL). "
So, lets take an example...
If five programmers work on a project for one year the cost for this is about 5*3500*2*12. Those figures come from: 5 people each making $3500/month. The typical cost for a person is twice the salary (vacation, sickness and some unchangeable time makes this typical). And they work for 12 month. This makes a total sum of 420 000 for the year.
That money has to be made in order for those people to be able to pay their bills and be able to put food on their tables, right?
Now, you say I can charge anything I want, right? Ok, lets say we charging $50 for each copy we distribute, this makes it an absolute must to distribute at least 420000/50 copies. This requires that 8400 individuals or organisations buy it for this figure.
But, anyone can redistribute it. Either for free or for basically the cost of the media. Now, you see, we can't do that since we have spent 420000 on developing it, the others who distribute it do not have this cost and can distribute it allot cheaper. Say some other (like redhat) includes it on their CDs or sells it for $10/copy.
Is it really THAT hard to understand that the unrestricted rights for anyone to redistribute it makes it impossible to charge for it in reality?
Who the hell is going to buy the CDs from us? You tell me.
Your post shows exactly why geeks have to broaden their narrow sight.
Sorry, posted this reply at the wrong location at first.
I work professionally with software development so I'm well aware how it's done.
The fact remains, when software becomes cheap to produce there is no way in hell to justify paying for its development.
I work professionally with software development so I'm well aware how it's done.
The fact remains, when software becomes cheap to produce there is no way in hell to justify paying for its development.
"Open Source is a very savvy capitalistic move in a chess game between the centralists (e.g. Microsoft) and the individualists (John Galt, RMS, and a lot of /.); "
It is not capitalist or individualist oriented to give things away...EVER!
They will buy it from Redhat instead witch also have the right to make manuals to your software.
When you GPL your software you have lost all rights to it. Big-corp (for example Redhat) can use (and do) their strong trademark to sell it.
You just become free labour.
1: They download a free copy.
2: They buy it from Redhat who is synonym with Linux in the public's eyes. They have a strong trademark, you do not.
Ehhhh?
I can't believe I'm reading this. You are joking, right?
The GPL forced programmers to give away their work for free. Why would anyone pay people to develop software that they can get developed for free? And how could they if it's developed else ware for free?
How can you even possibly call it "individualist" oriented when it's all about giving your work away to the community (the word communism comes from the fact that in those society the community comes first and the individual doesn't own anything)?
It's very true that most programmers don't make their income on selling software, but that doesn't matter one bit. No one can pay you to develop software when it must be given away for free or when others develop the same kind of software and give it away. It would be an insane business model!
Please explain what you are talking about.
"Most of the code written by all developers is not for shrink-wrapped products. "
True, but that certainly don't mean that the companies paying $$$ for it thinks it's ok to give it away to everybody. No good business.
Sure, make a company pay you $100.000 for a software project that they have to give away to everybody afterwards.
Sounds like great business, no wonder all the tech companies goes down the drain these days.
What are you talking about? A society where the economy is built on sharing exists today in Cuba and have existed in the sovjet union and China.
It not a new concept invented by RMS or the FSF.
Why is the parent modded down? Really? Answer the question instead of modding this down.
It IS silly to permit people to sell something but forbid any attemt to enforce payment.
How come that each and every time some person post an observation that companies the must give their work away gives them financial problems they get modded down as trolls?