OK, I have an opinion. I imagine it is an unpopular one, so mod me as troll for flamebait if you like.
I don't think companies can make money selling completely open source software. I think selling completely open source software IS a bad business model.
I haven't seen any examples of corporations making a profit doing this. RedHat makes it's money from selling services, right? How much of their revenue is from shrinkwrapped boxes? I'd be surprised if it was over 1%. Apple uses open-source software such as Darwin but they don't try and sell it by itself. They add their proprietary code such as Quartz/Aqua/Finder/etc and sell the whole package as OS X. It's great for them because they saved a lot of money on kernel development, however they aren't trying to sell their kernel. And Safari is free-as-in-beer.
Are there any companies making money from selling a completely open source software product? To me the point is this: the GPL requires you to release your source code, essentially for free (as in beer). I say essentially because you can release it at cost of distribution. People don't pay for things when they can get them free-of-charge - it's human nature.
Sorry if I grossly misunderstood the GPL or something.
Correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the GPL mean require them to release the source code freely? (As in publicly downloadable?) So a user could compile Mandrake free of charge? I'm not sure about this, but it seems to me that Free-as-in-GNU is a superset of free-as-in-beer. When you have to release your source under the GPL, how do you have to do that? If you CAN release it on a CD, how much can you charge for that? $5? $50? $500? Where does it cross the line?
However I guess that would negate the essence of Mandrake - user friendliness.
On the bottom list of links on these pages (at least google.ca) there is a link that says Google.com. That will take you to the US one. And I believe it sets a cookie so that it will default to it. No big deal my friend.
Good point. Personally, I think there is something fundamentally broken with the whole system. To have your story submitted, you have to submit it fast (Even though this news is actually 3 days old). To have your post modded up to +5 area it has to be very fast - i.e. too fast to actually read the article. Does this seem broken to anyone else?
The reason is it's the most obvious way to get the Slashdot editors would post it, even if its 180 degrees from the truth. You don't expect them to actually read the articles people submit do you? Has anyone ever sucessfully submitted a story with a goatse.cx link?
Re:Analysts usually manage to miss the point...
on
Real DRM
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Hmmm. I'd say MP3 is popular because it's ubiquitous and can easily be had free-as-in-beer, not because it's open.
I also think it should be noted that this Popular Science article (and the submitted article) make it clear that it wasn't Carver Mead who invented it/thought of it but Dick Merrill who thought of it and Dick Lyon who brought the dream back to life after Merrill forgot about it. Mead just founded Foveon Inc.
It's a good point. That said, I'm not sure why anyone would pay $1799 for a 12" PowerBook when you could get a 14.1" iBook for $1749. I don't think the slight difference in speed and G4 vs G3 is worth it, unless you are a AltiVec nut or need the AlBook ports.
Well "better engine" may be a bit of a subjective term. It looks like they put a lot of effort into upgrading the KHTML engine. If their cooked benchmarks are anything to go by, it is faster than Chimera. Interesting choice though.
A new Apple web brower based on KHTML(!) name Safari. Allegedly the fastest Mac web browser in existence. Open source to boot, they are releasing their updated source to the community. Check out the QuickTime movie where they bookmark Slashdot! The new 17" PowerBook G4 - made with aluminum, only 1 inch thick. "AlBook" doesn't have the same ring to it though. A new 12" PowerBook G4which is the smallest "full-featured" laptop ever. And a new presentation app named Keynote which looks like a serious PowerPoint competitor. Built specifically for his Steveness. Pretty exciting MacWorld when all is said and done.
Good point. What about the fact that the majority of monitors have an 85 Hz refresh rate, so they only update 85 times/second. Can anyone tell me if I'm out to lunch here or if all the people complaining about +100 fps rates are just over-compensating for something?
Goddamn cut and paste from the spell checker--mod the above post down. Anyone else been having problems with ctrl-c, ctrl-p, and Phoenix?
Yeah, I am! I was having this weird problem where every time I try that the web page starts coming out of my printer!! I fixed it by using Ctrl-V instead.;)
There are a lot of rumors of an Apple branded Web browser, based on Chimera (Gecko). Who knows if it will be released tomorrow, but it is likely to be in the pipe.
This is ironic. Yesterday, I was enraged at the embedded system compiler I was using and put in a very large ASCII art warning against doing something that you SHOULD be allowed to do that took 30 hours to debug.
If you ever need ASCII art comments, head here: ASCII Generator. It can use many different "fonts". Great utility.
Slashdot Mirror
There is something about the idea of code examples being "hard-hitting" that made me laugh out loud.
I don't think companies can make money selling completely open source software. I think selling completely open source software IS a bad business model.
I haven't seen any examples of corporations making a profit doing this. RedHat makes it's money from selling services, right? How much of their revenue is from shrinkwrapped boxes? I'd be surprised if it was over 1%. Apple uses open-source software such as Darwin but they don't try and sell it by itself. They add their proprietary code such as Quartz/Aqua/Finder/etc and sell the whole package as OS X. It's great for them because they saved a lot of money on kernel development, however they aren't trying to sell their kernel. And Safari is free-as-in-beer.
Are there any companies making money from selling a completely open source software product? To me the point is this: the GPL requires you to release your source code, essentially for free (as in beer). I say essentially because you can release it at cost of distribution. People don't pay for things when they can get them free-of-charge - it's human nature.
Sorry if I grossly misunderstood the GPL or something.
However I guess that would negate the essence of Mandrake - user friendliness.
Sorry, I couldn't resist - I mean it was in the summary!
On the bottom list of links on these pages (at least google.ca) there is a link that says Google.com. That will take you to the US one. And I believe it sets a cookie so that it will default to it. No big deal my friend.
I know, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to read the article eh? ;)
Jim, if you could go ahead and come in on Sunday that would be greeeaaaaaaaaaattt. Mmmm kay? Thanks.
I thought you said the MacWorld stuff was boring. What about that?
Good point. Personally, I think there is something fundamentally broken with the whole system. To have your story submitted, you have to submit it fast (Even though this news is actually 3 days old). To have your post modded up to +5 area it has to be very fast - i.e. too fast to actually read the article. Does this seem broken to anyone else?
The reason is it's the most obvious way to get the Slashdot editors would post it, even if its 180 degrees from the truth. You don't expect them to actually read the articles people submit do you? Has anyone ever sucessfully submitted a story with a goatse.cx link?
Hmmm. I'd say MP3 is popular because it's ubiquitous and can easily be had free-as-in-beer, not because it's open.
I also think it should be noted that this Popular Science article (and the submitted article) make it clear that it wasn't Carver Mead who invented it/thought of it but Dick Merrill who thought of it and Dick Lyon who brought the dream back to life after Merrill forgot about it. Mead just founded Foveon Inc.
in Photography. Check out the article here.
I should also note that cheaper iBook has 384 MB more RAM and better battery life. (I assume.) And a somewhat inferior video card.
It's a good point. That said, I'm not sure why anyone would pay $1799 for a 12" PowerBook when you could get a 14.1" iBook for $1749. I don't think the slight difference in speed and G4 vs G3 is worth it, unless you are a AltiVec nut or need the AlBook ports.
Well "better engine" may be a bit of a subjective term. It looks like they put a lot of effort into upgrading the KHTML engine. If their cooked benchmarks are anything to go by, it is faster than Chimera. Interesting choice though.
Why is that? I'm a big Quartz/Aqua fan personally.
I hear it has popup blocking, which is nice. Does it have any tabs?
A new Apple web brower based on KHTML(!) name Safari. Allegedly the fastest Mac web browser in existence. Open source to boot, they are releasing their updated source to the community. Check out the QuickTime movie where they bookmark Slashdot! The new 17" PowerBook G4 - made with aluminum, only 1 inch thick. "AlBook" doesn't have the same ring to it though. A new 12" PowerBook G4which is the smallest "full-featured" laptop ever. And a new presentation app named Keynote which looks like a serious PowerPoint competitor. Built specifically for his Steveness. Pretty exciting MacWorld when all is said and done.
That 7135 is pretty hot eh? I wannnnntt. I wish Telus here would start selling it. I'm a bit worried about it's size though - 1.17 inches thick??
Good point. What about the fact that the majority of monitors have an 85 Hz refresh rate, so they only update 85 times/second. Can anyone tell me if I'm out to lunch here or if all the people complaining about +100 fps rates are just over-compensating for something?
Yeah, I am! I was having this weird problem where every time I try that the web page starts coming out of my printer!! I fixed it by using Ctrl-V instead. ;)
Here.
There are a lot of rumors of an Apple branded Web browser, based on Chimera (Gecko). Who knows if it will be released tomorrow, but it is likely to be in the pipe.
If you ever need ASCII art comments, head here:
ASCII Generator. It can use many different "fonts". Great utility.