Asserations

[Ben Carlson]

>    Here's an idea that I hope can keep us from falling into
>flame wars.  In the future, If you want to refute an assertion
>of objective fact, let's try to provide references.

All right, let us go back to the email I sent regarding my claim.
I claimed that the statement you made would be extremely hard to fathom.
You issued a challenge of finding an Open Source company that makes a profit 
on shrink wrapped software.  How can a company that makes free software make 
a profit on selling free software?  It does not make sense.

The statement below you claimed that I posted that I said Red Hat was a 
profitable company that shrink wraps and sells open source.  That is totally 
incorrect of what I said in the email.  I claimed that Red Hat sells 
services related to Red Hat, in which I thought that was the better business 
model.

>   For example, someone recently posted that Red Hat was
>a profitable company that shrink-wraps and sells open source
>software.  I pointed to Red Hat's SEC Filings of 20 July, 2001,
>(Available from Investor Relations off www.redhat.com), that point
>out that that is not, in fact, the case.

I would like to point out in the very same report for Red Hat's SEC filing 
there is a section called "Risk Factors" in which these statements are made:

Very 1st paragraph
"Our open source software business model is unproven."

2nd paragraph
"We have not demonstrated the success of our open source business model, 
which gives our customers the right to freely copy and distribute our 
software. No other company has built a successful open source business."

"Few open source software products have gained widespread commercial 
acceptance partly due to the lack of viable open source industry 
participants to offer adequate service and support on a long term basis. In 
addition, open source vendors are not able to
provide industry standard warranties and indemnities for their products, 
since these products have been developed largely by independent parties over 
whom open source vendors exercise no control or supervision."

Of course they have not demonstrated the success, as stated in their first 
paragraph, their busniness model is unproven.  They have also stated that 
for the reason that this has not received widespread commercial acceptance 
is partly due to lack of service and support on a long term basis.

As your claim to their filings of profits, I redirect you to look at the 
market as a whole has been doing with tech stocks in general.

Could someone stop switching the coffee Matt normally drinks with new 
Folgers Crystals!

Ben Carlson






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