SPUG:Microsoft: Open source threatens our business model

[Jonathan Gardner]

On Friday 14 February 2003 18:41, Michael R. Wolf wrote:
> P.S.  Just because MS sees Open Source as a threat to their business
> doesn't mean that *I* see Open Source as a business.  I'm still
> looking for a sustainable Open Source business model.  Prove me wrong,
> but I don't see Open Source making money, and I do see that M$ is.  I
> don't believe that slash/burn is a good farming tactic any more than I
> believe that embrace/extend is a good technique for interoprable
> standards.  On the other hand, "free as in beer" as a loss-leader is
> not a scalable A/R (Accounts Receivable) generator for core
> comptetencies.
>

I disagree with using 'Open Source'. I prefer 'Free Software'. There are a few 
differences between the two.

Now, as far as the argument "Microsoft makes money now, so any other business 
model is wrong" -- this is obviously absurd.

Evidence that other companies that utilize Free Software, or even sell it, are 
making money is rampant. Red Hat is the most prominent example. They sell 
Free Software at a high price. They also provide additional services that 
Microsoft cannot.

There are people that make money off of Free Software by writing books. 
(O'Reilly). There are people that make money off of Free Software by 
incorporating it into the IT department (Amazon). There are people that make 
money off of Free Software by helping others utilize it (probably most of 
us). There are people that make money off of Free Software by maintaining it 
for people (any Linux sysadmin, and a variety of others). Even Microsoft is 
making money off of Free Software because they use Perl to manage their build 
environment.

-- 
Jonathan Gardner
jgardn at alumni.washington.edu
Python Qt perl apache and linux