Subject: How to make money from FOSS

From: Ori Idan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:48:13 +0200

This subject was discussed here and in many other forums or mailing list.

I have just setup a forum for this discussion only.

This forum is not intended to be yet another FOSS forum in Israel, it is 
only for the discussion of the economic and business side.

The forum is mainly in hebrew.

The address is: http://fakt.helicontech.co.il/index.php?forum=foss

--

Ori Idan

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From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:49:58 +0200

> The address is: http://fakt.helicontech.co.il/index.php?forum=foss

Ori, I'm not sure if opening a forum for such a specialized subject will prove 
to be worthwhile in the long run. I see there's already some activity there, 
but I believe it will just fade off, eventually. Discussions on how to make 
money from FOSS, are acceptable on Hackers-IL and on different mailing lists 
and forums, and there's no reason to open yet another niche forum for this.

Also note that it's not such a big issue, because FOSS is primarily supposed 
to benefit the users, and co-developers rather than the vendors. When I'm 
releasing my software under an open-source license (usually PD or MIT X11) 
getting rich out of it is not my primary concern. Some vendors were smart 
enough to build profitable business models around free software (see "The 
Magic Cauldron", "Strategy Letter V", Sleepy Cat, JBoss, Cygnus etc.) but 
that's not something that is always possible, and it isn't what the FOSS 
definition and Philosophy is really concerned about.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish      [email-masked]
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

Knuth is not God! It took him two days to build the Roman Empire.

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From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 18:38:43 +0200

On Fri, 2004-12-17 at 16:49, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> ... Some vendors were smart 

On the other hand, I think that it is very important to figure
out/find/discover/develop/invent/dream up business models for making
money from Free Software, which would compete with business models for
making money from non-Free software.

The more developers and their financiers know about models for making
lots and lots of money from Free Software, the less will they be
inclined to close any software, which they develop.
                                                 --- Omer
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