From: Dossy Date: 2002-05-10T05:02:40+09:00 Subject: Re: 'Ultimate' FreeRIDE ? On 2002.05.10, Euan Mee wrote: > > So I've never understood how people are supposed to make a living selling > GPL'd development tools. > > Can anyone enlighten me? You don't make a living selling development tools, GPL'ed or otherwise. This would imply that you were in a product business, which you really aren't. You make a living selling a service. You're making customers feel good. You're giving customers confidence in the fact that you'll deliver them what they need at a price they can afford. You're selling them on the belief that you'll be responsive to their future needs and grow the product in the direction their business needs to go in to succeed. You're letting them sleep better at night (in exchange for some money) because they know they can rely on you and focus on their core competencies, the stuff that earns _them_ money. > On th eother hand, there are numerous examples of companies that provide > GPL'd, freeware or open-source software at no cost, intending to make money > on ancillary services - support, pre-forming binaries, implementation > consultancy and so on. > > e.g. Mandrake (just gone to a subscription model), SuSe (just gone to get yet > more capital), the AOLServer co., the company that bought PGP, etc. > > These examples all appear to me to demonstrate that the "give aware your core > asset and live off of the fringe revenues" business model is very difficult > to thrive on. Being a service company isn't easy, you're right. But, if you're a leader in your class, you will do very well while your competitors "find it difficult to thrive" or even survive. The problem is too many service companies think they're product companies and focus on their product when their product really should be their service, their people and their customers. -- Dossy -- Dossy Shiobara mail: dossy@panoptic.com Panoptic Computer Network web: http://www.panoptic.com/ "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)