Tim: >> That computer journalism is generally incompetent, way off the ball, >> way out of date, and completely beat up. As a quick example, that >> article is about open source *business* model, not about open >> source. Yet the title is completely bogus, in a crap attempt to stir >> the pot. Ed Greshko: > I feel that is a bit harsh. I don't, I feel it's an accurate summation of their bad journalism, typical of faux technical journalism, and tabloid headline hyping. One trouble with crap journalism is that it's read by people who don't know any better, either. So "open source model broken" becomes promoted far and wide, where it's believed with no regard for the facts. To coin a phrase, some "pointy haired boss" will read it, understand nothing about it, but take the title as gospel, and make even more stupid decisions against using open source. > Yet, I wonder how may of these companies are flourishing? And, is it > really out of line to conclude "Unless open-source providers find new > ways to add value for their customers, especially in this economic > environment, the growth of their companies is at serious risk." Some business models for using something (open source, or something else) will be broken, that's always been the way. Some do well selling books, big and expensive books, or lots of smaller books for dummies, on the systems. Others provide support, or sell packaged systems that work from the get-go, etc. But if someone thinks, hey we can get this thing for free and sell copies of it, making whacking profits in the process, I think they're dreaming that it's going to earn them the money they hope it can, considering that anybody with a slight bit of nous can get the *same* thing for free (individuals, or other like-minded businesses). Just because something is freely available, doesn't mean that you'll be able to exploit it. -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.5-41.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
