By asking for contributions and working from a community supported model instead of a corporate mode, corporations figured that they weren't viable commercial entities and had no desire to entrust their business to a community-supported organization. It went pretty badly for them. mandrakeforum.com/print.php?sid=1431&lang=en
There are charitable organizations that contribute money to free software projects, like the Public Software Fund. One of the purposes of this fund is to allow private contributors to get a tax break on their charitable donations by doing so through a non-profit organization. So far, their biggest claim to fame is taking John Gilmore's $35K to build a P2P network for sharing RPMs. This may not attact much attention from the corporate sector since it gives them an opportunity to do something in a free, manual and unsecured manner rather than an inexpensive, automated, secure manner.
It is possible for open source software to be profitable, you just need to be innovative and not locked into the same mindset that proprietary software companies find successful. Ask Zope. I'm not sure why the community is so eager to play a game where the rules weren't written for them instead of playing on their own terms in markets where they might have more leverage, like the enterprise or embedded markets.
If Linux decides to not build a successful business model by working on their strengths and instead self-destructs by resorting to begging for spare change to fight a cause, it will be a pointless and embarassing suicide.
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Re:A Simple Solution?
Posted by: DCallaghan on July 25, 2002 02:50 AMBy asking for contributions and working from a community supported model instead of a corporate mode, corporations figured that they weren't viable commercial entities and had no desire to entrust their business to a community-supported organization. It went pretty badly for them. mandrakeforum.com/print.php?sid=1431&lang=en
There are charitable organizations that contribute money to free software projects, like the Public Software Fund. One of the purposes of this fund is to allow private contributors to get a tax break on their charitable donations by doing so through a non-profit organization. So far, their biggest claim to fame is taking John Gilmore's $35K to build a P2P network for sharing RPMs. This may not attact much attention from the corporate sector since it gives them an opportunity to do something in a free, manual and unsecured manner rather than an inexpensive, automated, secure manner.
It is possible for open source software to be profitable, you just need to be innovative and not locked into the same mindset that proprietary software companies find successful. Ask Zope. I'm not sure why the community is so eager to play a game where the rules weren't written for them instead of playing on their own terms in markets where they might have more leverage, like the enterprise or embedded markets.
If Linux decides to not build a successful business model by working on their strengths and instead self-destructs by resorting to begging for spare change to fight a cause, it will be a pointless and embarassing suicide.
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