Re: Making money on open source, if not by selling _support_, then how?

[Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 12:01 +0200, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> > In fact, many western economies do have rules that should avoid
> > the effect of P(i).gets(every order) for just one i. It's just
> > that Microsoft manages to circumvent the application of the
> > rules.
> 
> The point stands. You cannot measure it.

People *do* measure the number of orders from Producer(i).
Of course they do, how could the AT&T case, the IBM case,
and even the MS cases fail to recognize these quantities?

Or do you imagine some notion of so-called precise measurements
of an artificially defined set of physically continuous qualities?
No one has ever measured the friction of wind and windshield
exactly. That kind of exactitude still is a useful technical
term. (I bet the rocket scientists in this forum will have a
lot to say about the role of approximation in friction
measurements, and calculations.)

Obviously, different technical terms apply in law, or economy,
hence different measures are applied, and used for making
decisions.

>  MS is able to circumvent whatever
> the rules exactly for this reason. If that were measurable, there would be
> no need to enforce them in courts.

In this sense, nothing whatsoever is measurable.
That's just a scientific fiction that happens to be
working well.
However, "Don't kill" is a rule of civil law that is fairly easily
measured, and is enforced in courts. (And or measuring, see
"12 Angry Men" :)

A light bulb can be turned on by 100V, too, and you can try
245V as well. Depending on how dim the light is, some people
will say (measure), it is on, others will say it is off.
With the exception of trivial truths like atom bomb exploded
or not, there is no absolute, scientific measure of anything.


> [ Instead of idiotic requirements to separate MediaPlayer from Windows, the
> government should pass laws enforcing liability of commercial software
> vendors. ]


> You have stated some imperative rules.

Where have I stated imperative rules?

>  An
> alternative is to have agents which do not obey market,

There is no market to obey, there are only exchanges of money
and goods, and law, and informal rules. If some "theorists" use
these phenomena to construct a notion of "market", that's their
business.
Which one do you have in mind?

> >>> Paying customers are
> >>> measurable, too, count them, and sum the paid bills.
> >> 
> >> You have to get paying customers first.
> > 
> > Do I?
> 
> Sure, how could you measure non-existent customers?

If a bank considers whether or not you are eligible for a money
loan for a new software business, they want to see you present
a business plan (all of: you, the business plan, and you presenting
the business plan).
Customers are not something that you can measure by exactly counting
them when all that is known is the prospective future. It's called
speculation, and risk management.


> > It is certainly an advantage if you have something to say about
> > Ada [...]

> > Can you say that about Ada?
> 
> No. It does not come to this.

It will come to this the moment you drop a few words about Ada,
with caution.