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

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 14:55:39 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> 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.

The measure should have accuracy suitable for prediction / control.
Immeasurable <= not enough accurate.

>>  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" :)

"Clinical/brain death" and "one caused by suspect's action" are different
"measures." Courts are busy with the later, you refer to the former. Which
by the way, is also now that simple, as the recent court drama in America
has shown.

>>  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.

It is a deep philosophical question unrelated to the discussion. You can
consider market (and all others) laws as really existing objects or as
imaginary ones. It is irrelevant.

>>> 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.

No runner. You have missed the starting point: technical superiority does
not matter. So you cannot have any reasonable platform to discuss merits of
Ada with customers. It would be different if they saw it in commercials.
But they don't. Neither it is necessary. Ideally, customer should delegate
this to the contractor.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de