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

[Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

Justin Gombos wrote:

>>>Absolutely.  If the goal is quality software, conflicting interests
>>>hinder quality, by definition.  
>>
>>Which definition is that?
> 
> 
> Conflict of interest.  For both interests to coexist, there must be a
> compromise.  In this case, software quality is compromised.  So to
> recap, it is favorable to have no conflict of interest so you don't
> have to reduce quality.
> 

Conflicting interests can also bring software production back on
track. How about this:
Sometimes programmers go astray and enjoy themselves writing
wonderfully sophisticated "high quality" Ada. Meanwhile the
toaster company goes out of business because their embedded
temperature sensors will be so great, when they will finally
arrive...

How could we possibly know which interest are the ones that make
us write the really great software products? What exactly is the one
interest in the set of conflicting interests that should dominate
because no compromise can be better?

Maybe there is not so much a compromising compromise but rather a
method of combining the various interests into a satisfying solution
to a problem. Presuming a problem is well defined, ever, in the real
world.