Open Source and making money

Post #48,624 by orion 8/7/02 10:21:00 PM Reply	Open Source and making money it is hard to make money on open source, how can you make money on a product that is downloaded from the Internet for free? One thing for sure, you cannot use a conventional business model to do this. If Sun is doing this, then they are fcked in the head. They need to rethink the whole thing and plan a new model to use that isn't conventional. Heck I wanted to write open sourced programs and make money on it, and I haven't found a way to do that yet. Not unless I can charge for the modifications to port the database to a different database server or tie it into an existing database or something. For example I could write PHP programs that use MySQL, but if the company that downloads it wants to tie it into their Oracle server instead of MySQL, they can hire me to do the mods or do the mods themselves. The idea is that the open sourced programs are like skeletons that I can add on to, and show as a small example of what I can do. The open source programs really would promote myself and show off my work. The closed source VB and ASP programs I did for the law firm's Intranet I can never show to the outside world. Nobody has any idea of what I did, and if I did show those programs I would get sued by my former employer. Some companies will not go with anything unless it is open sourced, others require a big name company to make it and don't care if it is open sourced or not. Sun's whole business model is fcked in the head and needs a major overhaul. Like Microsoft they bought up other companys (like the one that made StarOffice) and have no idea what to do with them. Sure they butt heads with Microsoft and we cheer them on for it, sure Java is great, but Sun needs more than that. They should, at least, port Mono to their platform and made a version of Java for it. They should also work on that Network Computer they promised us so long ago, whatever happened to it? *[link\|http://games.speakeasy.net/data/files/khan.jpg\|Kahn!!!]*
Post #48,764 by mmoffitt 8/8/02 11:45:10 PM Reply	That'd be Star Division. And I am really, really disappointed with what SUN did to that product. I worked at an all MS shop for more years than I'd like to admit. The last 2 years there I used Star Office exclusively and no one noticed. Really, the file formats were that good - everyone else had Office '97 and couldn't tell any difference in my docs, spreadsheets or even presentations (I was careful not to use some of the cooler stuff in Impress that wasn't available in PPT97 - not that I did all that much Office app stuff - I was a VB/Sql goob there). Then budget cuts came. An assistant vp wanted to do some work at home (Word/PPT/Excel). The CIO said, "You have to buy a license." I suggested he try Star Office from Star Division (personal use license back then was < $40.00). He bought it, used it and loved it. That was 4 years ago. I ran into him recently and he told me that he's been using Star Office ever since. He bought the $75.00 SUN version and said he didn't like the "non-integration". See, I know all the arguments, but from the end-user standpoint, they don't want to have to know that they need app X to create a document of type Y. And the integrated version of Star (v 5.2 and down) didn't require them to know that. I honestly don't see why a new major was added to what SUN has done with the product. I'm still using 5.2 and imho, it's the best office product available for Linux - and it has the bonus of running on that other company's os (what's that firm's name again? Mega-something, or Something-sloth, or, oh well, not important. :-)
Post #48,842 by tonytib 8/9/02 3:21:57 PM Reply	But a lot of people don't like that "integration"
Post #48,853 by mmoffitt 8/9/02 4:56:49 PM 8/9/02 4:57:56 PM Reply	Could be conditioning. Because users always had to know .xls = Excel, .doc = Word, .mdb = Access, .ppt = Powerpoint. Remember "Information at your fingertips"? That's what the integration got you ;-) Edited by mmoffitt Aug. 9, 2002, 04:57:56 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #49,715 by bluke 8/18/02 7:28:17 AM Reply	Everyone I know hated the 5.2 integration and much prefers 6.0. Why would I want StarOffice to take over my desktop and give me a new one. Try 6.0, it really is much better then 5.2.
Post #49,717 by static 8/18/02 8:18:40 AM Reply	Actually, I'd like it optional. The best bit of the Star Office 5.2 desktop was that when you had a dozen documents open, Star Office still only took up 1 icon in the TaskBar. Wade. "Ah. One of the difficult questions."
Post #49,967 by mmoffitt 8/20/02 9:02:45 PM Reply	You didn't have to have it that way. I understand what you're saying, but the "Start" button didn't have to be integrated into your shell. My point was that users didn't have to know if they were opening a presentation, spreadsheet or document. And, I'm playing with OpenOffice as we speak ;-)

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