From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) Subject: Re: MONEY + Linux Date: 17 Dec 1992 12:27:40 -0800
jem@sunSITE.unc.edu (Jonathan Magid) writes:
>>E.g. could universities be site-licensed, thereby
>>gaining the right to have attention paid to their bugs and config-
>>uration problems, and to receive regular updates?
>>
>You see, Linux (the kernel and most of the main utilities including
>the compiler are copy-lefted. Anyone can give them away or sell them...
>So anysort of site licence based on updates will quickly be undermined
>by people just giving it away.
As you pointed out, Cygnus is a very interesting strategy for
blending the world of free software and the free market.
Cygnus works for clients. They are beholden to supply bug fixes
to them. But (thanks to the GPL) the improvements made by Cygnus
are returned to the free version of the software.
From the company's viewpoint, Cygnus is attractive because the
company gets a right to demand a bugfix.
From Cygnus' viewpoint, they make good money.
From our viewpoint (the net) we get bug fixes.
The same model will work with Linux.
-ans.
-- Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@rcf.usc.edu