I buy open source software. 
If someone were to develop a nice little DTP app, made for DTP
illiterates like me. 
I'd buy that too!
I don't base my decision to buy or not to buy based on whether it is
open source.
It's really not that hard to figure out how to make money writing and
selling open source. But nobody seems to have grasped the idea yet. Just
need a new open source license that restricts redistribution without
paying for the right.

Brian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bradley Miller [mailto:bradmiller@dslonramp.com]
> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 9:20 AM
> To: kclug@kclug.org
> Subject: Closed source? Was: Never ceases to amaze
> 
> 
> 
> >In this instance, bitching about Roxio is a matter of asserting that 
> >something
> >that "just works (tm)" in Linux is something you pay $80 
> extra for in 
> >Windows -
> >  and it still doesn't work.  Roxio is a prime example of 
> why closed source
> >sucks.
> 
> If Roxio was open source, do you think that would solve the 
> problem?  If it 
> was open source and anyone could openly compile and run it, 
> do you think 
> anyone would pay for it?   If nobody pays to have software 
> developed, how 
> does anyone make money?   If someone came up with a truly innovative 
> product that blew any other Linux or Windows based solution 
> away and it was 
> offered for Linux at a price . . . would people buy it?  What 
> if it was not 
> open source?  What if it was open source but you still had to buy it?
> 
> At some point in time people are going to realize "hey, I 
> have a life and 
> writing freebie software in my spare time is not 'free' if it 
> costs me to 
> do it".  Open source (like Linux) is making huge inroads into 
> corporations, 
> not because it's free, but because other companies are 
> spending money to 
> develop it.  There has to be a payout somewhere.
> 
> -- Bradley Miller
> 
> 
> 
> majordomo@kclug.org
>