Choosing the right license

[David Johnson]

On Thursday 02 November 2000 08:22 am, Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> ... I don't care
> about Redhat's distribution because they're not running the software
> on a pay-per-use basis on behalf of the customer -- they're selling media
> and support.

Isn't that what a lot of support is? Pay per use/incident? I don't see much 
difference between paying for application services or support services. In 
both cases the software itself is 100% free beer and the user is merely 
paying for additional services. 

I don't know how ASPs work, but I would certainly pay for the service in 
certain circumstances, as it would be more valuable to me than its monetary 
cost.  It doesn't matter to me if the back end is open or closed, because 
that copy of the software isn't mine and I can't modify it anyway without 
performing a physical trespass. If the user is not able to keep their own 
data, then they should know it right up front. But once they know that, then 
it is no one elses business what agreement the user and provider enter into 
with regards to *using* a legal copy of the software.

-- 
David Johnson
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