Disallowing distribution of binaries

[David Johnson]

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000, John Cowan wrote:

> > I am sure we can make money even we place the software under the GPL
> > for all OSes, but the question is for how long? How do we prevent
> > anyone from taking our business by simply copying what we are doing?
> > I cannot convince myself that we can make money in the long run by
> > keeping the software open source as it is defined by OSI, and it is
> > even harder to convince investors.
> 
> Ask Red Hat.  Everything they produce can be, and is, freely copied
> by others.  They survive by maintaining a superior brand reputation
> for service and support.

However, Redhat is not *yet* profitable.  And they have been copied by
competitors. The fastest growing distro today started as a Redhat copy.
Support is a good sounding model, but so far I know of very few
profitable companies based on it.

Every type of OSS product needs a different model. Support may work for
some but not all types. But Redhat did get one thing absolutely
correct, and that is branding. 

> Individual users may be willing to use a cheap (or even zero cost)
> knockoff, but unless your program is a game or something similarly
> throwaway, serious users will want service and support and will be
> willing to pay for them.

Not always. According to a member of Trolltech in a private
conversation, revenue from support for free edition Qt is virtually
nil. This is primarily due to the excellent quality documentation that
comes with the product, and the relative lack of bugs and quirks. As
this nameless person also said, "basing a revenue model on support
encourages software that needs support."

-- 
David Johnson
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