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How HP IS making money off of GPL software
Well John, you are right of course, and then of course you are wrong. Some things don't MAKE you money, they just SAVE you money. And you can make just as much money by SAVING money, as you can by MAKING money. Under the old software paradigm a company would MAKE money by refitting the tired old software over and over with upgrades and constantly selling new 'versions' year after year, while withdrawing the older 'versions' from the market. Under the GPL paradigm, a company SAVES money by simply dumping out the old stuff to the GPL (and SAVING the cost of maintaining and distributing it) AND MAKING money by selling the new stuff and ONLY having to maintain the new stuff, and FOCUSING your money on R+D to bring more $$$$ making new stuff to market. Meanwhile, those companies that stick to the old way continue having to drag along and maintain all that old devalued software that makes up 90% of their product base. Which way is more efficient? Go figure. The future of software is Richard Stallman (he will maintain the old stuff as long as you make it free and that will be the load bearing skeletin for your poduct) + Linus Torvalds (he will assure that your value added, for profit product will interface legally, efficiently, and reliably with that free software base AND make you lots of money). RS and LT may not agree on much when it comes to free software, but neither one is viable on their own, and together they make up a dynamic that is unstoppable.
Posted by: George Mitchell   Posted on: 01/15/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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Water is also free  Iain_Peters | 01/15/04
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I can see that  AbsolutelyNot | 01/15/04
Wrong!!  emartin_z | 01/15/04
Oh, you mean...  Yen_z | 01/15/04
I disagree  Arrg | 01/16/04
Cool...  John Carroll ZDNet Moderator | 01/15/04
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Non was on personal PC's  JWatson77 | 01/15/04
Good points John  Tim Patterson | 01/15/04
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Great, good hardware software service sales HP  FilledOut | 01/15/04
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