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Service economy

The thing is, let's say there's 5000 people who want your product. If you must release it under the GPL, you're only guaranteed of getting ONE sale.

Who makes more money:
* Doctors or factory workers?
* Lawyers or programmers?

Your position begs the question of whether software is an industrial product or a service. Bill Gates got rich by "manufacturing" something with zero incremental cost and selling it for non-zero prices: basically, by using a non-industrial supply in an industrial market.

Don't bet on repeating the trick, it's only good once. No more mega-fortunes to be had from hacking together a few hundred lines of assembler.

Meanwhile, lawyers rake in serious money by selling customized services. If you don't want to pay your lawyer for his services, the forms he uses are readily available, same as GPL software. Your nearest local, State, or Federal courthouse will provide you with more "source code" than you could read in your life for litte or nothing.

What you seem to be expecting is to do a custom programming job for one customer, then sit back and collect the money from selling it to 4999 more. Well, PT Barnum to the contrary, it's not a good business plan: customers who are paying for legal services don't pay for a bookstore EZ Do-It-Yourself Will at top-dollar prices. The same goes for software: if you're hoping to get paid full-custom prices, you're not going to get away with changing the title bar on a generic program.

Posted by: Yagotta B. Kidding   Posted on: 11/17/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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