Re:[ic] Re:[mv]***Interchange 4.6 & PgSQL Difficulties***

[BF <meinbuch@mein-buch.com>]

> Maybe I'm just lazy but...
> 
> I sure would pay for docs and/or distributions with various payment
> services already "plugged in".  It's a great product and would benefit
> from the wider distribution that simplicity would bring.  I could also
> resell / recommend it much easier to clients.
> 
> Sign me up for the commercial release! :>)
> 
> Brian Clare
> 
>  
> Jonathan Clark wrote:
> > 
> > [snip, snip, snip]
> > >
> > >Can we expect a commercial product (with a GREAT documentation about
> > >the internals in printed format) one day, which is around $ $$$.cc to
> > >$ 1 $$$.cc and poor "Mensch" still can afford to buy ?
> > >
> > 
> > How about the product as it is, but published GREAT documentation about
> > the internals in printed format?
> > 
> > I would happily pay for some good quality printed documentation.
> >
> 

 I would pay for the code, to make it possible for Akopia, Inc. to produce
 that quality documentation of the internals of IC (not of the UI).
 
 This whole thingy about the Open/Free/nocost source code business model is
 nice and such, but it has also some fuzzy math and murky logic in
 it. (well, may be it's just my mind which is fuzzy and murky..:-)) 
 
 Because you can't get revenues through the source code, you have
 to ensure you get the revenues from somewhere else. So, you start
 writing books and sell expertise as technical consultants. That alone is
 a conflict, because you are supposed to share and open up the expertise
 in the books you write, which then leads to lesser need for 
 consultancies. Effect is that the poor developer has always
 to juggle the fine line about what he shares and what not. And this
 juggling the fine line until the line is so fine, that it can't be
 recognized anymore, is something which doesn't make sense. 
 
 Then there is the desire to make the code usable for the non-technical
 end-user, so you create all those terrific UIs for the package's
 management etc. You add layer upon layer, the whole thing gets easier to
 use and more difficult to understand. What's under the hood gets hidden
 deeper and deeper.  
 
 Therefore again, you need to write more books, books, which look like my
 third grade picture book encyclopedias.  You know, when the author needs
 50 percent of his book's pages for screenshots, 30 percent to explain how
 the UI is supposed to be used and 20 percent for some smooth hints about
 what you really need to know and those books cost $50.00 (more then
 double the SuSe Linux distro costs). Who needs those books ?  
 
 Open Source code is necessary like any other open science and for
 quality development of code. Just look how nice that works right now in
 the "What's new"  section of the 4.61 release. There is the direct
 relationship between the bug report and bug resolution, so easily to
 follow now. It's so easy to make suggestions, annotations at the
 developer's site by anyone who can contribute something meaningful. 
 
 But the group of people who can and do, is relatively small. And it is the
 question, if it is really necessary to forfeit any revenue from the code
 itself. I buy Linux in boxes. Why not ? I support companies who develop great 
 open source code this way. Why not put out IC in a box and distribute it
 in stores as a first step ?
 
 And then please write the real books. I am already that frustrated with
 hundreds of books which are not needed, that I picked up Einstein's
 Expanded Quotables yesterday to get some distraction. Of course the first
 quote I run into says:
 
 	If there is no price to be paid, it is also not of value.
 
 First thought I had, was how ESR and RS would put this in relation to
 open/free software and I wondered what Einstein might have said
 about Open Source code business model.  
 
 Enough chatted, count me in for someone who would pay for code and docs
 of a boxed commercial release and as someone who would throw it in the
 dumpster, if you would ever close the source code for developers,
 students, schools, libraries and any other teaching institution. 
 
 Birgitt
  
 
 
 
  
 


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