On 12-Jun-2006, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
On Mon, 2006-06-12 at 18:54 +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
Their business involves restricting the freedom of their customers with proprietary licenses. What's the question here?
The question is that it is not banal to tell a bizman to completely change his business model, that's it.
I don't think making a definition is telling anyone to do anything.
Shane was saying:
If we have confidence in our model - and if our model is truly better
and I just pointed out that so far there is not enough evidence that free software business models can solve all problems. Remember that the Free Sw Community is a recognized expert of Free Sw, not of Business, therefore simple answers like 'Redhat is profitable' is not acceptable.
That's right. It's hard work making a business model, and requires particular expertise that is not clearly related to expertise in free software. I don't see anyone recommending that we come up with business models for anyone. I don't think that would be a good use of our skills.
What we *can* do is define criteria that a business needs to meet to be called a "free software business". That's not telling anyone what to do -- but it is telling the world what standards we expect.