On 04/07/15 19:40, Jan Gloser wrote: > computers people somehow started to think that everything in this domain > should be free. Well, I don't really think so. If you go to the market and > want to get some apples, it's only fair that you pay for the apples. It's > your way to say to the apple-seller: Hey, I appreciate what you're doing. > Take the money and continue growing and delivering apples so that me and > people like me can buy them when we want. I don't think comparing software with "apples" is fair. Software, like Music or any other digital good, costs money/time to be created in the first place, but then the cost of making copies of it is zero. On the other hand you can't copy an "apple" at zero cost. Doing a comparison with music: I think there should be possible for artists to release their songs under a free license and still make a living from it, for example, by doing live concerts. In the same way, I'm pretty sure is perfectly possible to make money developing free software. You just don't charge for selling copies or licenses, but instead you charge for developing new custom features or offering support and consultancy around the software. There are some good examples of companies that have built their business model around this, and they have proven that you can make good money developing free software.
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