RE: Into the Belly of the Beast (ESR at MS)

Koen Holtman (Koen.Holtman@cern.ch)
Mon, 5 Jul 1999 11:45:13 +0200 (MET DST)


On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Josh Cohen (Exchange) wrote:

[...]
> While I enjoyed his engineering culture stuff, I, and most
> others IMHO, were unconvinced of the OSS business models he was
> proposing.

Me too. After reading ESR's latest paper I am actually less convinced
than before that business models and free sofware development have
anything to do with each other. I find this tendency of trying to recast
everything of value into a business model (mind you not economic model)
rather strange and one-sided. Being from the old continent I sometimes
wonder whether this is a disease particular to the US.

ESR's Cathedral paper rocked. Since then I have been reading his newer
writings hoping for something just as good. So far I have been
disappointed. After reading 'cauldron' I spent the rest of the weekend
maintaining free sofware, being kept going by the occasional compliments
of the people who send me the bug reports.

Koen.

[Now wondering whether I should write ESR to point out he forgot the
business model that goes 'use OSS hype to generate lots of publicity and
get filthy rich through IPO before the bubble bursts']