[OT]Re: Books...

[BCS]

Reply to Lars,

> BCS wrote:
> 
>> Reply to Lars,
>> 
>>> Well, there are quite a few successful companies which has such a
>>> business model in the software business, so hardly what could be
>>> called an experiment.
>>> 
>>> All Linux distributing companies (RedHat, Suse/Novell, Canonical),
>>> TrollTech with Qt, mySQL (you know the thing ;), eZ (ez.no), and
>>> many many more.
>>> 
>> Most of those, IIRC, have a free version and a for sale version and
>> they provide tech support only on the for sale one. That not quite
>> what I was thinking. I'm thinking, no for sale version at all. The
>> company would just have a donations page, and an explicit statement
>> that donations can effect the priority of fixing particular bugs and
>> whatnot.
>> 
> I don't see the difference? The software is the same - either you
> download it, or you pay, then download it. Or you can download, then
> pay later if you decide to use it.
> 

The difference is you never pay for the software, end of story. The cost, 
no matter what, is Zero. Possibly even the tech support would be free. It 
would be like if Walter started putting price tags on bugs "pay me $50 and 
I'll fix bug X sooner ($250 and I'll do it now) or don't and I'll get around 
to it sooner or later" (Not that I think he would do that, or that he should 
or should not) I would a a sort of vote with cash for what you think is important. 
Not a good way to run a country, but it might work for a company.