To add few more lines to the previous mail, The session talked about the business model also. Money can be earned using free software by charging for the services, making maintenance contracts, customization, localization & upgrades. Abhas mentioned an important business point in the model where we need to be careful about is that maintenance contract should be for the released version of the software and should not cover the defects due to additional changes made by the customer to the software.
On Sun, Jun 8, 2008 at 10:00 PM, Balaji Srinivasan <baji.sahana@gmail.com BLOCKED::mailto:baji.sahana@gmail.com > wrote:
Hi Senthil, The talk by Abhas was inspiring. Till now when someone says free software, I only connect to cost (it is free of cost), but after this session, I appreciate the deeper meaning behind the word "free software" and it is about free to use, free to distribute and free to modify by the consumer. In one sense the talk was quite philosophical (more of values) than sharing more of practical business. Now people who attended the session know the principles of free software, I will be happy if there is one more session which covers the business model in depth, the practical difficulties faced and the lessons learned, so that more people get encouraged about doing this as a business. regards Balaji
Hi Senthil!
On Monday 09 Jun 2008 8:24:39 am Senthil Sundaram (sensunda) wrote:
Abhas mentioned an important business point in the model where we need to be careful about is that maintenance contract should be for the released version of the software and should not cover the defects due to additional changes made by the customer to the software.
I think the point above is taken a little differently than what I'd wanted to say. I never said that the maintenance contract *should* only cover the released / official version of the software and *should* not cover defects due to additional changes by the customer. Users should always be free to make changes for whatever their needs are.
What I wanted to say is that this is *one* of the things that you can do if you want to have a contract built this way. I wouldn't say that this is something that you ought to always do.
There could be several reasons why a user might need to change the code. If most of these changes have been made in good faith, I feel that we should support the users.
Cheers, Abhas.