[DotGNU]Business questions

[Norbert Bollow]

Gary L. Sun <address@hidden> wrote:

> Personally, I think we should use as many open
> standards as possible, gather as many as dev
> communities as possible. But why other will join
> us ? What is goog about DotGNU ? Why is it
> better to join DotGNU ? Will DotGNU make developer
> richer than M$ ? (we need to eat after all.) Will
> DotGNU create better and produce better products?
> security ? web services ? privacy protection ?
> access control ? better network service load balancing
> ? redefined distributed computing ? better
> management ? most of all, better an more freedom ?
> 
> The core and steering guys need to have all of these
> answered, I think, and I hope.

I think that I can speak for everyone one the Steering Committee
when I say that we're in this for the sake of Freedom, not for
the sake of money.

At the same time, the business questions which you ask above are
very improtant.  DotGNU will not get anywhere unless good
answers are developed to these questions.

However the main development work will not be done by the
Steering Committee, but by the various development projects.
For this reason, every development project should have a leader
who can inspire other developers by providing good, credible
answers to this kind of questions.

In DotGNU there should be freedom to organize development
projects which are entirely motivated by philantropic motives,
and there should be freedom to organize development projects
that are serious business ventures.  (Yes, I believe that
it is possible to generate significant revenue with GPL'd
software.)  There is work in progress behind the scenes to
establish legal structures to better support development
projects that are meant as business ventures.

However when you want to a do a development project as a
business venture, then most of the business thinking (which is
necessary to make this work out) will have to happen within your
project.  After all, the biggest part of the business risk is
the investment of developer time, and this happens within your
project.

Greetings, Norbert.

-- 
A member of FreeDevelopers and the DotGNU Steering Committee: dotgnu.org
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet   (near Zurich, Switzerland)
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