Re: [OT] mothers, free software

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 23:16 +0100, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
>    > The FSF and the OpenBSD project make money buy selling CD's.  So
>    > this is making money from free software.
> 
>    No. This is making money from publishing and distribution.
> 
> In other words: making money from free software.

There has been a robust business in third party duplication. You can get
the BSD CD's for #3 or less from these other folks, and the community
knows it, so it must be the case that there is some reason people are
willing to pay the OpenBSD people more for the same CD. It clearly isn't
for the content, and I'm pretty sure that it isn't for the cover art on
the CD box.

My conjecture is that the answer is: "charity". People are trying to
support the OpenBSD folks a little out of a sense of community.

But I also think we have drifted. Matheus's mother wasn't saying that
you could not generate revenue. She was saying that you could not make a
profit. By that metric, OpenBSD and FSF have both lost money
consistently. Both operate on the basis of an extensive volunteer
network that is unpaid.

There is nothing wrong with that, but it isn't the same as making a
profit, which was the original challenge.

shap