[ILUG-BOM] Linux India Initiative

[Harsh Busa]

kapil thanks for elaborating on the concepts

 --- Kapil Karekar <kapil_karekar at vsnl.net> wrote: >
****************************************
> * LUG meet on 12 Jan. 2003 @ VJTI
> ****************************************
> 
> Hi Luggers!
> 
> The issue of IPR is not very important for most of
> the programmers.
> However it is very important to companies who want
> to build a viable
> and profitable business.
> 
> The linux lunacy trip was a great eye-opener in this
> regard. I have
> been searching around for viable Free Software based
> business models.
> As per my limited understanding of the topic I can
> think of three ways
> in which the Free Software paradigm can be applied
> to s/w development.
> 
> 1. The Free S/w philosophy should be applied
> completely when s/w is
> being developed by government agencies. Except in
> cases where national
> security interests are concerned the source for all
> s/w developed
> should be freely available. The money that the
> government is spending
> is the people's money and hence everybody has a
> right to benefit from
> it. This would lower the government's expenditure as
> bugs would be
> reported and modified faster, and people could adapt
> the s/w to suit
> their own needs.
> 
> 2. The second option is to provide the source code
> only when the
> client asks for it. This is the approach which we
> normally associate
> with the Free S/w philosophy. This is fine for
> companies developing
> customised s/w for a particular client. However it
> doesn't suit well
> to companies which are into product development. How
> can a company
> ensure that the source code for the product
> developed after years of
> work is not copied by some other company. S/w
> hijackers can just lift
> snippets of code from the available sorce code and
> make a s/w of there
> own. This would eat away the market for the original
> company.
> This brings us to the third option.
> 
> 3. The third option, in my opinion, suits well to
> product based
> companies. The company should be bound to release
> the source code of
> the product in the event of
>     -    Support being discontinued for the product.
>     -    The company is being bought by some other
> company.
>     -    The company is closing down.
>     This option sheilds product based companies from
> hijackers. It
> also gives the option to the clients of the company
> to support
> themselves when support is no longer available.
> 
> Keep your opinions rolling...
> 
> Cheers :-))
> Kapil Karekar
> Libre Technologies
> ----------------------------------------
> Let us build a Free Software Economy
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> 
> -- 
> _______________________________________________
> 
> http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
> 
> 
>  

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