[svlug] Open Source Criticism Questions

[Richard Sharpe]

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Joe Buck wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 03:35:21PM -0700, Richard Sharpe wrote:
> > Right, this is the point I made yesterday, and there seems to be a 
> > fundamental confusion here that open source softare, is/are, ipso facto, 
> > products.
> 
> In some cases, open source software might well BE a product: if you pay
> for it (or rather, if you pay for support for it).  In such cases, you can
> and should demand satisfaction from the vendor.

I think there is a second issue here as well (to justify posting twice on 
this same topic).

If you pay for support for Ethereal (which some people are interested in), 
then what you have is a service contract, AFAICS, not a product. It would 
be like paying someone in India to maintain your in-house produced 
applications because it is cheaper than keeping the original employees 
around.

Regards
-----
Richard Sharpe, rsharpe[at]ns.aus.com, rsharpe[at]samba.org, 
sharpe[at]ethereal.com, http://www.richardsharpe.com