[seul-edu] Fwd: OSS Marketing Twist

[Leon Brooks <leon@brooks.fdns.net>]

FYI:

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: OSS Marketing Twist
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 08:49:38 +0800
From: Colin Muller <DESPAMMED>
To: discussion@slpwa.asn.$COUNTRY

Merrill Lynch have come up with a nice way of phrasing something we
all know: that buying OSS means you get a greater choice of suppliers.
The call it 'free as in market':

QUOTE:
When you look at the Free Software Foundation's Web site, they have an
explanation right on the page: 'Not free as in beer, free as in
speech,' " Lefkowitz said. "We're not terribly interested -- from a
business point of view -- in 'free as in speech,' but we don't think
of 'free as in beer' as the best way to build a business either. We
like to think of it as 'free as in market.' "

"Free, as in market" means that when modifications or repairs are
needed, an open-source software customer can solicit for competitive
bids, where a commercial software customer would be forced to turn
only to the software's creator. That's an attractive proposition for a
business, Lefkowitz noted.
END QUOTE

All at: http://linuxworld.com.au/news.php3?nid=1880&tid=2

Colin

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