Re: Website CMS questions

Austin, Darrel wrote:
> Of course you can. Like I said, this can be spun in any direction.
> 
> For the OS spin:
> 
> OS software is a product of developers. Developers who spend time
> working on the product not for monetary gain, but for pride. They take
> pride in their craft and strive to produce good, solid, usable products
> not just to please any specific customer, but to please themselves.

This is a psychological explanation and not a business explanation.

Having been the founder of JBoss you must forgive me if I am not 
entirely convinced by the "for pride" argument. "Please themselves", 
now, that I can agree with though ;-)

> Of course, the more practical spin is the exact same one you used:
> 
> OS developers don't want to spend time supporting their product anymore
> than commercial vendors do. As such, they want to write a good, solid
> application to reduce the amount of time supporting end users.

Again, that is a psychological explanation and not a business 
explanation. At the end of the day you cannot eat "pride" or "satisfaction".

So, considering what you say, since the explanation is thoroughly 
psychological and not economical, whether or not an OpenSource product 
is good or not is entirely dependant on the good nature of the 
individuals instead of being part of the business model.

But wait! If those same good natured individuals who love making good 
products chose to use a commercial license for their work, then they 
would be able to do everything they did before, but now also get paid 
for it! They are still good natured and take great pride in what they 
do, sorta like what I do I guess, and yet now they can also get paid for 
their services and with a model that ensures that they can spend closer 
to 100% of their time developing the product instead of doing something 
else, like consultancy or support, to feed the kids.

>>> In the end, make a good product. That's all that matters. 
>> But that statement ignores the underlying problem: does the 
>> model promote making a "good product".
> 
> I'm not hear to argue whether or not OS is a viable business model. It
> clearly is. Just as commercial software sales appears to be a viable
> business model. To write one or the other off is just silly.

Oh, it is clearly a viable business model. People are making mucho money 
from it, no doubt. I just don't understand how it benefits the 
customers, is all, at least in this case (CMS's that is).

>> Indeed... and yet your initial comment was:
>>  > The only difference between OS and Commercial CMS products 
>> is that you  > pay more for one up front. ;o)
> 
> Smilie = typically meant to imply a statement was said partially in
> jest/toungue in cheek/not meant to instigate an all out debate. (though
> the debate is enjoyable and seems to be fairly civil thus far... ;o)

Ah, ok, I see. So, if that was in jest, does that mean that in your view 
there is NO difference between OS and Commercial CMS products?

;-)

best,
   Rickard