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There was a session, led by Larry Augustin, on "downloads to dollars" - how to start making money once you have people actually downloading your software. Much talk on how to extract information from downloaders which can be used to "open a dialog" with them. When is the proper point to start requiring registration, with a valid email address, to download a software tarball? It was suggested that the source download is really the same thing as the free trial offerings from some proprietary vendors, with the same end: to lead to the "monetization" phase...
Much worry goes into trying to figure out just when it might be permissible to ship proprietary components with free software
Why ?
Why is open source dealing with these people ?
A bunch of private individuals writing code and giving it away for free. Suddenly these companies are stepping in and discussing ways to cash in on work they didn't do. Trying to figure ways around the licensing agreement written up by the legitimate owners. In any other human endeavor that would be considered theft.
Open source is all about giving stuff away to humanity for free.
These guys are all about locking it down , patenting it, and making a buck.
The two do not mix, they have fundimental ideological differences.
I'm having difficulty viewing these "Open Source Companies" as anything except parasites upon the open source community of developers.
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