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Joel on free software

[Posted June 17, 2002 by corbet]

Worth a read: this "Joel on Software" column on why for-profit companies are supporting free software. The core idea: there is more demand for a product or service if its "complements" (add-on or related) products are commodities. By commoditizing certain types of software, companies like IBM, HP, and Sun increase the demand for their hardware and services. "IT consulting is a complement of enterprise software. Thus IBM needs to commoditize enterprise software, and the best way to do this is by supporting open source. Lo and behold, their consulting division is winning big with this strategy." (Seen on Slashdot).

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Posted Jun 18, 2002 5:09 UTC (Tue) by rjamestaylor (guest, #339) [Link]

Good article. Just today I was trying to explain to the COO why a company like IBM would release software as Open Source or free-to-use-ware (the topic was Sash, actually) and I was able to point him to this article. Of course, he instantly said, "Aha! They want to sell you something else." To which I shrugged. Some want to sell hardware (IBM, HP, Sun), some services (RedHat, Lutris,...) and some an agenda (FSF :).