<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Madovsky <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:infos@madovsky.org">infos@madovsky.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
its' also an excellent way for big companies to avoid<br>
to pay employees to make all the dev work also....<br></blockquote><div><br>Indeed it is. Most of us in the OSS world say, "So what?" We've given our work away for "free" in return for other considerations: free advertising, free distribution (via Internet downloads), bragging rights, and growing a software-based ecosystem that allows us to tap into other revenue streams like private consulting or even writing a book. If big companies "take" our stuff and use it then they're growing the ecosystem. The choice of OSS licenses available to us gives us the necessary protection from large corporations hijacking our stuff. (This includes things like CC for documents, photos, sounds/music, etc.)<br>
<br>A lot of OSS is so good that corporations that use it find that they need more of it. Some of them hire community members as consultants or employees. It can frequently be a win-win scenario, and even when it isn't, it is still better than the lose-lose scenario of closed/proprietary lock-down.<br>
<br>OSS has WAY more upside than downside.<br><br>-MC<br></div></div><br>