[thelist] What tools should I use?

[Anthony Ettinger]

No. I am not saying you shouldn't pay for MS or Oracle
licenses. If you want to, go right ahead. I personally
would never pay for so called "support" when I know I
can get a much better product support for free with a
cleverly crafted google search.

Like I said, if software is your business, sell it (I
do with some of the apps I write). But when I'm
building a web site that's service-based (where the
app is not the product), I use open source. Because
it's well documented, well written, and will always
remain free to me because of it's license GPL
gaurantees it.

I write software and make it GPL when it's a tool I
need to assist in day-to-day management of my
business. 

My core business does not revolve around the tool, but
it is helped by it. For example, I've written CVS
handlers for plugging into dotProject, and also a
mysql database backup utility for rsnapshot. These
tools are not my core business function (ie - my money
is not made by selling these tools), so no reason for
me not to make them open source.

That's all...I'm not saying all or none, it really
depends on the business case. Obviously, amazon.com or
ebay.com is not going to open source their
applications, but amazon.com has made great use of
Linux+Apache+ModPerl (all open source). They are not
in the os/server/application language business. They
are in the online store business.



--- Ken Schaefer <Ken at adOpenStatic.com> wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
> [mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf
> Of Anthony Ettinger
> Subject: Re: [thelist] What tools should I use?
> 
> : I am not willing to use something for free while
> I'm
> : developing a site, only to have to pay big bucks
> once
> : my business becomes successful to legitimize it's
> : licensing.
> 
> An interesting statement, but one which is also
> slightly ambiguous. You'd
> prefer to pay to use the software in development as
> well as production? Or
> you'd only use the software if it was free all the
> way through?
> 
> The former seems to be a silly way to run a business
> (why not "try before you
> buy?")
> 
> And the latter also seems a bit odd to me - you're
> in business to make money,
> but you have some philosophical objection to others
> charging for something
> useful that you use to make money?
> 
> Cheers
> Ken
> --
> 
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Anthony Ettinger
ph: (408) 656-2473
blog: http://www.chovy.com

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