From the chapter by Michael Tiemann in Open Sources: "At first I tried to make my argument the way that Stallman made his: on the merits. I would explain how f

From the chapter by Michael Tiemann in Open Sources: "At first I tried to make my argument the way that Stallman made his: on the merits. I would explain how freedom to share would lead to greater innovation at lower cost, greater economies of scale through more open standards, etc., and people would universally respond "It's a great idea, but it will never work, because nobody is going to pay money for free software." After two years of polishing my rhetoric, refining my arguments, and delivering my messages to people who paid for me to fly all over the world, I never got farther than "It's a great idea, but . . .," when I had my second insight: if everybody thinks it's a great idea, it probably is, and if nobody thinks it will work, I'll have no competition!" I still find it interesting how many people dismiss Cygnus's business model out of hand when entering the open source market. (Cygnus was acquired by Red Hat for $600 million and Michael Tiemann is still VP of Open Source development IIRC) What is interesting to me is that I've never heard of anyone else even trying it. No successes. No failures. As Michael Tiemann said, no competition. And Red Hat enjoys that competitive advantage even today. I highly recommend reading that chapter for an alternative view on how to approach open source development.