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Sure, it's totally legitimate under an f/oss license. Which is why many companies that are spending millions of their own money developing these systems are mov

Sure, it's totally legitimate under an f/oss license. Which is why many companies that are spending millions of their own money developing these systems are moving to different models where it's no longer legitimate. If the puritans aren't willing to accept that, that's their right, and they can take their money elsewhere. There's a tragedy of the commons element to it all. Company A invests millions of dollars developing a product out in the open for the benefit of themselves AND their users. Users are free to self host for literally $0. Then company B comes along and repackages the solution, usually behind closed doors, and reaps the $millions of benefit with only the marginal costs of operating the product. The whole argument is very strange to me. Users - end users - have all the freedom in the world. It's only really multi billion dollar companies that are exploiting the work of others for their own personal gain that are being shut out - but the puritans seem ready to defend them anyway. In a world where Amazon (for example) control everything, users have far less freedom.

sneak 7y ago
> Then company B comes along and repackages the solution, usually behind closed doors, and reaps the $millions of benefit with only the marginal costs of operating the product. Well, they can only reap what company A fails to reap; either by having lower prices, or a better service offering, or being better or more useful in some way, right? I mean, if company A is literally the same name as the software, they have a natural marketing advantage, so company B would have to be better on some axis to eat even part of their lunch.
- jsmeaton 7y ago
  > Well, they can only reap what company A fails to reap; either by having lower prices That's basically my entire point. Of course company B gets to have lower prices, since they're not spending money on building the product.
  - sneak 7y ago
    Writing free software does not give one a monopoly on offering a service based on that software, naturally. That's the entire point of free software. If company A's entire business plan is based around the fact that it's impolite to do that after company A spent that money up front, they're going to have a bad time. That model is dumb to undertake if your lunch can be eaten if someone comes along and differentiates only on price of service.

sneak 7y ago

> Then company B comes along and repackages the solution, usually behind closed doors, and reaps the $millions of benefit with only the marginal costs of operating the product. Well, they can only reap what company A fails to reap; either by having lower prices, or a better service offering, or being better or more useful in some way, right? I mean, if company A is literally the same name as the software, they have a natural marketing advantage, so company B would have to be better on some axis to eat even part of their lunch.

jsmeaton 7y ago
> Well, they can only reap what company A fails to reap; either by having lower prices That's basically my entire point. Of course company B gets to have lower prices, since they're not spending money on building the product.
- sneak 7y ago
  Writing free software does not give one a monopoly on offering a service based on that software, naturally. That's the entire point of free software. If company A's entire business plan is based around the fact that it's impolite to do that after company A spent that money up front, they're going to have a bad time. That model is dumb to undertake if your lunch can be eaten if someone comes along and differentiates only on price of service.