Free Software and Business/Administration (Was:Re: Italian e-govt investment and aid)

[M E Leypold @ labnet]

Hello Georg,

While I do not deny most of your other statements, I'd like to add a
comment to this one.


Georg Jakob writes:

 > 
 > I know that this sounds like open source speak, but I think that's
 > exactly why we *need* the FSF - to talk about freedom, to create
 > awareness. If you talk about freedom in a sales presentation,
 > you'll be laughed out of business quicker than you can say "GNU".

I do not think so. Freedom per se is not a bad thing even in bussines,
else 'they' wouldn't insist on free trade so much. The counterside of
the specific freedom you/we/the-FSF is talking about is dependency,
mainly from a vendor. In business 'dependency' translates into 'risk':
The risk to loose undefined amounts money very quickly to a partner or
not-partner-any-more. Actually I believe that this is a language
'they' understand at sales presentations and I've seen it working now
and then. One can even turn this into some sort of advertisment:
"Look, we give you source and all, you might change your
vendor/developer/what-ever, if you ain't satisfied with us some time
in the future. Yes, I'm so convinced, we're the best, we won't take
you that freedom".



 > But the FSF (*not* the OSI) gives us the possibility to change that.
 > Beware the dark side...

I will try. :-)

Regards -- Markus