Re: Code donations for RPGUI initiative

[Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Does anyone believe in the traditional approach to growing a business on a
fair and trustworthy quid pro quo basis?

I wanted to note that I doubt any open source developers are doing it for
free, and it is, in fact, done for profit by their own choice.  Many open
source developers are full-time employees of a company that is paying them
to contribute to open source because it meets the business agenda of the
company.

A fair amount of open source is quid pro quo - there is just a different
marketing approach to making the money.  I like to think of open source as
an excellent loss leader**.  This is evident in projects like SugarCRM.
When a product is the only act in town they can ask what they want for
software and not give away source, but that just isn't as much of a reality
anymore.

**http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/loss+leader

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/