The Belly and the Members - “Aesop” on Free Standards (via Jon Udell), excerpted from The Myth of Free Standards: Giving Away the Farm. I totally agree on the importance of standards sales revenue, since eliminating the fee-based system has definitely a cost:
Otherwise, standards publishers, purveyors and purchasers might begin to see “For Sale” signs affixed to the “homesteads” of many SDOs and third-party standards providers — to the detriment of us all.
Thoughts on Richard Stallman and Free Software - James McGovern wonders why Richard Stallman never talk about the economics of software development. While I have been critical of other Richard’s decisions, I am fine with his decision to almost not talk about it.
Economic clustering and Free Software release coordination - Mark Shuttleworth believes that for a stronger impact of open source on the global software market we need to coordinate the releases of major pieces of the free software stack.
Watch this view where RMS encourages selling Free software.
http://www.archive.org/details/e-dv203_cambridge_4_stallman_08-04_001.ogg
Hi Roy,
I know Richard is used to talk also about it, and I put a link on the almost word just to mention it. Richard is very effective when he gives speech on the free software cause, but he lacks to impress a business audience when he talks about FOSS economics.
All in all there is a lot to talk about free software, and the business side is just one of them. He takes very good care of other important aspects, though.