[ale] mint 13 vm running out of storage space

[David Raker]

Ron, you have some serious misconceptions about what is 'Free' software:

    A) If xyz organization or entity or person or group wants to develop
    complex software, and if they don't have access to tens of thousands
    of hours of free labor, and if that development will cost millions
    or billions of dollars, then the developer CANNOT develop the software.

Free software often costs money.  This does not make it less free.  We
are refering to freedom, not to price.  As an example, it will cost you
at least $349 to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a server for one year:
https://www.redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html.  As you can see
following that link, the price can rise dramatically from there.  RHEL
is still 'free' software.  RHEL, is of course also repackaged as CentOS,
which happens to gratis as well, but if you want to run the supported,
branded version, you will pay. 

This is a perfectly viable business model.   For the three months ending
8/31/2013, Red Hat had a net income of $40.81 Million USD on gross
revenue of $374.42 million.  Net income is what is left after paying
their staff and other expenses.  The financial picture, of course is
more complicated that just income and expense, but this hardly detracts
from the point.  Indeed, their cash flow statement shows a positive net
change in cash for the quarter of $109.71 million.
(http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ARHT&fstype=ii&ei=mJddUtCyHoy10AGukgE)

     B) Furthermore, in the above conditions, even if they have the deep
    pockets to absorb the cost, they probably will not have enough
    incentive to develop the software without a profit motive. 

See above. For a hundred million dollars in additional cash, I would be
more than motivated.


     I think there's room for both FOSS and commercial software in the
    world.

Agreed.  The ability to charge, however, is not a particularly valid reason.

     I want that to be rigorously designed by highly trained engineers
    working in a cohesive manner and thoroughly tested. 

This is exactly the point with Red Hat's (and plenty of other FOSS
companies') business model.  You may run CentOS for free, but they will
not support you.  What you are paying for /is/ the support. Many closed
source vendors charge separately for the license to run the software and
for the support contract. Since more of their revenue often comes from
support than from licenses, it is valid to question whether they are
actually helping their bottom line by restricting the dissemination of
their product.  Sadly it is common to conflate the license and support
contact into a single charge, so it is difficult to sort out the extent.

The important thing to consider is cost, not price.  A company which
closes the source of their software or distributes it under a
restrictive license is losing the chance to have its work reviewed. 
Much as the scientific community relies on peer review to determine the
merit of a published study, free software benefits from the ability of
others to correct your mistakes, or even to make improvements which you
did not have the time, foresight, or ability to implement yourself.  In
terms of security, audit of code will reveal flaws. This allows
vulnerabilities to be closed before they can become a more serious
security threat.  These benefits are not available if the source is
closed, and are difficult to capitalize when the license is
restrictive.  This loss of opportunity is a cost which is likely to
outweigh any benefit obtained from secrecy.

--

Naunet Corporation Logo 	David M. Raker

Director
*Naunet Corporation*
? (678) 287-0693 x131 or (888) NAUNET1 x131

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