Give it away give it away now!

For those watching Salon slowly disintegrate (or barely cling to existence, depending on your point of view), why not pick on MandrakeSoft for wacky business moves? They have gotten to the point of begging their customers to please buy a membership and to not just freely download their free product any more.

Brings to mind the entire Dot-Com concept:

1. Build something cool.
2. Give it away to gain "marketshare"
3. something
4. Profit!

The dot-commers never figured out that third step, and Mandrakesoft is following their footsteps to the quicksand, it seems. How does someone make money selling an operating system which is, by definition, free? Red Hat eked out a tiny profit this quarter, so there may be hope for the Services Model of software development, but how much money has RH actually lost over the years to get to this point? At the rate they "earned" money last quarter, will they ever pay off their old debt before the next century? Will Mandrake ever make money?

Tune in next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

Random Thought

Anyone else ever daydream about what you'd do if you could be invisible? Just hang out and listen to what people say about you, sneak into the women's locker room, make people think they're haunted...

Friday Five!

Hey, the Friday Five is back!

1. What holiday(s) do you celebrate this time of year? Christmas.
2. What was the best gift you have ever received? At Christmas? Er...Drawing a blank. Gonna have to go with the skyscraper construction kit when I was a wee lad.
3. What was the worst gift you've ever given? I don't give bad gifts. This is because I rarely remember to give anything at all.
4. Where will you be celebrating the holidays? Are you hosting or going away? I'll spend Christmas Eve with my family in Arizona, spoiling the boy. Then, Christmas Day I fly to Minnesota and return on New Year's
5. If you could spend the holidays with someone who isn't around, who would it be and why? Not applicable.

Disclaimer

In response to this story about the culpability of using a web log to mention anything at all not completely personal, I have added a disclaimer to the bottom of my main web site, as well as on my journal page. I hope you understand. :-)