What is Digg?33 Comments
- devindotcom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Perhaps, but what the hell is with that description? Sounds like a used car salesman selling this article.
- i440, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6The simple reality is that open source cannot generate as much profit as proprietary software can. Donations and relying on support are ineffective, and simply selling the software is difficult because others can easily obtain the source, build it, and distribute it for free. There is simply no incentive to purchase the software.
- krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -1/+2what is it with differing opinions and dislikable facts and being buried?
i dunno about you guys, but i think i440 is right and this article is stupid. lets look by the author's suggestions
1) commercial support 2.0: why pay for user grade support when there are unpaid sources of the exact same thing? see http://forums.gentoo.org (by far the best linux resource on the net) and http://ubuntuforums.org.
2) most distros already use donation. however, donations are not a source of income at all.
3) merchandising: cafepress is retarded. anyone can go find the same picture/wording on the web and just get it done themselves, and cafepress is overpriced by my opinion. it generally isnt the distros, but more of geek stores doing this stuff anyways.
4) generating buzz != generating money. if there's no product to sell, there's no money to be made by generating buzz
5) once again, high quality != money. no product means no money.
even the first commenter agrees with me on the last 2 being crap. the second commenter agrees that cafepress is overpriced. another commenter uses my same argument in #1 pointing to the commercial experts-exchange.com. another commenter mentions the credibility drop because of spelling/grammar mistakes. i also dislike all the shameless plugs.
gee, maybe i440 and i are not alone here, and he's really not trolling. he's just offering a differing opinion and stating some dislikable facts. - dupswapdrop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Do it the old fashion way sell disks of the month like in the 80's.
No no sell the diggs of the month on cd's, lets see sell 1000 cd's at $5 a pop thats $5000!
Even better filter all the junk thats screwing up digg clean it up a bit pump it on to your web site and charge people to access it for like $20 a month.
Hey where's that login for my godady site? - Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Unspeakably lame.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i440, we're going to have to interview you some time. Do you have a graduates degree in trolling? Is Digg the only site you hit, or are other locations fortunate enough to make your acquaintence? Do you ever comment on anything *but* FOSS, and ever make anything *but*a critical comment about it? Do you have some kind of script that scrapes Digg for every FOSS story, even if it only has one Digg? Are any of your responses auto-generated, since even trolls must sleep sometime? Do you have a job, or is this your job? Are any of your trolling methods patented or trademarked?
Nowhere man, can you see me at aa-alll? - fac3less, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Lame article.
Lame attempt to get ad revenue. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I disagree. That's only going to create bad publicity with real users. That your Tech Support requires some kind of monetary "donation" or "payment." Seems a bit backhanded to me. It also sounds like fast-talking marketers making up terms and promoting the usefulness of backhanded "cash flow" techniques.
- P5ycHo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Marked as lame because its subject beggs for a digg.
- fishsoda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The idea is community supported, not developer supported.
- fishsoda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You are not purchasing the software. You are donating for support or donating to support the project.
- fishsoda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Just because you are able to use the open source software for free does not mean that the community should support you for free.
The developers are not the only ones who devote a lot of time and energy into open source projects, the active members of the community do as well.
Active members of a project's community rely on the project to either provide services or do their job. They have put time and effort into the project trying to understand, improve and learn. If they can give back to the project by providing support to someone who wants to pay for it it will benefit the project and in turn benefit the member providing the support.
Open source is not a free ride. Making a donation in exchange for support gets you something extra for your donation. You are free to use it or not use it.
If you cannot understand the value of receiving solid support for an open source project you are free to use it and support yourself. You are also free to use something else. - theundefined, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Well people will still get free support in the IRC channel. Consider this to be a way to get priortized support for people that are in a hurry, uncomfortable with IRC or the ones that just need a little reminder/reason to donate. It should be possible to get a good cash flow increase this way ...
- fishsoda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They are routes to encourage donation. With open source everything is essentially a donation. A route to obtain a donation is a revenue source.
- theundefined, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It should really be still available, hit F5 or something. It seems like some people especially with Safari get treated badly by the Apache this thing is running on, but I just installed the wp-cache plugin for wordpress an hour ago, so it should keep up with the digg.com-effect for a while. Anyway, got to go to school now, let's hope my provider doesn't get angry about this ; ).
- jaydj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I counted 3 ways to make money. How are 4 and 5 revenue sources?
- ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That's might possibly be all right for a one person organisation but i suspect it wouldn't pay the mortgage. As a developer i would like to make money developing, not sitting by the phone do after sales support. That would just encourage you to make the software hard to set up.
- zeldafan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think that first one is bull. If I'm using an open source piece of software and I have to pay $5-$10 to get support (from random people in the community) I'd rather just not use the product.
- fishsoda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Dugg you down. Asking for a donation is not a ridiculous request for an open source project. Asking for a donation in return for access to support resources is also not out of the question AND you are receiving something of value in return.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://n3p.se/en.php
“N3P offers a brand new, contrasting and intrepid two-year college level training in how to become a successful Project Entrepreneur in Open Source. Our students will learn not only the technical possibilities, but also how to exploit new business opportunities, manage profitable ideas, and create flourishing businesses.”
“N3P is a privately owned advanced vocational college, financed and accredited by the Swedish Department of Education. The students can apply for loans and grants from the government financing authority N3P is no different than other colleges and universities in Sweden, except for the fact that we are encouraged to be as practical and pragmatic as possible, training our students in tough and realistic situations. Our students will not sit down to construct strategies for others – they will roll up the sleeves and do the task for themselves, thereby putting their own stakes at risk.” - MrRio, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Nice :) I'd love to see more people try out this great framework.
- i440, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"Do you ever comment on anything *but* FOSS, and ever make anything *but*a critical comment about it?"
The answer to both questions are yes and no, respectively. Really. XD
I have Ubuntu installed, in fact. Just because I frequently criticize FOSS doesn't mean I hate or even have anything against it. I'm just trying to compensate for Digg bias.
I don't even think I'm trolling. I'm just expressing my opinion, and unlike many "trolls", I do believe everything I say is true.
And this post, most certainly, was not trolling. It was simply an opposing opinion. If you disagree, you are welcome to make a counterstatement, of course. If I find your argument convincing and valid, I'll even retract my post. - i440, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I meant to say the answer to both questions was yes. My apologies.
- theundefined, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This article is actively supporting open source software (The Cake Software foundation) to be more exact. So please tell your OS loving friends to digg it as well. Thank you!
- signalfade, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0hmmm....dugg!....now I'm going to go makeout(tm) with cakePHP
- Tunguska, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0It's goooooooone - mirror anyone?
- norris, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Let me guess...
1) customization
2) training
3) support
4) support
5) support - JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0The only way to earn money from Open Source that looks even moderately interesting or attractive to me ---- use Open Source components as ready-made building blocks to help create some new, unique product; not necessarily strictly software related. For example, network hardware manufacturers like Linksys and D-Link were some of the first to successfully apply this approach.
As they used to say in school, it should be "intuitatively obvious" that there really is no good way to make money directly from Open Source software alone. This is particularly onerous for developers since they are the foundation on which Open Source is built. Customization and panhandling for donations are about the only possiblities for most developers and both have limited opportunities. Most companies will only entertain custom development as a last resort due to the time, expense and uncertainity involved. Most other options; such as support, demand that developers stop doing what they do best and venture out into new territory. In other words, if you're a developer and you want to make money from Open Source, the best advice is to stop developing and do something else. Either this or go to work for a hardware company like Linux Torvalds did for quite some time. - jtreglos, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Nice article, very insightful... Let's hope this will allow for a nice donation to the Cake project !
- theundefined, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0yeah, I don't disagree, maybe I should change my profession *g* ; )
- gcarreno, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0I've dugg and clicked on that MY=1 thinguy, just not sure what's that about...
- jmkogut, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1Yes! Hurray for CakePHP.
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