{"id":615,"date":"2007-02-02T16:05:51","date_gmt":"2007-02-02T22:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redmonk.com\/cote\/2007\/02\/02\/grab-bag-twitter-reading-pdfs-oss-cream\/"},"modified":"2007-02-02T16:05:51","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T22:05:51","slug":"grab-bag-twitter-reading-pdfs-oss-cream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/2007\/02\/02\/grab-bag-twitter-reading-pdfs-oss-cream\/","title":{"rendered":"Grab Bag &#8211; Twitter, Reading PDFs, OSS C.R.E.A.M."},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;d be nice if <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/\">Twitter<\/a> displayed time zones in people&#8217;s tweats. Maybe next to their name in parentheses: <code>cote (CST): up a little earlier than usual<\/code>. User Twitter is a shade of <i>Easter Standard Tribe<\/i> and it attracts a whole new set of people that I wish were in IRC, but aren&#8217;t. Besides, IRC has the whole &#8220;rooms&#8221; nothing which means you&#8217;re interested in and sort by topic, where as Twitter is about people and thus you sort people by who you want to pay attention to.<\/li>\n<li>Reading <a href=\"http:\/\/weblog.infoworld.com\/openresource\/archives\/Clark%20Asay%20-%20Free%20and%20Open%20Source%20Software%20Business.pdf\">this nice paper on making money on open source<\/a>  (via <a href=\"http:\/\/weblog.infoworld.com\/openresource\/archives\/2007\/01\/the_red_hat_mon.html\">Matt Asay<\/a>), I was reminded how annoying it is to read PDFs formatted for print on the screen. The margins that look nice on pages are just a scrolling annoyance on the screen. While <a href=\"http:\/\/weblog.infoworld.com\/udell\/2006\/07\/13.html#a1497\">Udell figured out a nifty trick with his 12&#8243; to read such documents<\/a>, I&#8217;d prefer a little program that flattened all the for-print pages in a PDF to a screen friendly version: no top and bottom margins or (horrors!) foot-notes at the end of each page. Is this even possible? Better: does something like it already exist?<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of <a href=\"http:\/\/weblog.infoworld.com\/openresource\/archives\/Clark%20Asay%20-%20Free%20and%20Open%20Source%20Software%20Business.pdf\">that paper<\/a>:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>\nConversely, in the FOSS model, the vendor sells the customer an open system that must<br \/>\ninclude unique value added for the vendor to successfully charge for it. Because the product\u2019s<br \/>\nunderlying code is freely accessible, without that value no rational person would pay for it. The<br \/>\nFOSS model thus forces a vendor to find new ways to add value to the end-user\u2019s experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>and<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nBut even if the FOSS model is theoretically better, it may not actually be viable without a<br \/>\nconsistent way to make a profit. Indeed, though FOSS projects may theoretically encourage<br \/>\ngreater innovation because of their open nature, without a way to monetize them, arguably<br \/>\ngreater innovation occurs when a consistent way to reap a return exists for market players, i.e., in<br \/>\nthe closed, proprietary model. Hence, all theoretical musings aside, if the profit motive is not<br \/>\nviable with FOSS, then <a href=\"http:\/\/osc.gigavox.com\/shows\/detail1675.html\">proprietary software may be the best model for certain types of software<br \/>\ndevelopment, while the FOSS model of development may be better for others<\/a>.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>and<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nAs alluded to above, one of the main strengths of Red Hat\u2019s model is that most end users<br \/>\ncannot easily replicate what the company gives the user.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>and this nice part on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.redmonk.com\/cote\/2006\/12\/22\/the-business-of-brands-open-source-and-brands\/\">brand in open source<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nAnother somewhat counterintuitive lesson from Red Hat\u2019s story is the importance of a<br \/>\nrobust community version of its product. If done right, it will rarely take away paying customers,<br \/>\nbut instead will encourage important contributions from developer enthusiasts. It also instills<br \/>\nbrand loyalty in customers, which ultimately should help the FOSS company stem attacks from<br \/>\ncompetitors such as Oracle or clones. As in any other industry, brand loyalty and familiarity is<br \/>\ncrucial, and in the FOSS context giving away a free, yet complementary product helps ensure<br \/>\nboth free labor as well as loyalty.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- technorati tags start --><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right;font-size:10px\">Technorati Tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/pdf\" rel=\"tag\">pdf<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/business\" rel=\"tag\">business<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/money\" rel=\"tag\">money<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/cream\" rel=\"tag\">cream<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/twitter\" rel=\"tag\">twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- technorati tags end --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several small items to empty out the Friday desk&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,17,19,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-ideas","category-marketing","category-open-source","category-social-software"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}