The top reply wanted to look at it as if money wasnt a factor,
so I asked for examples of where it wasnt a factor,...
Direct
money or indirect money?
... namely a company, and companies are
driven to make money, giving something away for free and expecting to loose
everything invested in it with no hope of return.
Only if you
consider direct cash income will it be considered no hope of return.
There
are some things which are almost impossible to quantify in terms of money, for
example Goodwill. Apple has lost a lot of goodwill recently, but how exactly
that is quantified is very difficult, except through lost sales,
Redhat
gives away Linux with no hope of return on that investment in improving it. They
also have a service department that specialises in providing a help desk which
sells contracts to look after computer systems running Linux (so directly they
expect to loose (sic - why they want it all floppy I don't know, but that's what
you said; I personally would expect them to lose) everything they invest in
tweaking Linux; but indirectly they possibly gain - recipients do not
have to buy a service contract).
There are anti-virus programs for Windwos
that are given away free with no hope of return on the investment of writing
them and updating them (McFee?) - there is no requirement to register or
pay.
They seem fairly good examples of for profit organisations giving away
hard work for nowt expecting to loose (sic) everything.
cm. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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