It is not my intention to continue this discussion within this mailing list, so please stop to reply or reply just to me. Otherwise I have to answer again to the community and I don't want to do it. :-)
Dear Chris, thank you. I will answer to you in the following.
On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 11:03 PM, Chris Travers
<chris.travers@gmail.com> wrote:
I hope I am not feeding a troll here.
The economic model behind PostgreSQL is a very good one. Here is my
understanding of it. Various people in the community cooperate but
they also sell products (EnterpriseDB, Green Plum) based on the
codebase along with their proprietary enhancements. Others sell
services including hosting and consulting. In general anyone who does
not share everything practical ends up paying for it later in terms of
internal maintenance overhead. Everyone benefits.
The wonderful thing about open source software is that every one of us
owns the means of production not in a collective or a government but
individually. I can take PostgreSQL and make a living off it. You
can take my program that runs on it (LedgerSMB) and make a living off
it. We can take these pieces of software and use them to provide
services to others. The barrier to getting into business for yourself
is very low.
It's impossible that everyone benefits proportionally to his own effort of development. In this sense the model is not "right". But this is the rule of the open source model and it is OK because the rule is accepted by all the developers.
In my view, if you don't want to pay for hosting and you need all
these features, you probably don't really need hosting. The only way
you will get hosting is if you convince someone that taking you on
benefits them more than the costs (either by paying them or making the
case that it's a good business idea to take you on), or ---- the
wonderful thing about free and unfettered access to the means of
production --- you can set up your own system with all these
technologies. That's the free hosting solution that might work best
for you.
Simply I don't know how the business works for the hosting platforms. Or better, now I have understood it. :-) For this reason I asked my question. I supposed that it was a business similar to the one existing for "File Hosting".
Thank you for your support. :-)
Fernando
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
