Brian Bartholomew writes:
 > application, shipping gratis, and selling support.  I conclude the
 > product is designed to be bad enough to require support.

I'm really, really tired of this strawman.  "Support" includes
creation of new features.  It includes a printed manual.  It includes
training.  It includes hand-holding.  It includes the buy-down of risk
against a future show-stopper bug.  And yes, as a minor part, it
includes bug-fixing.

But *clearly*, to anyone who has their head between their shoulders
(as opposed to a nether region), no one will use a word processor
which includes a phalanx of bugs the fixing of which is sufficient to
support a business.  The people who propose that support-based
businesses will ship buggy code simply don't understand how free
markets work.

-- 
-russ nelson <rn-sig@crynwr.com>  http://crynwr.com/~nelson
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