Re: [cobalt-users] Chilisoft ASP

[Kris Dahl <kris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 2/3/00 1:21 PM, Tom Socha at tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> I totaly agree. Using a closedsource technology is a waste of money.we sit
> on our butts for so long waiting for an ASP solution for the RAQ and it
> was just about a month or so ago we started using PHP. The first and most
> important thing: support. You go with an opensource technology and the
> support of beyond superior to anything closedsource. How many times have
> you wanted to find an answere to a Micro$oft problem and spent hours
> searching their sight! With opensource there are usually a couple hundred
> other people who have had either the same questions you have or have
> created the same type of app you need, and are usually willing to give it
> up for free or for an honerable mention. With any closedsource technology,
> you are at the mercy of these heathen companies.

That is one of the main points of the open source ideas.  Anyone involved
with IT or even business at all should pick up a copy (or download for free)
a collection of essays by Eric S. Rayond called the Cathedral and the
Bazaar.  It really puts the nail in the coffin as far as I am concerned to
closed-source licensing *for most software products*. There are exceptions
to the Open Source model.

The book can be purchased from Copyleft (I think) http://www.copyleft.com,
and I now you can get it from Think Geek (http://www.thinkgeek.com) and of
course Amazon.  Its like $12 in hardcover and printed by the masters at
O'Reily.  Best $12 you'll ever spend.

> I can't believe that running ASP on a raq is going to cost somewhere in
> the thousands. When I heard Chilisoft was porting to the Linux platform,
> it was going to be a great solution. When I heard they were porting to the
> Linux platform and selling it for your first born and the pink slip on
> your car, it became a non-solution for us. PHP works great, does what we
> need and is 100% free. If your willing to spend that kind of money, buy
> another server. Jees.

Yeah.  I expected it to be about $1500.  Frankly I think the product will
more than likely bomb in its current licensing.  ASP isn't worth $1500
compared to PHP.  They have the value scale all out of whack--you should get
paid to use ASP.  I could see ChiliSoft opensourcing everything at some
point and selling support, or 'solutions bundles'.

What Cobalt should do is pull a Benedict Arnold and use ChiliSoft's high
asking price as a selling point in the advantages of their spiffy new PHP
Active Content upgrade pack.  Hell, I don't care if Cobalt sells it--would
be kinda cool for them to license MySQL legitmately and bundle the two
together for a eRaq or activeRaq or dbRaq.  Go fer it.  Database & GUI, PHP,
Apache, all marketed to hard-core professionals for $4500 based on a Raq3.
Bargain.

-k