Itching and scratching (Re: source mgt. requirements solicitation)

[Stan Shebs]

Tom Lord wrote:

>
>	Speaking more generally, the folks that get paid to do free
>	software are the ones who are solving the problems of people
>	with the money.  It's up to us to be clever enough to figure
>	out to solve the specific problems in a way that improves
>	architecture and infrastructure.  That was a key but
>	underappreciated aspect of Cygnus' development contracts; we
>	would always try to go after projects that included
>	infrastructure improvement, but if necessary we would do
>	something that was random but lucrative and use the profits to
>	pay for generic work.
>
>Was it customers who underappreciated that?  or was that a selling
>point?
>
Sometimes it was a selling point, sometimes the concept was too subtle
for the customer to grasp.  In the mid-90s, a good percentage of time
still had to be spent explaining free software, reassuring people that
GCC didn't cause its output to be GPLed, etc.  It was interesting to see
how much variation there was among customers, and also how important it
was to have actual sales people in the process - engineers left to
themselves would rathole on side issues and never get around to the
actual dealmaking.

Stan