“The children sing, “Love is something, if you give it away, you
end up having more.” Likewise, increasingly, for knowledge-and it
becomes difficult, even disreputable, to try selling something that
people believe should be free….”
“In the Linux market, where it’s axiomatic that software is
free, some vendors are finding that they have to package software
in the concrete form of a hardware appliance to have a viable
product. That’s the strategy at Workfire.com, whose
Web-accelerating cache algorithms are sold as software in the
exchange economy of the Windows marketplace-but are packaged in
hardware, with Linux as an embedded operating system, in the gift
economy of the open-source marketplace. When in Rome, one sells
what the Romans will pay for.”