[rescue] OT: Linux and USB on Intel

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Mon, Apr 21, 2003 at 10:57:07AM -0700, David Passmore wrote:

> >    Are vendors who sell high-ticket "service", especially in 
> > billed-by-the-hour arrangements, really motivated to make sure their 
> > systems don't fail in the first place?  In some cases, over the life of 
> > a product, support contracts wind up costing more than the product 
> > itself...which opens the door for the vendor making the product a 
> > loss-leader to facilitate the sale of expensive support contracts.
> 
> Linux vendors don't have a business model, otherwise.

Cygnus has a business plan that didn't strictly depend on support
contracts.  My understanding is that it depended on people needing
custom work done to GCC for whatever new platform they wanted.  Of
course, I don't think that's the plan any more.