>Im with Evan on this one.
>The percentage of people who actually use the service will be much less then the people that have taken all your code for free.
>You have to remember at the moment, people that use things like Linux, are quite knowledgable with their computers, and if something does go wrong, just buzz to the nearest Linux message board. They have no need for paid service/help...

Evan, Chris,

Like you said, people who use things like Linux knows their way around computers, and are usually capable of helping themselves.

But what happens when an "ordinary" user gets a problem with it's computer (or Windows, or any software)? He gets someone who can help him/her, and sometimes pay for that. There are training classes both for Windows and Linux. Companies will be willing to pay to have people work on their Linux boxes, just like they are paying people to work on their Windows boxes. (I'm taking the Linux/Windows example here, but it applies to other software too.)

Now if we can just get the manager to forget the myth that "free" means "worthless", we might actually get somewhere.

To return to the car analogy, there are people who do the maintenance on their car themselves. You can't prevent that. But it's not the majority of people that do. When a software is popular and used by normal people, it becomes the minority of users that can do work it out themselves.