Coca-Cola-Amatil and 'branding' of chips

[hartr@redhat.com]

On 15 Oct, richard@auscoms.com.au wrote:
> 
> George -- branding is all about inflating the notional value of something; hence
> the difference between margarine made by Edible Oil Industries under the Meadow
> Lea brand, and the same stuff made under contract to Woolies' under the Home
> Brand - which is cheaper despite the extra middleman (_that_ for
> disintermediation!).
> 
> I'd like to see the Internet take a stand against branding: it's merely big biz
> trying to own the  new world for themselves.

Hang on there...those of us in the free (as in open source) software
business need our brands!!!

Red Hat Software invests significantly in quality assurance, security
and product development (eg the GNOME project, the XBF & XCOM free X
Servers, manuals and books) - all of which we then both sell and give
away for free (we have over 150 official mirror sites world wide and
countless unofficial mirror sites).

By giving aware our software and manuals (both in electronic format) we
are able to create a branded market share - on which we are now
starting to build value added services (as well as selling copies of
our product to individuals and organisations that want hardcopy manual
and installation support).

So - brands are far from all bad...

-- 

Robert Hart						hartr@redhat.com
Red Hat Software Inc.		Phone: +1-919-547-0012 	Fax: +1-919-547-0024
4201 Research Commons Suite 100, 79 TW Alexander Dr., Research Triangle Park,
			NC 27709, USA