

Open Source projects get Zoho Discussions for free - rajuvegesna
https://blogs.zoho.com/general/zoho-discussions-is-now-free-for-open-source-projects-jquery-deploys-discussions

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ibsulon
Can someone explain why proprietary vendors are trying to pick up open source
clients? It seems like an odd form of advertising.

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netcan
If your fixed costs are high and your marginal costs are low as is usually the
case with software, your incentive structure is often strange.

Giving stuff away doesn't cost you much. The downside is that if people
already got it free, they won't want to buy it. So, vendors look for little
worlds where they can give away software without cannibalising other sales.
Let people use it, get comfortable to it and develop a preference for it. When
they move on, the vendor hopes they will keep using the product, even if they
have to pay.

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simonw
Dumb question: can you still follow (and post to) Zoho Discussions using
e-mail, like you can with Google Groups?

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rajuvegesna
Yes, it has both options.

Zoho Discussions has 'Follow this Topic' option to receive emails on the
discussions you are follow.

To post to Zoho Discussions directly from your email, it has Email2Forum
option. More details on this are available here.

[http://help.discussions.zoho.com/forum-
settings.html#Email2F...](http://help.discussions.zoho.com/forum-
settings.html#Email2Forum)

<https://forums.zoho.com/topic/explain-email2forum-feature%3F>

Ofcourse, these features can be made available for free for open source
projects.

