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The FSF is fine with charging for software. That's why they say "free as in freedom not free as in beer"
by fungiblecog 6y ago
The FSF is fine with charging for software. That's why they say "free as in freedom not free as in beer"
- edgyquant 6y agoYes but the fsf's model has objectively skewed the economics away from paid software to paid support
- dwohnitmok 6y agoTheoretically true, but practically unworkable. If you give end users the right to redistribute your software for free there's not much you can do other than appeal to people's better selves and implore them to pay for your software instead of choosing the exact same copy for free (even though that's something both legally and ethically completely allowed by your choice of license). At that point it's just a donation model with a suggested donation, which really isn't all that different from "free as in beer." Under most circumstances "free as in freedom" is a superset of "free as in beer." This is the reason why open source businesses focus on paid add-on products or services rather than monetize their nominal core product.
- nextaccountic 6y agoWhen you say paid add-on products.. you mean, that's the reason "open source" business focus on selling proprietary software? As in, "open core".
- dwohnitmok 6y agoEffectively yes. Sometimes it's not quite "open core" in the sense that they don't offer two versions of the same piece of software, but rather separate programs that are meant to work in conjunction with that software (or a paid cloud version of the local program), but the end result is similar. There is some nuance in how this affects community uptake of the software if it is divorced at the software level.