3 ms·

IMHO one of the main problems of open source is that you cannot personally police the use of your project because you do not have the time or money to do so. So

by b20000 6y ago

IMHO one of the main problems of open source is that you cannot personally police the use of your project because you do not have the time or money to do so. So once it's open source someone can use bits and pieces of your intellectual property without ever letting you know, and how are you going to find out? This is true for example for obscure tricks relating to optimizations when dealing with OS interfacing code or with specific algorithm implementations. I have a few large code bases I have thought about open sourcing and the lack of solutions to these problems have kept me from doing it. Yes, I can use GPL, but how do I efficiently also license it for commercial use and how do I monitor the use without needing to pay lawyers to police all of it? If you deal with an industry with thousands of indie developers this becomes even more complicated.

_jal 6y ago
This is the "copyright cop" model of software development. The idea is you make something attractive and then rely on social control mechanisms to punish people if they touch in ways you don't like. This business model is identical to proprietary models, and requires lawyers and all that, as you note, because you've created a system that incentivizes erstwhile customers to step outside the model that makes you money. Another model is to make something attractive, give it away, and sell something else that goes well with it. Now customer interests are more aligned with yours. RH sold for 11 digits doing the second.
- b20000 6y ago
  "rely on social control mechanisms to punish people if they touch in ways you don't like" - in the industry I'm dealing with people get upset by other people using open source in a certain way to profit from it, yet the customers keep buying the rip-off products anyway and the people behind those products keep profiting. so at least there, social control isn't delivering the desired result. you could argue that social control acts as a marketing tool for the original developer of the project (?). in the RH case, are you talking about selling subscriptions to complement the free / open product?
- derekp7 6y ago
  This is basically a "loss leader" business model -- take a loss on selling milk, hoping that brings in customers to buy your cookies. So in open source, there are some things you can do -- sell support (where the software is the thing that draws in the need for support). Second thing is sell a service that ties into the open source code. Third is have the core product open source, with paid add-ins. The paid add-ins is even more attractive if there is a third-party requirement that prevents the additional functionality from being open source (i.e., if you want to add Oracle database support to your backup code, you need to license [under NDA] a development kit from Oracle; or things like patented plugins for specific video streaming formats on a media app).
  - b20000 6y ago
    interesting. how does this work for a hardware product?

by b20000 6y ago

_jal 6y ago

This is the "copyright cop" model of software development. The idea is you make something attractive and then rely on social control mechanisms to punish people if they touch in ways you don't like. This business model is identical to proprietary models, and requires lawyers and all that, as you note, because you've created a system that incentivizes erstwhile customers to step outside the model that makes you money. Another model is to make something attractive, give it away, and sell something else that goes well with it. Now customer interests are more aligned with yours. RH sold for 11 digits doing the second.

b20000 6y ago
"rely on social control mechanisms to punish people if they touch in ways you don't like" - in the industry I'm dealing with people get upset by other people using open source in a certain way to profit from it, yet the customers keep buying the rip-off products anyway and the people behind those products keep profiting. so at least there, social control isn't delivering the desired result. you could argue that social control acts as a marketing tool for the original developer of the project (?). in the RH case, are you talking about selling subscriptions to complement the free / open product?
derekp7 6y ago
This is basically a "loss leader" business model -- take a loss on selling milk, hoping that brings in customers to buy your cookies. So in open source, there are some things you can do -- sell support (where the software is the thing that draws in the need for support). Second thing is sell a service that ties into the open source code. Third is have the core product open source, with paid add-ins. The paid add-ins is even more attractive if there is a third-party requirement that prevents the additional functionality from being open source (i.e., if you want to add Oracle database support to your backup code, you need to license [under NDA] a development kit from Oracle; or things like patented plugins for specific video streaming formats on a media app).
- b20000 6y ago
  interesting. how does this work for a hardware product?