2 ms·

I admire Fabrice a lot, he is a programming hero for me. However it is not true that he is not interested in money, for instance the QEMU module performing the

by antirez 15y ago

I admire Fabrice a lot, he is a programming hero for me. However it is not true that he is not interested in money, for instance the QEMU module performing the run-time code translation to go fast was not released for free in order to earn from this. I don't know if he managed to earn or not from QEMU in the end, but IMHO that of selling the module to final user was not the right strategy, when QEMU was started and became famous, "virtualization" was an huge buzz and interest for many companies, so many ways to make money from this. Also this new code is not released under a free license, so by default as far he is not sure what he's going to do with the code the "open source way" is not the default. This is not a critique. I think Fabrice Bellard is a genius, but as an observer he seems interested in making a profit from his work like many other programmers. Instead subjectively I've to admit today I no longer consider the GPL a completely free license, but this is another matter and may be related not to earning but to the meaning "free software" has for you. For me it is as simple as letting people to do everything with your code. IMHO the BSD license turns out to be better both for users AND for you to earn from your product later.

shareme 15y ago
GPL has no restriction on selling code, RMS earned his living money by selling reel tapes of code when GNU was first founded.
- strmpnk 15y ago
  I doubt that's what he means. Regardless, very few people would pay for code like that now that the web is ubiquitous.
mythz 15y ago
I think you should replace "making a profit" to "making a living" off his own work. Just because he's a genius does not mean he hasn't every right to monetize his own works as he sees fit. Monetizing OSS is hard and a lot of the time the possible revenue streams are a time-suck. He may not be interested in spending his own time and prefer just instead to licence his work as-is the norm for software producers. From all I've read he's more than happy to receive invitations for licensing of his work, whether or not he'd accept a lump sum to Open Source some of his work is not known. Anyway this is all speculation, if you're genuinely curious you should email him (which is active as I received a reply from him today :) He has remained independent doesn't work for academia or any mega-tech corp and continues to pursue his own interests. I think he has every right to carve out his own path and produce software as he sees fit.

by antirez 15y ago

shareme 15y ago

GPL has no restriction on selling code, RMS earned his living money by selling reel tapes of code when GNU was first founded.

strmpnk 15y ago
I doubt that's what he means. Regardless, very few people would pay for code like that now that the web is ubiquitous.

mythz 15y ago

I think you should replace "making a profit" to "making a living" off his own work. Just because he's a genius does not mean he hasn't every right to monetize his own works as he sees fit. Monetizing OSS is hard and a lot of the time the possible revenue streams are a time-suck. He may not be interested in spending his own time and prefer just instead to licence his work as-is the norm for software producers. From all I've read he's more than happy to receive invitations for licensing of his work, whether or not he'd accept a lump sum to Open Source some of his work is not known. Anyway this is all speculation, if you're genuinely curious you should email him (which is active as I received a reply from him today :) He has remained independent doesn't work for academia or any mega-tech corp and continues to pursue his own interests. I think he has every right to carve out his own path and produce software as he sees fit.