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Just because a blob of code is free doesn’t mean the support is free, and it has been this way for a very long time. Have you ever seen how much an email-only

Just because a blob of code is free doesn’t mean the support is free, and it has been this way for a very long time. Have you ever seen how much an email-only 1-year support contract from ISC costs (clue: Five figures)? In the real world, free but pay for support is a reasonable expectation. RedHat has been doing it since 1993. Even with end user software, freemium has been a thing for quite a while. I see from your posting history that you’re pushing variations of this “they didn’t pay for this, so your time and effort is worthless” notion. I can’t be sure you’re not trolling; I will assume good faith and think you actually believe this ridiculous argument. Frankly, to pretend that free code with for pay support doesn’t exist comes off as entitled to me. Let me explain to you how classic open source works. The idea behind open source is this: The relationship between users and developers is different with an open source project. In return for getting code for free, instead of having the relationship a customer of proprietary software has, where the only way to implement a feature is to ask the original developer to implement it, we instead have a relationship where you can get any feature (or bugfix) you want, by simply providing a patch or pull request. The code is free, but the support is not free. Linux is a classic case of this: Sure, you can get the kernel for free. Sure, you can download a distribution for free. But, as soon as you ask for support, the company tells you they will change you so much $$$ per networked computer to get service and support. It works really great when a lot of developers and companies contribute patches and bug fixes for free, in exchange for getting the software for free. It works not so great when entitled users think they have a customer to company relationship with open source software. Hence, the hard boundaries, and the resetting of expectations. I used to have a “I don’t support my open source project for free in private email any more, and if you reply to this demanding support, I will make this email exchange public on the mailing list” canned reply. I only had to make the exchange public once over a decade ago; most people got the message. I even occasionally had someone throw me a few bucks. My project? I still maintain it, because my boundaries keep me sane. I’ve only have had one rude entitled user whose bug report I had to delete from GitHub in the last decade; since then I just lock the conversation after giving them the “no, I don’t support that” spiel.

mbrodersen 5y ago
> I can’t be sure you’re not trolling; I will assume good faith and think you actually believe this ridiculous argument. OK and I will assume you are not trolling and that your explanations of things I already understand was done with good intentions and not being condescending. You clearly don't understand my argument and are offering a straw man interpretation. So in the spirit of explaining things, let me try again. It is a simple argument and shouldn't be hard to understand: If you give away your work for $0 and demand nothing in return (no $ service contract, no $ licensing fee, no $ monthly maintenance contract) then the result will be $0 for you. It is a really simple argument. A 5 year old will probably get this. But for some reason a number of FOSS commentators don't get this very simple point. They give away everything for $0 and then get upset, throw their toys around and refuse to play with the other kids, when companies then pay them exactly what they asked for and nothing else. And since you made an effort to explain to me how open source works (clearly me reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar twice and various other Open Source books doesn't qualify) I will now explain to you how markets work: Things don't inherently have value. You might have spent 30 years slaving away on your precious code, while thinking pure thoughts of enlightenment every single key press, sacrificed your family in the name of the deity of FOSS, but do you know what? Nobody cares. The value of something is what people are willing to pay for it. That's what a market is. So what happens when you give away your precious code for $0? What happens is that people will value it at exactly that: $0. You yourself are signaling to the world that your work has zero value. So you and your work will be treated that way. You might not like it. You might wish that the world was full of enlightened people who would all magically see things your way. But that is not the case. So accept it and move on. If you want to make $ doing FOSS then put that in the licence and sue anybody who doesn't pay.
- strenholme 5y ago
  Thank you for the reply, but you didn’t address the point I am making. My argument is this: People are unreasonable when they expect free hand-holding support just because the software is free. I never argued in this thread that people should pay for my open source software. What I am saying is that people are being unreasonably entitled when they expect to also have free professional level support (e.g. private email support), using ISC and RedHat as real world examples where open source software is free, but professional support costs real money, e.g. https://www.isc.org/support/ https://www.isc.org/support/ If you try to tell the ISC that their gold level support should be free using the trollish [1] logic that, since the software is free, it has no value, so the support also has no value and should also be free, they will politely and professionally laugh in you face. Ignoring the fact that free market fundamentalism [2] requires have a lot of holes in one’s logic to believe (roads, police, and, in most first world countries, medical care)—that’s another discussion for another day—there exists, in today’s free market, free software without free support. Now, in terms of whether we would be in a better world today if those “no commercial use” licenses were not excluded from open source around two decades ago—I remember the KDE-vs-Gnome flame wars all too well, as well as the BitKeeper license flame wars which resulted in Git—I agree that is a legitimate point, but that ship sailed out to sea a long time ago. There’s also the ethical issue of FOSS developers who give away their code, but then turn around and complain that those with big pockets should pay them. Both of these issues have nothing to do with the issue I am bringing up: Free software != free support, as much as entitled users wish to think otherwise. [1] Trollish, because telling open source developers that their software has no worth comes awfully close to the “no personal attacks” rules ycombinator has. [2] There are a lot of free market fundamentalists out there that think the free market will magically solve all problems. Maybe you’re not one of them, but with all this going on about how something which costs $0 has no value, that comes off as free market fundamentalism to me.

mbrodersen 5y ago

> I can’t be sure you’re not trolling; I will assume good faith and think you actually believe this ridiculous argument. OK and I will assume you are not trolling and that your explanations of things I already understand was done with good intentions and not being condescending. You clearly don't understand my argument and are offering a straw man interpretation. So in the spirit of explaining things, let me try again. It is a simple argument and shouldn't be hard to understand: If you give away your work for $0 and demand nothing in return (no $ service contract, no $ licensing fee, no $ monthly maintenance contract) then the result will be $0 for you. It is a really simple argument. A 5 year old will probably get this. But for some reason a number of FOSS commentators don't get this very simple point. They give away everything for $0 and then get upset, throw their toys around and refuse to play with the other kids, when companies then pay them exactly what they asked for and nothing else. And since you made an effort to explain to me how open source works (clearly me reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar twice and various other Open Source books doesn't qualify) I will now explain to you how markets work: Things don't inherently have value. You might have spent 30 years slaving away on your precious code, while thinking pure thoughts of enlightenment every single key press, sacrificed your family in the name of the deity of FOSS, but do you know what? Nobody cares. The value of something is what people are willing to pay for it. That's what a market is. So what happens when you give away your precious code for $0? What happens is that people will value it at exactly that: $0. You yourself are signaling to the world that your work has zero value. So you and your work will be treated that way. You might not like it. You might wish that the world was full of enlightened people who would all magically see things your way. But that is not the case. So accept it and move on. If you want to make $ doing FOSS then put that in the licence and sue anybody who doesn't pay.

strenholme 5y ago
Thank you for the reply, but you didn’t address the point I am making. My argument is this: People are unreasonable when they expect free hand-holding support just because the software is free. I never argued in this thread that people should pay for my open source software. What I am saying is that people are being unreasonably entitled when they expect to also have free professional level support (e.g. private email support), using ISC and RedHat as real world examples where open source software is free, but professional support costs real money, e.g. https://www.isc.org/support/ https://www.isc.org/support/ If you try to tell the ISC that their gold level support should be free using the trollish [1] logic that, since the software is free, it has no value, so the support also has no value and should also be free, they will politely and professionally laugh in you face. Ignoring the fact that free market fundamentalism [2] requires have a lot of holes in one’s logic to believe (roads, police, and, in most first world countries, medical care)—that’s another discussion for another day—there exists, in today’s free market, free software without free support. Now, in terms of whether we would be in a better world today if those “no commercial use” licenses were not excluded from open source around two decades ago—I remember the KDE-vs-Gnome flame wars all too well, as well as the BitKeeper license flame wars which resulted in Git—I agree that is a legitimate point, but that ship sailed out to sea a long time ago. There’s also the ethical issue of FOSS developers who give away their code, but then turn around and complain that those with big pockets should pay them. Both of these issues have nothing to do with the issue I am bringing up: Free software != free support, as much as entitled users wish to think otherwise. [1] Trollish, because telling open source developers that their software has no worth comes awfully close to the “no personal attacks” rules ycombinator has. [2] There are a lot of free market fundamentalists out there that think the free market will magically solve all problems. Maybe you’re not one of them, but with all this going on about how something which costs $0 has no value, that comes off as free market fundamentalism to me.