4 ms·

I did attend Stallman's talk once, and it was interesting to say the least. However, there are some problems with the F/OSS type of development in practice. Fir

I did attend Stallman's talk once, and it was interesting to say the least. However, there are some problems with the F/OSS type of development in practice. First thing is developers need to put food on the table. In practice, when someone asks "but is it Open Source?" about an application/web app, more of them are interested in the "free as in beer" aspect or in using it in commercial business for free rather than about customizing it and releasing it to the original devs/other users(regardless of the requirements of the license). This happens all the time on HN when new and cool projects are announced. No one is still able to crack the make money while open sourcing something unless the tool is completely tangential to the way the company makes money(see Google/Apple for examples) or tease it as a way to sell the real ability to use it in closed app(see MySQL). Not to mention throwing code over the wall like Google likes to do with Chrome and Android source releases. Not everyone can be Red Hat.But Stallman expects them to be.

aklofas 15y ago
See: Mozilla Foundation
- dangrover 15y ago
  I thought Mozilla gets most of their money from Google searches, which are not powered by OSS.
  - wazoox 15y ago
    Not entirely powered by OSS. Google computers run Linux, many parts of Google infrastructure run on Python, etc.
    - cooldeal 15y ago
      Google got around the spirit of the GPL(there were no web apps when version 2 was written) by never releasing their custom kernel although they profit big time off Linux. The Affero GPL came too late to do any good.
      - wazoox 15y ago
        I'm all for AGPL myself, and this isn't about Google's spirit, but Google is undoubtly "powered by OSS", like it or not. You may label it as "profiteering from OSS" if you want, but you can't entirely throw the baby away with the bath water -- think or Android, Go, etc.
- aklofas 15y ago
  http://www.technobuffalo.com/internet/how-does-the-mozilla-foundation-make-money/ http://www.technobuffalo.com/internet/how-does-the-mozilla-f... While true, your claim that nobody makes money with open source is false. The classic business model of selling IP doesn't work anymore, but there are other models out there. Mozilla being one of them.
  - davidw 15y ago
    I wrote about this a while ago: http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/02/03/in-thrall-to-scarcity http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/02/03/in-thrall-to-scarcity Open Source Software is not a scarce resource: you cannot sell it. Therefore, you have to sell something associated with it - developers' time, the right to integrate it with proprietary software, or things like that.
    - podperson 15y ago
      But in Stallman's world no proprietary software is allowed.
      - davidw 15y ago
        In that sort of world, certain kinds of software would be underproduced. Software by hackers for hackers would probably still exist, but why would you go to the trouble of making something user friendly to sell to people?
        srdev 15y ago
        As I have an interest in video games, the all-FOSS-no-proprietary approach is particularly troublesome. You see very few indie games being done as FOSS, and pretty much zero high-quality big-production games. Proposals for a system of funding game development in a FOSS-only world are.... iffy at best. At worst, everyone makes MMORPGs.
  - cooldeal 15y ago
    >The classic business model of selling IP doesn't work anymore, but there are other models out there. Mozilla being one of them. And iOS will be killed by Android anytime now. Right?
- cooldeal 15y ago
  Not sure how much the devs are paid if any, but the CEO was taking a cool 400K home every year. Their job was to diversify Mozilla so that it wouldn't depend totally on someone that was making a competing product, and utterly failing at that since multiple years. Last I heard, the IRS was investigating them for claiming deductions as a charitable foundation but funneling money to the Mozilla Corporation. They've only recently started concentrating on paying developers to reduce the memory leaks, bloat etc after Chrome started eating their lunch in a big way. How is this a poster child for a good way to develop good and useful software for the masses? In fact, it seems to exemplify the pitfalls and weakness in the model, if nothing else.
  - aklofas 15y ago
    I have a couple of friends that work at Mozilla. They are indeed getting paid, have always gotten paid, and (in all likelihoods) will continue getting paid. You are probably referring to the Bugs for Cash thing they did. And a quick google search shows that, yes, mozilla has made good on that too. As for the IRS, they were auditing Mozilla's finances. And since when is there an implicit assumption of guilt in an audit?
  - bzbarsky 15y ago
    > Not sure how much the devs are paid if any Well enough that they can hire a few hundred full-time people, apparently, yes? Including some people who should clearly have no shortage of other job offers (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Seward http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Seward ). > Last I heard, the IRS was investigating them The IRS is doing an audit (which is not the same thing as an investigation, by the way). The IRS is also auditing, right this second, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. In fact, last I checked, for companies like Apple or Microsoft they had full-time auditors assigned to them on an ongoing basis. As far as the memory leaks thing... That's a developer-driven project, like many other things at Mozilla. Most developers there are not paid to do a specific task; they're paid to do the right thing. Just like Google doesn't hire you for a particular project, by the way.
davidw 15y ago
> No one is still able to crack the make money while open sourcing something unless the tool is completely tangential to the way the company makes money That's not entirely true: things like dual licensing, and consulting work, but... it certainly is far more difficult than simply selling a product.
- technomancy 15y ago
  Depends who you're trying to sell to. It'd be incredibly difficult to sell non-free software to someone like me who values the ability to tweak things.
  - davidw 15y ago
    I'm in the same category. I want free software because I love to be able to hack on stuff. However, I also don't pay a dime for it, at least in terms of cash. I try and 'pay back' bug reports, patches and the like. But we're in a tiny minority...
Helianthus 15y ago
Someone needed to keep an idea alive: that a developer's first duty is to freedom, even if presently they need to put food on the table. That's all Stallman needs to do, brandish the whip: "Stallman expects them to be."
brlewis 15y ago
No one is still able to crack the make money while open sourcing something unless the tool is completely tangential to the way the company makes money Countless consulting companies do that, but the biggest example is RedHat: http://investors.redhat.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=607350 http://investors.redhat.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=6073...
lloeki 15y ago
> No one is still able to crack the make money while open sourcing something unless the tool is completely tangential to the way the company makes money This might not be so much about making money as not losing some. Say you develop a product in Ruby and no fast XML parser exist but you need one. You could start development of such a library, and once it reached some maturity give it to the community, which in return will make all sorts of improvements (from code review to bug fixes to refactorings to translations, etc). Net result: you don't waste so much time on a critical dependency and can concentrate on your product, and so everyone moves forward.
mithaler 15y ago
To provide some context on his aims, Stallman sees money as a malign influence; he lives his own life cheaply so he can concentrate on what's important to him, not what money tells him to do. See this transcript: http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt Another thing that Microsoft, well, not just Microsoft, people who don't support free software generally adopt a value system in which the only thing that matters is short-term practical benefits: How much money am I going to make this year? What job can I get done today? Short-term thinking and narrow thinking. Their assumption is that it's ridiculous to imagine that anybody ever might make a sacrifice for the sake of freedom. Obviously, not everyone's priorities are aligned that way. I'm not sure to what extent he expects the same of other people. But I can at least see where he's coming from.
- cooldeal 15y ago
  For many, the money is not the end goal itself, It's about what you can accomplish with the money. This is a community based on startups, and the founders can identify with this. If they can make a little money on the initial product, they can take it to the next level and serve users better with the money by paying it to others. Make no money and your startup goes to die and no, it's very unlikely that a willing army of hackers will descend on your git if you open source it and make it better for you and others. Instead, you're more likely to get people who are trying to use it for free, and make you feel obligated to support it for them.
  - aklofas 15y ago
    Sounds like someone is mad that his brilliant code didn't get the attention he thought it deserved. There, there. Sorry you're lonely. Maybe your code is just sht?
eliasmacpherson 15y ago
I disagree with the making money argument you make, look at rawmaterialsoftware.com and the JUCE library, look at John Carmack's FPS engine releases. You mentioned Redhat. All these businesses make money while at the same time releasing software under the GPL. I'm sure other users can contribute more examples.
- Arelius 15y ago
  If you are citing John Carmacks engine releases as a way to make money, then you must forget that both, his assets have never been free, and the engine has never been released as GPL while he has been making money off of the product. He is releasing historical code as GPL, which is a far cry from running a business on a truley "free" product.
  - eliasmacpherson 15y ago
    I agree with you, it's a distinction worth making. The software makes money and then releases software as GPL after it has stopped making money. The GPL'd engines have had a secondary influence, increasing demand for future licences of his engine technology. So the act has made them money, just not as their primary source of income. It's not completely tangential to the way the company makes money.
gujk 15y ago
You might not like it, but Stallman's life illustrates his view on how to make a living from free software business: set your profit target at $50,000/yr per full time employee, instead of $100k or more, all the way up to CEO.

aklofas 15y ago

See: Mozilla Foundation

dangrover 15y ago
I thought Mozilla gets most of their money from Google searches, which are not powered by OSS.
- wazoox 15y ago
  Not entirely powered by OSS. Google computers run Linux, many parts of Google infrastructure run on Python, etc.
  - cooldeal 15y ago
    Google got around the spirit of the GPL(there were no web apps when version 2 was written) by never releasing their custom kernel although they profit big time off Linux. The Affero GPL came too late to do any good.
    - wazoox 15y ago
      I'm all for AGPL myself, and this isn't about Google's spirit, but Google is undoubtly "powered by OSS", like it or not. You may label it as "profiteering from OSS" if you want, but you can't entirely throw the baby away with the bath water -- think or Android, Go, etc.
aklofas 15y ago
http://www.technobuffalo.com/internet/how-does-the-mozilla-foundation-make-money/ http://www.technobuffalo.com/internet/how-does-the-mozilla-f... While true, your claim that nobody makes money with open source is false. The classic business model of selling IP doesn't work anymore, but there are other models out there. Mozilla being one of them.
- davidw 15y ago
  I wrote about this a while ago: http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/02/03/in-thrall-to-scarcity http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/02/03/in-thrall-to-scarcity Open Source Software is not a scarce resource: you cannot sell it. Therefore, you have to sell something associated with it - developers' time, the right to integrate it with proprietary software, or things like that.
  - podperson 15y ago
    But in Stallman's world no proprietary software is allowed.
    - davidw 15y ago
      In that sort of world, certain kinds of software would be underproduced. Software by hackers for hackers would probably still exist, but why would you go to the trouble of making something user friendly to sell to people?
      - srdev 15y ago
        As I have an interest in video games, the all-FOSS-no-proprietary approach is particularly troublesome. You see very few indie games being done as FOSS, and pretty much zero high-quality big-production games. Proposals for a system of funding game development in a FOSS-only world are.... iffy at best. At worst, everyone makes MMORPGs.
- cooldeal 15y ago
  >The classic business model of selling IP doesn't work anymore, but there are other models out there. Mozilla being one of them. And iOS will be killed by Android anytime now. Right?
cooldeal 15y ago
Not sure how much the devs are paid if any, but the CEO was taking a cool 400K home every year. Their job was to diversify Mozilla so that it wouldn't depend totally on someone that was making a competing product, and utterly failing at that since multiple years. Last I heard, the IRS was investigating them for claiming deductions as a charitable foundation but funneling money to the Mozilla Corporation. They've only recently started concentrating on paying developers to reduce the memory leaks, bloat etc after Chrome started eating their lunch in a big way. How is this a poster child for a good way to develop good and useful software for the masses? In fact, it seems to exemplify the pitfalls and weakness in the model, if nothing else.
- aklofas 15y ago
  I have a couple of friends that work at Mozilla. They are indeed getting paid, have always gotten paid, and (in all likelihoods) will continue getting paid. You are probably referring to the Bugs for Cash thing they did. And a quick google search shows that, yes, mozilla has made good on that too. As for the IRS, they were auditing Mozilla's finances. And since when is there an implicit assumption of guilt in an audit?
- bzbarsky 15y ago
  > Not sure how much the devs are paid if any Well enough that they can hire a few hundred full-time people, apparently, yes? Including some people who should clearly have no shortage of other job offers (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Seward http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Seward ). > Last I heard, the IRS was investigating them The IRS is doing an audit (which is not the same thing as an investigation, by the way). The IRS is also auditing, right this second, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. In fact, last I checked, for companies like Apple or Microsoft they had full-time auditors assigned to them on an ongoing basis. As far as the memory leaks thing... That's a developer-driven project, like many other things at Mozilla. Most developers there are not paid to do a specific task; they're paid to do the right thing. Just like Google doesn't hire you for a particular project, by the way.

davidw 15y ago

> No one is still able to crack the make money while open sourcing something unless the tool is completely tangential to the way the company makes money That's not entirely true: things like dual licensing, and consulting work, but... it certainly is far more difficult than simply selling a product.

technomancy 15y ago
Depends who you're trying to sell to. It'd be incredibly difficult to sell non-free software to someone like me who values the ability to tweak things.
- davidw 15y ago
  I'm in the same category. I want free software because I love to be able to hack on stuff. However, I also don't pay a dime for it, at least in terms of cash. I try and 'pay back' bug reports, patches and the like. But we're in a tiny minority...

Helianthus 15y ago

Someone needed to keep an idea alive: that a developer's first duty is to freedom, even if presently they need to put food on the table. That's all Stallman needs to do, brandish the whip: "Stallman expects them to be."

brlewis 15y ago

No one is still able to crack the make money while open sourcing something unless the tool is completely tangential to the way the company makes money Countless consulting companies do that, but the biggest example is RedHat: http://investors.redhat.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=607350 http://investors.redhat.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=6073...

lloeki 15y ago

> No one is still able to crack the make money while open sourcing something unless the tool is completely tangential to the way the company makes money This might not be so much about making money as not losing some. Say you develop a product in Ruby and no fast XML parser exist but you need one. You could start development of such a library, and once it reached some maturity give it to the community, which in return will make all sorts of improvements (from code review to bug fixes to refactorings to translations, etc). Net result: you don't waste so much time on a critical dependency and can concentrate on your product, and so everyone moves forward.

mithaler 15y ago

To provide some context on his aims, Stallman sees money as a malign influence; he lives his own life cheaply so he can concentrate on what's important to him, not what money tells him to do. See this transcript: http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt http://www.gnu.org/events/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt Another thing that Microsoft, well, not just Microsoft, people who don't support free software generally adopt a value system in which the only thing that matters is short-term practical benefits: How much money am I going to make this year? What job can I get done today? Short-term thinking and narrow thinking. Their assumption is that it's ridiculous to imagine that anybody ever might make a sacrifice for the sake of freedom. Obviously, not everyone's priorities are aligned that way. I'm not sure to what extent he expects the same of other people. But I can at least see where he's coming from.

cooldeal 15y ago
For many, the money is not the end goal itself, It's about what you can accomplish with the money. This is a community based on startups, and the founders can identify with this. If they can make a little money on the initial product, they can take it to the next level and serve users better with the money by paying it to others. Make no money and your startup goes to die and no, it's very unlikely that a willing army of hackers will descend on your git if you open source it and make it better for you and others. Instead, you're more likely to get people who are trying to use it for free, and make you feel obligated to support it for them.
- aklofas 15y ago
  Sounds like someone is mad that his brilliant code didn't get the attention he thought it deserved. There, there. Sorry you're lonely. Maybe your code is just sht?

eliasmacpherson 15y ago

I disagree with the making money argument you make, look at rawmaterialsoftware.com and the JUCE library, look at John Carmack's FPS engine releases. You mentioned Redhat. All these businesses make money while at the same time releasing software under the GPL. I'm sure other users can contribute more examples.

Arelius 15y ago
If you are citing John Carmacks engine releases as a way to make money, then you must forget that both, his assets have never been free, and the engine has never been released as GPL while he has been making money off of the product. He is releasing historical code as GPL, which is a far cry from running a business on a truley "free" product.
- eliasmacpherson 15y ago
  I agree with you, it's a distinction worth making. The software makes money and then releases software as GPL after it has stopped making money. The GPL'd engines have had a secondary influence, increasing demand for future licences of his engine technology. So the act has made them money, just not as their primary source of income. It's not completely tangential to the way the company makes money.

gujk 15y ago

You might not like it, but Stallman's life illustrates his view on how to make a living from free software business: set your profit target at $50,000/yr per full time employee, instead of $100k or more, all the way up to CEO.