6 ms·

There is no free software, only software that is paid for by somebody else.

24 points by asciilifeform 17y ago

pcof 17y ago
Oh, my. It is free as in "freedom", you idiot, not free as in "gratis", RMS would tell you. And he would be right. You've debunked only your own misunderstanding of the problem...
- mixmax 17y ago
  I think you misunderstood the point he's trying to make. Here's the conclusion of the article: The problem is that FOSS is part of an equation that has never been properly balanced. The other part of the equation is an economic one and one that has not been thought through. Instead ad hoc and unconvincing explanations have been floated for why FOSS makes money when in fact, as presently constituted, it so often does not and is parasitic on conventional capitalism or state money It's a rant about the economics of FOSS, not freedom. And you know what? He's right.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    There is a model that deals with this kind of problem, it's called the ransom model (not the most ideal name but it gets the point across nicely). It was used successfully on blender, the basic idea is you build what you have to build closed source, the risk is yours. And then when you've built up a following you set your ransom price, the price that has to be met for you to open up the source. If the product is any good I doubt it would be hard for the author to get his minimum wage and the world would be a better place. Free software, so many choices :)
    - mixmax 17y ago
      That's actually a really interesting model. Here's the Wikipedia entry on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system (redirect from ransom model) It's not free as in beer though.
  - BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
    Open source is a great thing, but I fear that it has led many to believe that they are entitled to the software (both the use and the source) they are using.
    - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
      You should have access to the source of the software you use, according to FOSS advocates.
      - BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
        You don't need access to the source. If you don't like how the software works, you have two options: (1) Don't buy the software, or (2) write new software. My point was that many people feel they have a right to the source code. It's not a right at all, no matter what Stallman says.
        lutorm 17y ago
        You do have a right to the source code if it's free software. Your argument is analogous to saying that the right to vote is not a right at all, because it only applies to democratic countries. There are no universal rights, yet there are rights.
        BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
        I wasn't talking about just open source software several posts up the chain. I intended the comment to mean that FOSS seems to be giving people the idea that ALL software should have viewable source.
        mixmax 17y ago
        That's a strawman argument. Of course you have a right to the code if it's free (as in freedom) software - that's the point!. If it isn't you don't. The parent was pointing out that many people feel that they have a right to the source of closed source software because of FOSS. Which they don't.
  - omail 17y ago
    pcof's point still stands. Freedom is about lowering barriers, barriers which cost money to otherwise bypass. FOSS provides off-the-shelf parts for software engineers. Even Microsoft has used FOSS code in Windows.
  - DarkShikari 17y ago
    No he isn't. If Company X gains $1,000,000 savings due to investing $700,000 in developing a piece of software, they have earned $300,000. Then, they open source the software, and improvements to it by outside contributors result in them saving another $500,000. Then, Company Y adopts the software and uses it to save $2,000,000. They improve it as well, which results in them saving another $500,000 and Company X saving another $300,000. Total profit: $3.8m Compare this to the alternative: Company X gains $1,000,000 savings due to investing $700,000 in developing a piece of software, they have earned $300,000. Then, they keep the software closed. No contributions are made by outside users. Then, Company Y writes their own version of the software for $700,000 and uses it to save $1,500,000, less because they don't have the improvements made by outside contributors. They don't have the logic from Company X to combine with theirs, so they don't improve it, and they don't save any extra money. Company X doesn't save money either, since they don't get anything back. Total profit: $1.1m Everyone involved made more money in the first situation than the second, despite Company X giving up their source code to be used by other companies as well. This works completely fine under existing systems and requires nobody to arbitrarily throw money at open source for no potential gain. Open source is the free-market solution to the problem of inefficiency due to competition--everyone implementing their own versions of software and in the end generating a worse result than if they had worked together.
    - mixmax 17y ago
      Another alternative is that a nimble startup creates a piece of software to solve the problem and sells it to 1000 companies at $10.000 a pop. This way the companies get their software even cheaper, and another beautiful startup is born. With a contrived example you can prove anything :-)
      - DarkShikari 17y ago
        Of course, but most of the time when software is created for an internal use, the company doesn't want to be in the business of selling said product.
        17y ago
tokenadult 17y ago
"Emacs was supported financially by people working at the MIT AI Lab, which means that it was funded by Uncle Sam. It was not invented by Richard Stallman contrary to popular myth, although he did grab the sources and improved them and tried successfully to claim as much credit as he could. It’s real cost in market terms was effectively many thousands of tax dollars and it was paid for as such by Joe Schmoe." This is an interesting bit of history. Is that a correct description of the history? How many other now "open source" projects began with that kind of initial taxpayer subsidy?
- bayareaguy 17y ago
  Although it contains some truth, I don't believe it accurately reflects history or Stallman's claims. jwz's[1] page on emacs history is more useful. 1- http://www.jwz.org/doc/emacs-timeline.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/emacs-timeline.html
- I_got_fifty 17y ago
  BRL-CAD. BSD. Bind. There are quite a lot of them, actually.
- evgen 17y ago
  Please go find a copy of Hackers by Steven Levy at the local library and read it. Yes, all of the core stuff done in the 60s through the 80s that most of us rely upon as the fundamental underpinnings of our craft were developed either at universities as (D)ARPA projects, or by a small handful of corporations like Ma Bell, DEC, Xerox, etc. By the mid to late 80s you could also add some government funded work out of European universities and labs (like this little thing called the world wide web that was created at CERN...)
- lutorm 17y ago
  But what kind of point is that? If it was really paid for by the taxpayers, it should be free (free as in free beer and free as in free speech) because it was funded by taxpayers. How is arguing that it should not be free any kind of solution to this (imagined) problem?
  - 17y ago
comice 17y ago
What an ass clown. So firstly, it's free as in freedom. We don't mean free as in cost. But secondly, if someone pays for some software to be developed and it solves their problem and then they give it away then it's truly free as in cost too. They paid money equivalent to the value they got from it, everyone else rides for free. And thirdly: ass clown.
- BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
  I'll refute you by asking a simple question. If you sell software that you originally designed for your own use, does it not have a value?
  - billswift 17y ago
    Free NEVER refers to value. Free refers to price. Also, free does not refer to cost - everything has a cost, even if only the opportunity cost of the time used making or acquiring the free software (or anything else free). Actually, the time acquiring and learning to use the software is why I still use MS software for a lot of things that aren't worth my time fiddling with.
    - BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
      It's been a long week. Normally, I would have busted someone's chops for the exact thing I did.
pingswept 17y ago
"There is no such thing as free software." This isn't true. It's just exaggerating to make a point. As a counterexample, http://pysolar.org http://pysolar.org. I wrote the code for free, because I wanted the experience. You can have it for $0 under the GPL. That's free software. The truth is more like: "Free software is often subsidized by governments or companies." But so what? So is proprietary software. With that revision, I don't see more than a poorly written rant.
- anatoly 17y ago
  What about the opportunity cost? You paid for this code with your time, which otherwise, if you felt like it, you presumably could have used to earn money. If your time is worthless, then indeed the code costs nothing; is it? That's the point the author's making.
  - pbhj 17y ago
    If he otherwise would have used the time to smoke dope and watch TV then arguably that tranche of time had 0 financial value associated with it. This assumes that he's equally recuperated by coding and so the coding doesn't impact the hours in which he is gainfully employed. Presumably you think that having a crap at a free public toilet is not free because it takes you time to do it.
  - lutorm 17y ago
    The key is "if you felt like it". He didn't, not because he felt his time is worthless but because he wrote it for himself and if it helps anyone else, well that's just making him happy for having helped someone. It's not arguing that it didn't cost anything. It's arguing that it's his choice whether he wants to cover his costs or give it away for free. If someone was forced to license their software under the GPL, then the author would have a point. But he doesn't.
  - pingswept 17y ago
    You're confusing the cost to you with the cost to me. You're correct that there was an opportunity cost for me to write the code. I spent a few hundred hours on it, when I might have been programming for money. Fair enough. But when we talk about whether software is free, the question is either how much is costs to use it (i.e. is it free as in beer?) or what license it uses (i.e is it free as in freedom?). In this case, the cost to you is $0-- free as in beer-- and the license is the GPL-- free as in freedom. (Perhaps we can omit the GPL vs. BSD argument here.) A better counter-argument might talk about the opportunity cost for you to use free software.
GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
He seems to be suggesting that the only economic model for software development is to sell it as a product. That might make sense if your business is selling software. The rest of us are in the business of designing websites, running universities and large enterprises, selling widgets etc. In other words, our business is making other kinds of stuff or just in providing services. In the course of running that business we need to use software. If there's free stuff (especially stuff that can be freely customized to fit my business) then great. If we improve it, we might give it back to the community and everyone benefits. Well, everyone, except that poor sap who's trying to sell the commercial software that doesn't benefit from the stream of incremental improvements that come from the community. Or maybe they've still got a better solution than the FOSS product. That's excellent and if they make money, more power to them! But there's nothing broken or wrong with the FOSS model and the writer doesn't offer much evidence to support his argument other than an anecdote about how Ubuntu from four years ago (!) didn't work for him. Sheesh.
omail 17y ago
This article is difficult to understand because it is written as a flamebait rather than an objective critique. Here is what I understand so far. His primary point is that for a FOSS project it is not easy to have it economically self-sustainable. I believe he is almost correct on this point and counter arguments exist elsewhere in this thread and on the internet. As for whether FOSS is useful or not or how to solve the problem described, he gives no suggestion. However, he does take many cheap shots at RMS and FOSS supporters. Anyhow, my counterpoint, which I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, is the contribution of FOSS is beyond direct monetary compensation. For organizations FOSS provides cheap, commoditized off-the-shelf parts for internal software projects. For consumers, FOSS allows independence from software producers and system lock-ins. These benefits are real in economic terms and can not simply be waved away.
- ewjordan 17y ago
  Further, the funding of a lot of free software has already taken place because a company needed to scratch its own itch. After that, the question is, "Does keeping this software closed source provide us a significant competitive advantage?" If the answer is "no," then there's really no point in not sharing the source. Anyone that thinks shrink-wrap sales of their pet Lisp dialect are going to make up the cornerstone of a viable business model is freaking deluded; these things are dime a dozen, and the market is next to non-existent. Pretty much all of the open source stuff that comes out of Google comes out for this reason; they're not in the software sales biz, so if they develop something neat that helps them get things done but is not core to their business, they give it away. Economically speaking it's neutral to positive for them (helps PR quite a bit, and gets programmers invested in the Google ecosystem), and positive for everyone else. My immediate response to the article: no shit, software takes time to write, even the most hardcore FOSS advocate wouldn't claim otherwise. But once those costs are funded (which they will be if you need the functionality yourself), if there's no money to be made by keeping the results a secret then you should be indifferent to opening it up. Yes, this means that FOSS is driven more by big companies than by basement programmers, because they generate a lot more code, but nobody ever claimed otherwise, except when constructing strawmen to knock down. I was going to bring up the obvious point that most of the Internet runs on FOSS software (convenient not to mention Apache in a rant like this, arguably the producers of the most successful FOSS in existence), but upon checking, I can't call him out for hypocrisy - check out any non-existent url (for instance, http://www.lambdassociates.org/doesnotexist http://www.lambdassociates.org/doesnotexist), at least he's actually drinking the Microsoft Kool-aid as he rails against the poor quality of open source.
Mz 17y ago
I am reminded of the saying in the military: Freedom isn't free. (I think Heinlein said it was paid for with the blood of patriots.) The article says his time is worth something, and that is a big part of his point: To get all this "free" stuff, you have to have some intelligent, capable person giving away skills and knowledge they could be making money for. I spent a lot of time giving away information. The information was valued but I wasn't making a cent. (In fact, I was paying for the privilege because of web hosting costs and domain names.) I've seen a number of websites that started with giving stuff away and when they became popular enough they turned into commercial ventures and you could no longer get free stuff from them. The websites basically became advertisements for the skills and products they were offering. I also know some very idealistic webmasters who basically are resentful of the time and energy they have spent on their projects and the fact that they aren't making much money, aren't getting the kind of recognition they crave, etc. At some point I decided I did not want that to be me -- and could no longer afford to follow in the footsteps of people like that. I still want to give information away for free but these days I also want to figure out how to make money at it. Since I am mainly looking to give information away, I think some of the traditional ways of monetizing that should work, such as advertising. I haven't (yet) spent any time pondering how one would make money from open source software. But it seems to me this is an issue that needs a good solution. As I see it, code is basically information and that's always been a tricky thing to effectively commodify.
- lutorm 17y ago
  But you are manufacturing a problem. If you don't think free software works for you, don't write it. Not everyone's a capitalist fanatic and feel like they must be "paid" for (in money) for everything they do. Like you say, plenty of people do volunteer work without any expectation of return apart from feeling like they've helped someone. How can you argue that this "needs a good solution"?
  - nova 17y ago
    A coherent capitalist fanatic wouln't like intellectual property at all!
  - 17y ago
Goladus 17y ago
Of course large, important projects require a certain amount of funding to succeed. I'm not sure where this is really disputed, I don't see the actual argument the author is railing against. Fedora Linux may not generate revenue directly, but it is an important component to the development of RHEL, which is the core component of Red Hat's highly successful business model. There are many, many, many organizations of all types all over the world that use different economic models to fund various different interests. I sing in a choir. We're a non-profit organization and raise money in a variety of ways to pay for music, a professional director, various instrument ensembles, venues to perform in, and people to record the concerts. The choir itself is auditioned, but all volunteer. We spend a few hours per week for fun because it enriches our lives, and as a result people get to come enjoy our concerts. Last spring we performed Mendelssohn's Elijah at Sanders Theater in Harvard Square. Unlikely to happen, but in theory the recording of that concert could become popular, and for a trivial cost via file sharing networks that performance could be listened to by 1 million people all over the world. Demand for those digital copies on that scale might average $0.001/per copy. Not worth it to try and charge for it anyway. But we aren't a business. There are a few people associated with the choir who are compensated for their work. They are highly trained and skilled and put in more than the typical 3 hours per week. The rest of us are not paid and in fact pay dues. Is it really that different from the way an OSS project might work? 2-3 key maintainers and a hundred other contributors averaging 3-ish hours per week? According to their website, WCVB-TV supports 484 non-profit organizations in the Boston area. http://cf.thebostonchannel.com/bos/sh/charity/front_charity.cfm http://cf.thebostonchannel.com/bos/sh/charity/front_charity.... There are many valid ways to fund software projects. Some of those projects turn out to be extremely successful and popular, and in many cases the Open Source nature of the product actually adds real value to end-users. Sure, there is some bad software, but I've used lots of bad software in my life, both free and not-free. The fact that people might be working without the compensation they might deserve in a perfectly balanced economic world is not really a big concern. That's life. It doesn't just apply to software, and the reverse is also true. It is most assuredly the case that some large companies are paying some programmers far more than they theoretically deserve for the software that company sells.
lutorm 17y ago
I suppose the author is one of the people that argue that everything should be paid for by a direct transaction. If I walk to the corner store to get a beer, I should pay for the use of the sidewalk because "someone paid to put it there". There are things that are better for everyone if the cost is borne by everyone. You could argue that because Linux or Emacs are free (as in beer), there's some sort of circumvention of capitalism going on that robs the economy. But how about the fact that thousands of people now can learn how to run a unix system and write program that would otherwise never have paid to do so? I believe there is a net benefit to society there, just like with publicly funded streets and publicly funded research. It induces activity which otherwise would not happen. Only the most fundamentalist capitalists would argue that common investments are never good, and this strikes me like the same kind of rant. And I'm sorry, but that doesn't convince me one bit.
Virax 17y ago
Here is my take on FOSS, I hope you find it interesting: * FOSS is great at very small number of things: C compiler (gcc), Operating system (Linux), programming languages (zillions), Apache, MySQL, and a few others. * FOSS is OK at a certain number of larger areas - relatively simple games (BzTank), office applications (Open Office) * FOSS is absolutely horrible at new product development. Anyone with a brain and a decent idea that SOME people MIGHT pay for can see that FOSS is inferior to all of these: * web-based subscription model * web-based advertising model * closed source shrinkwrap model * closed-source consulting model The only reason you would choose FOSS over these is you don't believe anyone would pay anything for what you want to make (but they might donate after using it). At this point, if you still choose to develop, then A) It is a hobby, and the only thing tying you to the project is your interest B) You can choose between freeware/shareware and FOSS The game Dwarf Fortress is a good example of freeware. The creators want to retain artistic control over their creation, so they release as closed source software. In conclusion, if you release source code, then: * others may improve the product, which benefits you because you are using it * you may lose artistic control due to fork pressure If you don't release source code, then: * you have to do all of the development yourself or through people you hire * you retain total control over the product Now you know!

24 points by asciilifeform 17y ago

pcof 17y ago

Oh, my. It is free as in "freedom", you idiot, not free as in "gratis", RMS would tell you. And he would be right. You've debunked only your own misunderstanding of the problem...

mixmax 17y ago
I think you misunderstood the point he's trying to make. Here's the conclusion of the article: The problem is that FOSS is part of an equation that has never been properly balanced. The other part of the equation is an economic one and one that has not been thought through. Instead ad hoc and unconvincing explanations have been floated for why FOSS makes money when in fact, as presently constituted, it so often does not and is parasitic on conventional capitalism or state money It's a rant about the economics of FOSS, not freedom. And you know what? He's right.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  There is a model that deals with this kind of problem, it's called the ransom model (not the most ideal name but it gets the point across nicely). It was used successfully on blender, the basic idea is you build what you have to build closed source, the risk is yours. And then when you've built up a following you set your ransom price, the price that has to be met for you to open up the source. If the product is any good I doubt it would be hard for the author to get his minimum wage and the world would be a better place. Free software, so many choices :)
  - mixmax 17y ago
    That's actually a really interesting model. Here's the Wikipedia entry on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system (redirect from ransom model) It's not free as in beer though.
- BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
  Open source is a great thing, but I fear that it has led many to believe that they are entitled to the software (both the use and the source) they are using.
  - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
    You should have access to the source of the software you use, according to FOSS advocates.
    - BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
      You don't need access to the source. If you don't like how the software works, you have two options: (1) Don't buy the software, or (2) write new software. My point was that many people feel they have a right to the source code. It's not a right at all, no matter what Stallman says.
      - lutorm 17y ago
        You do have a right to the source code if it's free software. Your argument is analogous to saying that the right to vote is not a right at all, because it only applies to democratic countries. There are no universal rights, yet there are rights.
        BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
        I wasn't talking about just open source software several posts up the chain. I intended the comment to mean that FOSS seems to be giving people the idea that ALL software should have viewable source.
        mixmax 17y ago
        That's a strawman argument. Of course you have a right to the code if it's free (as in freedom) software - that's the point!. If it isn't you don't. The parent was pointing out that many people feel that they have a right to the source of closed source software because of FOSS. Which they don't.
- omail 17y ago
  pcof's point still stands. Freedom is about lowering barriers, barriers which cost money to otherwise bypass. FOSS provides off-the-shelf parts for software engineers. Even Microsoft has used FOSS code in Windows.
- DarkShikari 17y ago
  No he isn't. If Company X gains $1,000,000 savings due to investing $700,000 in developing a piece of software, they have earned $300,000. Then, they open source the software, and improvements to it by outside contributors result in them saving another $500,000. Then, Company Y adopts the software and uses it to save $2,000,000. They improve it as well, which results in them saving another $500,000 and Company X saving another $300,000. Total profit: $3.8m Compare this to the alternative: Company X gains $1,000,000 savings due to investing $700,000 in developing a piece of software, they have earned $300,000. Then, they keep the software closed. No contributions are made by outside users. Then, Company Y writes their own version of the software for $700,000 and uses it to save $1,500,000, less because they don't have the improvements made by outside contributors. They don't have the logic from Company X to combine with theirs, so they don't improve it, and they don't save any extra money. Company X doesn't save money either, since they don't get anything back. Total profit: $1.1m Everyone involved made more money in the first situation than the second, despite Company X giving up their source code to be used by other companies as well. This works completely fine under existing systems and requires nobody to arbitrarily throw money at open source for no potential gain. Open source is the free-market solution to the problem of inefficiency due to competition--everyone implementing their own versions of software and in the end generating a worse result than if they had worked together.
  - mixmax 17y ago
    Another alternative is that a nimble startup creates a piece of software to solve the problem and sells it to 1000 companies at $10.000 a pop. This way the companies get their software even cheaper, and another beautiful startup is born. With a contrived example you can prove anything :-)
    - DarkShikari 17y ago
      Of course, but most of the time when software is created for an internal use, the company doesn't want to be in the business of selling said product.
      - 17y ago

tokenadult 17y ago

"Emacs was supported financially by people working at the MIT AI Lab, which means that it was funded by Uncle Sam. It was not invented by Richard Stallman contrary to popular myth, although he did grab the sources and improved them and tried successfully to claim as much credit as he could. It’s real cost in market terms was effectively many thousands of tax dollars and it was paid for as such by Joe Schmoe." This is an interesting bit of history. Is that a correct description of the history? How many other now "open source" projects began with that kind of initial taxpayer subsidy?

bayareaguy 17y ago
Although it contains some truth, I don't believe it accurately reflects history or Stallman's claims. jwz's[1] page on emacs history is more useful. 1- http://www.jwz.org/doc/emacs-timeline.html http://www.jwz.org/doc/emacs-timeline.html
I_got_fifty 17y ago
BRL-CAD. BSD. Bind. There are quite a lot of them, actually.
evgen 17y ago
Please go find a copy of Hackers by Steven Levy at the local library and read it. Yes, all of the core stuff done in the 60s through the 80s that most of us rely upon as the fundamental underpinnings of our craft were developed either at universities as (D)ARPA projects, or by a small handful of corporations like Ma Bell, DEC, Xerox, etc. By the mid to late 80s you could also add some government funded work out of European universities and labs (like this little thing called the world wide web that was created at CERN...)
lutorm 17y ago
But what kind of point is that? If it was really paid for by the taxpayers, it should be free (free as in free beer and free as in free speech) because it was funded by taxpayers. How is arguing that it should not be free any kind of solution to this (imagined) problem?
- 17y ago

comice 17y ago

What an ass clown. So firstly, it's free as in freedom. We don't mean free as in cost. But secondly, if someone pays for some software to be developed and it solves their problem and then they give it away then it's truly free as in cost too. They paid money equivalent to the value they got from it, everyone else rides for free. And thirdly: ass clown.

BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
I'll refute you by asking a simple question. If you sell software that you originally designed for your own use, does it not have a value?
- billswift 17y ago
  Free NEVER refers to value. Free refers to price. Also, free does not refer to cost - everything has a cost, even if only the opportunity cost of the time used making or acquiring the free software (or anything else free). Actually, the time acquiring and learning to use the software is why I still use MS software for a lot of things that aren't worth my time fiddling with.
  - BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
    It's been a long week. Normally, I would have busted someone's chops for the exact thing I did.

pingswept 17y ago

"There is no such thing as free software." This isn't true. It's just exaggerating to make a point. As a counterexample, http://pysolar.org http://pysolar.org. I wrote the code for free, because I wanted the experience. You can have it for $0 under the GPL. That's free software. The truth is more like: "Free software is often subsidized by governments or companies." But so what? So is proprietary software. With that revision, I don't see more than a poorly written rant.

anatoly 17y ago
What about the opportunity cost? You paid for this code with your time, which otherwise, if you felt like it, you presumably could have used to earn money. If your time is worthless, then indeed the code costs nothing; is it? That's the point the author's making.
- pbhj 17y ago
  If he otherwise would have used the time to smoke dope and watch TV then arguably that tranche of time had 0 financial value associated with it. This assumes that he's equally recuperated by coding and so the coding doesn't impact the hours in which he is gainfully employed. Presumably you think that having a crap at a free public toilet is not free because it takes you time to do it.
- lutorm 17y ago
  The key is "if you felt like it". He didn't, not because he felt his time is worthless but because he wrote it for himself and if it helps anyone else, well that's just making him happy for having helped someone. It's not arguing that it didn't cost anything. It's arguing that it's his choice whether he wants to cover his costs or give it away for free. If someone was forced to license their software under the GPL, then the author would have a point. But he doesn't.
- pingswept 17y ago
  You're confusing the cost to you with the cost to me. You're correct that there was an opportunity cost for me to write the code. I spent a few hundred hours on it, when I might have been programming for money. Fair enough. But when we talk about whether software is free, the question is either how much is costs to use it (i.e. is it free as in beer?) or what license it uses (i.e is it free as in freedom?). In this case, the cost to you is $0-- free as in beer-- and the license is the GPL-- free as in freedom. (Perhaps we can omit the GPL vs. BSD argument here.) A better counter-argument might talk about the opportunity cost for you to use free software.

GiraffeNecktie 17y ago

He seems to be suggesting that the only economic model for software development is to sell it as a product. That might make sense if your business is selling software. The rest of us are in the business of designing websites, running universities and large enterprises, selling widgets etc. In other words, our business is making other kinds of stuff or just in providing services. In the course of running that business we need to use software. If there's free stuff (especially stuff that can be freely customized to fit my business) then great. If we improve it, we might give it back to the community and everyone benefits. Well, everyone, except that poor sap who's trying to sell the commercial software that doesn't benefit from the stream of incremental improvements that come from the community. Or maybe they've still got a better solution than the FOSS product. That's excellent and if they make money, more power to them! But there's nothing broken or wrong with the FOSS model and the writer doesn't offer much evidence to support his argument other than an anecdote about how Ubuntu from four years ago (!) didn't work for him. Sheesh.

omail 17y ago

This article is difficult to understand because it is written as a flamebait rather than an objective critique. Here is what I understand so far. His primary point is that for a FOSS project it is not easy to have it economically self-sustainable. I believe he is almost correct on this point and counter arguments exist elsewhere in this thread and on the internet. As for whether FOSS is useful or not or how to solve the problem described, he gives no suggestion. However, he does take many cheap shots at RMS and FOSS supporters. Anyhow, my counterpoint, which I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, is the contribution of FOSS is beyond direct monetary compensation. For organizations FOSS provides cheap, commoditized off-the-shelf parts for internal software projects. For consumers, FOSS allows independence from software producers and system lock-ins. These benefits are real in economic terms and can not simply be waved away.

ewjordan 17y ago
Further, the funding of a lot of free software has already taken place because a company needed to scratch its own itch. After that, the question is, "Does keeping this software closed source provide us a significant competitive advantage?" If the answer is "no," then there's really no point in not sharing the source. Anyone that thinks shrink-wrap sales of their pet Lisp dialect are going to make up the cornerstone of a viable business model is freaking deluded; these things are dime a dozen, and the market is next to non-existent. Pretty much all of the open source stuff that comes out of Google comes out for this reason; they're not in the software sales biz, so if they develop something neat that helps them get things done but is not core to their business, they give it away. Economically speaking it's neutral to positive for them (helps PR quite a bit, and gets programmers invested in the Google ecosystem), and positive for everyone else. My immediate response to the article: no shit, software takes time to write, even the most hardcore FOSS advocate wouldn't claim otherwise. But once those costs are funded (which they will be if you need the functionality yourself), if there's no money to be made by keeping the results a secret then you should be indifferent to opening it up. Yes, this means that FOSS is driven more by big companies than by basement programmers, because they generate a lot more code, but nobody ever claimed otherwise, except when constructing strawmen to knock down. I was going to bring up the obvious point that most of the Internet runs on FOSS software (convenient not to mention Apache in a rant like this, arguably the producers of the most successful FOSS in existence), but upon checking, I can't call him out for hypocrisy - check out any non-existent url (for instance, http://www.lambdassociates.org/doesnotexist http://www.lambdassociates.org/doesnotexist), at least he's actually drinking the Microsoft Kool-aid as he rails against the poor quality of open source.

Mz 17y ago

I am reminded of the saying in the military: Freedom isn't free. (I think Heinlein said it was paid for with the blood of patriots.) The article says his time is worth something, and that is a big part of his point: To get all this "free" stuff, you have to have some intelligent, capable person giving away skills and knowledge they could be making money for. I spent a lot of time giving away information. The information was valued but I wasn't making a cent. (In fact, I was paying for the privilege because of web hosting costs and domain names.) I've seen a number of websites that started with giving stuff away and when they became popular enough they turned into commercial ventures and you could no longer get free stuff from them. The websites basically became advertisements for the skills and products they were offering. I also know some very idealistic webmasters who basically are resentful of the time and energy they have spent on their projects and the fact that they aren't making much money, aren't getting the kind of recognition they crave, etc. At some point I decided I did not want that to be me -- and could no longer afford to follow in the footsteps of people like that. I still want to give information away for free but these days I also want to figure out how to make money at it. Since I am mainly looking to give information away, I think some of the traditional ways of monetizing that should work, such as advertising. I haven't (yet) spent any time pondering how one would make money from open source software. But it seems to me this is an issue that needs a good solution. As I see it, code is basically information and that's always been a tricky thing to effectively commodify.

lutorm 17y ago
But you are manufacturing a problem. If you don't think free software works for you, don't write it. Not everyone's a capitalist fanatic and feel like they must be "paid" for (in money) for everything they do. Like you say, plenty of people do volunteer work without any expectation of return apart from feeling like they've helped someone. How can you argue that this "needs a good solution"?
- nova 17y ago
  A coherent capitalist fanatic wouln't like intellectual property at all!
- 17y ago

Goladus 17y ago

Of course large, important projects require a certain amount of funding to succeed. I'm not sure where this is really disputed, I don't see the actual argument the author is railing against. Fedora Linux may not generate revenue directly, but it is an important component to the development of RHEL, which is the core component of Red Hat's highly successful business model. There are many, many, many organizations of all types all over the world that use different economic models to fund various different interests. I sing in a choir. We're a non-profit organization and raise money in a variety of ways to pay for music, a professional director, various instrument ensembles, venues to perform in, and people to record the concerts. The choir itself is auditioned, but all volunteer. We spend a few hours per week for fun because it enriches our lives, and as a result people get to come enjoy our concerts. Last spring we performed Mendelssohn's Elijah at Sanders Theater in Harvard Square. Unlikely to happen, but in theory the recording of that concert could become popular, and for a trivial cost via file sharing networks that performance could be listened to by 1 million people all over the world. Demand for those digital copies on that scale might average $0.001/per copy. Not worth it to try and charge for it anyway. But we aren't a business. There are a few people associated with the choir who are compensated for their work. They are highly trained and skilled and put in more than the typical 3 hours per week. The rest of us are not paid and in fact pay dues. Is it really that different from the way an OSS project might work? 2-3 key maintainers and a hundred other contributors averaging 3-ish hours per week? According to their website, WCVB-TV supports 484 non-profit organizations in the Boston area. http://cf.thebostonchannel.com/bos/sh/charity/front_charity.cfm http://cf.thebostonchannel.com/bos/sh/charity/front_charity.... There are many valid ways to fund software projects. Some of those projects turn out to be extremely successful and popular, and in many cases the Open Source nature of the product actually adds real value to end-users. Sure, there is some bad software, but I've used lots of bad software in my life, both free and not-free. The fact that people might be working without the compensation they might deserve in a perfectly balanced economic world is not really a big concern. That's life. It doesn't just apply to software, and the reverse is also true. It is most assuredly the case that some large companies are paying some programmers far more than they theoretically deserve for the software that company sells.

lutorm 17y ago

I suppose the author is one of the people that argue that everything should be paid for by a direct transaction. If I walk to the corner store to get a beer, I should pay for the use of the sidewalk because "someone paid to put it there". There are things that are better for everyone if the cost is borne by everyone. You could argue that because Linux or Emacs are free (as in beer), there's some sort of circumvention of capitalism going on that robs the economy. But how about the fact that thousands of people now can learn how to run a unix system and write program that would otherwise never have paid to do so? I believe there is a net benefit to society there, just like with publicly funded streets and publicly funded research. It induces activity which otherwise would not happen. Only the most fundamentalist capitalists would argue that common investments are never good, and this strikes me like the same kind of rant. And I'm sorry, but that doesn't convince me one bit.

Virax 17y ago

Here is my take on FOSS, I hope you find it interesting: * FOSS is great at very small number of things: C compiler (gcc), Operating system (Linux), programming languages (zillions), Apache, MySQL, and a few others. * FOSS is OK at a certain number of larger areas - relatively simple games (BzTank), office applications (Open Office) * FOSS is absolutely horrible at new product development. Anyone with a brain and a decent idea that SOME people MIGHT pay for can see that FOSS is inferior to all of these: * web-based subscription model * web-based advertising model * closed source shrinkwrap model * closed-source consulting model The only reason you would choose FOSS over these is you don't believe anyone would pay anything for what you want to make (but they might donate after using it). At this point, if you still choose to develop, then A) It is a hobby, and the only thing tying you to the project is your interest B) You can choose between freeware/shareware and FOSS The game Dwarf Fortress is a good example of freeware. The creators want to retain artistic control over their creation, so they release as closed source software. In conclusion, if you release source code, then: * others may improve the product, which benefits you because you are using it * you may lose artistic control due to fork pressure If you don't release source code, then: * you have to do all of the development yourself or through people you hire * you retain total control over the product Now you know!