Towards A Real Business Model For Open-Source Software

[extofme]

hmm, i felt compelled to create an account specifically to reply to this thread, as i have been considering something similar for my own software endeavors.

the bottom line: it requires an experienced developer/team many person-months to create a quality product; time=money. the feel i get after reading 5 pages worth of comments, is that few have written a line of code in any language, let alone professionally for a company or themselves. if you want the best, latest, and absolute greatest that a development team has to offer, then offer some compensation for their energy. isn't that fair? don't we exchange money for everything else in our lives? software isn't any different.

i am an avid open source/FOSS supporter, and have used nearly 100% open software for many years; i enjoy spreading the good word to others. however, i believe in the rights of a person/group to assert ownership over something they've created.

FOSS (in the modern economic/social/governance paradigm) simply doesn't fit very well for certain categories of software, especially direct, end-user consumables. it works better for underlying, shared, component-like technologies such as libraries, platforms, protocols, etc. etc... anything that isn't as directly marketable and can be shared and disclosed across many companies with little impact on their individual top level products. grasp the fact that companies/developers need to recoup capital lost in development. this is why Apple has contributed to LLVM/Clang.

take a company like NoMachine. they produce an awesome library for efficient X server remote displays, like thin clients. the library is GPL i believe, but their IMPLEMENTATION using the library + additional features (their closed-source server) is not free. they use the money generated by the server product to fuel development of the library... which is now used by open projects like FreeNX and NeatX, both of which would not survive without the NoMachine's continued development of the underlying library.

i have developed professionally for several years, and am now a self employed developer. i am considering a similar process for an upcoming product of mine: the core product will be open, but some of the heavy lifting modules that do the really interesting stuff will not be open... at first anyway. similar to the author, i will release the modules after i've had a chance to recoup the costs by licencing it to companies.

in case no one bothered to read it, Sprewell posted a good link about the ghostscript author:

http://devlinux.org/deutsch-interview.html#sec12

there are several ways for closed and open source software to work TOGETHER, to create higher quality products on both sides of the fence, without being greedy and still being fair to all parties. a purely FOSS software industry is an unimplementable pipedream.

[Apopas]

I have to chuckle, "GPL the savior of all", yet meanwhile the most deployed database engine happens to be public domain.

Yeah, as you said "happens".

[kraftman]

some company can take their work, close the code, add some extra and/or proprietary things and sell, so the original project won't be able to compete.

Hmm, FreeBSD vs OS X?

[kraftman]

So how do Apple's contributions to LLVM/Clang fit in your world view?

License is only a part of success. Apple is interested in LLVM/Clang, so they contribute back, because if they help to make it better, it will better serve them. They don't have to contribute back while they're using BSD code. If there are two identical groups of developers and they're working on exactly the same projects (one is GPL and another one is BSD or similar) there are such possibilities (of course it's very simplified):

BSD project:

- advantages of Open Source development model,
- there's an option some companies which use their code will contribute back, but they don't have; some company can take their work, close the code, add some extra and/or proprietary things and sell, so the original project won't be able to compete.

GPL project:

- advantages of Open Source development model,
- companies which use their code have to contribute back/release modified code; if someone will take their work and make it better his better project will be available for the original authors and for the community.

@Deanjo

I have to chuckle, "GPL the savior of all", yet meanwhile the most deployed database engine happens to be public domain.

You missed the points.

[deanjo]

I have to chuckle, "GPL the savior of all", yet meanwhile the most deployed database engine happens to be public domain.

[yogi_berra]

This is why bsd sucks, because nobody has to give anything back to the community.

So how do Apple's contributions to LLVM/Clang fit in your world view?

[Apopas]

If you think BSD-licensing is just giving away your work, how is GPL any better? You think IBM cares whether they take your GPL work or BSD work? At least with the BSD license, anyone is free to close up sections and build a real business off the code:

1) BSD license: Take the code and do whataver you want with it.
2) GPL license: Take the code and do whataver you want with it as long as you keep it free.

To me the first one favours anarchy, while the second one fosters freedom.
Indeed with BSD you give away your work while with GPL you really share it.

[crazycheese]

Gentlemen, you may keep talking about GPL vs BSD, but you should know that BSD is dying, only because of its license!

It gets eaten from and not given back by Apple and co, as a milk cow.
It gets contributions in form of non-usable always-beta code, as a debugging platform!
Anything developed on BSD has strong chance to go into proprietary unpayed forever, may people prefer to ignore BSD because of this.

The s3x has become so strong, that OpenBSD even invented their Blob Song.
BSD is falling to the same fate as UNIX.
And GNU is Not Unix.

[crazycheese]

I'm sure Cisco, BestBuy, Samsung, Westinghouse, and the other SFLC lawsuit victims feel the same.

Yes, they should feel it even more. Those "patent owners" sue you to death, but why you drop a tear for them, when they steal?

Toshiba, LG and Philips show you the GPL license on 42" inch screen and do not steal. No problems!

Probably anarchy in sense that everyone can do what he want with bsd licensed software and where there aren't rules there's anarchy.

Exactly.
BSD: Bunch of proprietary masters making money on libraries debugged by students and community. BSD is just another lucrative possiblity to make more money on leasing licensed crap. This is just modern form of slavery on information. Payed money is nothing but patented cow milking.

GPL: Customers(I,you,them,IBM,NSA,etc) gather together on internet and set a goal. They put effort which is technology, time, money, skills all together to create the result they want. Everyone is free to fork and to upstream. This is decentric development that creates non-repetative code and insures it always stays accessible for futher evolution on similar conditions. This is modern form of application development. Payed money is used exactly to push features further.

GPL isnt comminist, this is very stupid analogy.

Information has different, mirrored nature compared material things.

Words are distributed by saying them again, sharing them. They extinguish if they stop being repeated. This is similar hat code, or anything intellectual is.

Apples are distributed by moving, but not copying. If one eats and apple other wont get it. They dont dissappear if left somewhere.

Apples(programmers, human resources) create words. Words help apples. The whole point of GPL is to connect this two worlds in a matter that none will get hurt by their different nature.

Only within GPL information stays information and human work stays human work. No intellectual products or communist activity.

[kraftman]

@KAMiKAZOW

My point was OS X isn't another *BSD. Cut OS X from quartz, graphic drivers, proprietary apps and then nothing interesting will remain.

Let me explain this. Nothing interesting will remain, because everything what will remain is already freely available. I believe the things which made an OS X popular (except marketing) are made by Apple.