Making Money In Open Source

Khalid writes "An interview with Sleepycat President and CEO, Michael Olson, it brings a lot of interesting information about their business model and licensing scheme. A lot of good ideas, when a lot of open source based companies are struggling for life. "

Comments

We need a better way to keep open source alive

[Anonymous Coward]

There has to be a way to keep open source on the "bleeding edge" instead of alwasy playing catachup to M$

Shortpier

10 mins, Bill Gates, A baseball bat
(what I want for X-mas)

Re:We need a better way to keep open source alive

[Anonymous Coward]

A little fanatical with your sig, eh?

Step 1 - Choose a good name

[Unknown Bovine Group]

Lets see, I can invest my money in US Tech Products Inc, or Sleepycat....

One sounds like an industrious source of technology, the other like something in my daughter's sticker book.

Hey, at least it's better than Cue:Cat.

Re:Step 1 - Choose a good name

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that mean if I set up a ponzi company called US United Computer Technologies, you would invest???

Shit, if only I'd have known, I wouldn't have called my company porn.com.

Re:Step 1 - Choose a good name

[Anonymous Coward]

if only I'd have known, I wouldn't have called my company porn.com

I'd invest in that. Seeing as porn sites are the only ones (besides the hard goods sellers) that have ever made real money, it seems like a pretty good investment!

Re:Step 1 - Choose a good name

[sgups]

Well umm the guy said they dont have any outside money and they depend solely on revenues...
Plus umm Red Hat or Mandrake arent exactly techy sounding names, if thats your criterion for investment anyways

Funny that...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really difficult to understand why someone couldn't make money selling Open Source software. The source is available for anyone to see and anyone who receives it has license to redistribute it as much as they want and for any price they decide (even free!).

Why oh why can't those companies make a profit?

Re:Funny that...

[SuperGordito]

Charging for service and support, take a look at IBM

Re:Funny that...

[OSgod]

Is it significant that IBM is not really a foundry but is making their money off of other source code they can re-distribute and charge people to customize?

If someone else does 99% of the work, you get to take their source and charge a hefty chunk to implement and modify it -- the business model works for you.

If you are going to write the first 99% and earn little or nothing other than the thrill of development alone -- all those late nights to produce a product that will have your name on it in the source code which the users won't see or care about -- after all it's an IBM solution.

Re:Funny that...

[TheRealSlimShady]

Charging for proprietary hardware more like. Vendor lock-in is no less a problem in the hardware world...

Money, dont care

[Anonymous Coward]

Chritian stamitz writes

/*the Open-Source movement has never been better situated to be the leader in Middleware development both within the enterprise and throughout the world. Industry players such as IBM are now looking to our movement to help set standards and define trends and new technology opportunities. It's time that we as a community step forward and begin living up to our billing.*/

Industry isn't that important for development. If it contributes money, it's okay. If it contributes code, even better.
We have to separete two important parts of Linux/Open Source:

1. Open Source or the Internet as a business model
-> short time exspectations were to high
2. Open Source or the internet as a self developing, fast growing plattform, despite of the fact, whether you can earn money with.

In some areas the growing utility of the Internet and Open Source products even leads to a crash of traditional industrys withour loss.

But from a economic point of view, companys and capitalism is just an instrument to get public supply.

So I am less interested in the benefit of companys, but in the benefit of myself.

Cstamitz@

Re:Money, dont care

[mpe]

Open Source or the Internet as a business model

Except that these arn't business models any more than chemistry, mathematics, jet engines or telephones are "business models".

Re:Let me see..

[sharkey]

You don't have to humor me, Marge.
Well, it's pretty ingrained.

read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[jukal]

I don't think there is any magic in it.
If it's a COMPANY it need to be run like a COMPANY. A BUSINESS.

In my opinion the fall of many opensource based "companies" has been the fact that they never were COMPANIES - but instead a collection of enthusiastic nerds.

Opensource is not the complete answer for a company strategy unless you are planning to eat rice for the lest of your life.

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[jukal]

Shouldn't that be "eat rice for the lest of your rife"?
heh :)

You mean: flirty coffeehouse reiterator ? or want to shortly officiate route reefer?

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[FortKnox]

How true, how true.

Most dot-coms failed because of a bad business plan.
Why? Cause the management were a bunch of nerds that had no experience with business plans.

Not to mention trying to convince a tech-savvy management team to use open source vs. proprietary is hard enough.

Also notice, that if you talk to an open source company's CEO, he'll have great ideas on how open source can make money in theory. But what open source companies have made money in practice???

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[John Hankok]

This is not true. My company creates open-source software and we are truly thriving. We use primarily linux-based pc's and create software for Universities and are beginning to target the private-sector.

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[jthill]

But what open source companies have made money in practice???

You didn't even read the interview, did you?

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHAHAHaHaHaHaHahahahahahahahah!!!!!

Thanks, I haven't had a laugh like that in a long time :-).

I know quite a few high school kids I'd trust in a _heartbeat_ over quite a few ....uh.... "professional" programmers who don't give a damn.

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[Anonymous Coward]

You're 18 years old and in college. I doubt you know what it means for a business to be thriving.

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[Anonymous Coward]

$5,000 says you're in high school tops, possibly middle school.

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[Erris]

Opensource is not the complete answer for a company strategy unless you are planning to eat rice for the lest of your life.

Well, it's not a bad start for a consulting firm.

Lou lust leek lith a lisp, "Lopen soulce is not the complete answel fah a compny stlategy unless you ah planning to leet lice fah the REST of yah life." Is is Boston or Tokyo? I say better English is spoken in Tokyo. You be the judge.

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[jukal]

Well, it's not a bad start for a consulting firm.

Eating rice or building the company on opensource? I think that they are not a start for anything. Well, maybe diarrea. IMHO opensource is just a tool and potentially one strategic selection amongst many others.

You could as well have said that hammer and nails are a good start for a construction firm.

Does anyone see my point. You aim somewhere and then select tools to reach the goals. Opensource is the hammer.

I say better English is spoken in Tokyo. You be the judge.

Heh, no doubt. And you have not yet even been tortured by my finnish accent.

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[NullAndVoid]

Most dot-coms failed because of a bad business plan. Why? Cause the management were a bunch of nerds that had no experience with business plans.

Really? Most of the dot.coms I personally dealt with were run by MBA's who spent a great deal of time on spiffy business plans, backed with spreadsheets with hockey-stick shaped revenue projections, and glossy power point presentations.

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[jsse]

Why? Cause the management were a bunch of nerds that had no experience with business plans.

That's not entirely true. You've to produce business plans and financial forcast to get money from VC(s); and if they think you aren't good enough be the CEO, or you do not have qualified management layer, they will get you a CEO, and some managerment dudes.

Yes, you heard me right, get you a CEO. A CEO you've never met, and s/he will have handsome lot of stock options. Don't feel bad about it, you can bargain for better share, depends on th amount of money you ask from VCs.

VCs should take responsible for funding lunatic ideas. But hell, they've lots of money to go wrong. :D

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[mpe]

Most of the dot.coms I personally dealt with were run by MBA's who spent a great deal of time on spiffy business plans, backed with spreadsheets with hockey-stick shaped revenue projections, and glossy power point presentations.

Except that these were more nice illusions to cover the lack of an actual business plan.
A business plan is exactly what it says a plan to operate a business. What you are describing is a nice presentation/advertisment. If there is nothing behind the presentation then it really dosn't matter how good that presentation is...

Re:read carefully: opensource based _COMPANIES_

[Anonymous Coward]

$10,000 says you don't work in a Software House

Hold on a minute...

[SumDeusExMachina]

...isn't the title an oxymoron?

Now, before you mod me down for disagreeing with the Slashdot groupthink, let me explain my statement. Don't you think the hundreds of failing Linux companies would have put at least a decent sized sum into hiring consultants to find out the most workable open source business plans?

Don't get me wrong, I think the ideas they present here sound great! It's just that, like Communism, it only looks good on paper, without working out in the real world. Surely, if it was this easy, VA Research^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HLinux^H^H^H^H^HSoftware would have already put these into action and they wouldn't be on the edge of being delisted from NASDAQ.

Re:Hold on a minute...

[ethereal]

put at least a decent sized sum into hiring consultants

Mistake number one :)

Re:Hold on a minute...

[Voidhobo]

The top five hundred corporations controlled forty-two percent of the world's wealth.

Whoa.

A lot like TrollTech

[update()]

Their plan seems to be a lot like TrollTech's -- they dual license their library under a GPL-like license and a for-money license. They reap the benefits of open source (wide distribution, many eyes, contributions back) but make money from companies that don't want to free their own products.

Now that the megalomania, greed and excess of the Linux boom days has disappeared, it's clear that raising a mountain of money from VC's and an IPO and overthrowing Microsoft and Oracle isn't the way to succeed for a free software developer. On the other hand, growing at a reasonable rate, living off revenues and (duh) making a really good product like Qt or BerkeleyDB can make you a nice living.

Re:A lot like TrollTech

[Anonymous Coward]

...or Ghostscript/GhostView or Sendmail or listproc or Borland (Delphi, Interbase) or... they work/are working the same way.

Re:A lot like TrollTech

[Khalid]

For Delphi only CLX (which is VCL, the Delphi basic components for Linux) is GPL http://freeclx.sourceforge.net/, the IDE is closed source. Interbase is an MPL like license.

They did not say several important things:

[einhverfr]

1: Can I copy some source code of Berkelydb into my BSD-licensed app? Based on the interview, I don't think I can without restricting derivative works.

2: If Sleepycat decides never to release another OSS version, can I continue to develop their last version? Again, the interview makes this unclear and seems to give a tentative "no," but the license seems to imply that I can.

They have also said that the license is not GLP compatible, so these are real questions.

Re:They did not say several important things:

[update()]

I'm not a license enthusiast, let alone a lawyer, but my ignorant guess is:

1: No, just like you can't reuse GPL code under the (less restrictive / more Free depending on which camp you belong to) BSD license.

2: Reading the license I don't see why not.

3: He says in the interview, "Both Sleepycat and the Free Software Foundation have looked hard at the two licenses, and we agree that the Sleepycat license is compatible with the GPL."

Re:They did not say several important things:

[technos]

What always seems to surprise me is the total lack of 'talking'.

"Gee, I'd really like to use SpamFooOODBMSRTC in my project. But Alas! It is GPL and I'm stuck to BSD!"

Why not drop the developer/company an email?
"Hey! I've got this great FourthGenerationDiscoBobulatingDooHickey! It would work great with your SpamFooOODBMSRTC!! How can we arrange to do it? Can you grant me a different license that would work? Y'know, dual licensing? Is there some way I can add or use an exposed API and not need to redistribute your source? Can I get some old source under a different license? Mabye you can just promise, as copyright holder, not to sue my ass off?? I promise I will give you the changes I make under whatever your license is."

Why don't more companies do this?

[the_rev_matt]

I have worked on several open source projects that likely could have gotten some funding (not VC crap or marketing dollars, just pay for some additional work/documentation/support) but never made the effort. I'm now working with some friends on an interesting system that we plan on doing just this sort of thing with.

I especially liked the comment...

[tonyc.com]

...toward the end of the interview, where Olson states that more people know now about open source and the GPL than ever before, but also that they're almost all scared to death of it.

I suppose that's the basic difference: With Micro$oft, you know they're out to get you; with open source, you're never sure <g>.

Making "money" vs "a living"

[j-beda]

OFten it seems to me as though when people talk about "making money" in Open Source (or in other contexts) they seem to be talking about "making shitloads of money", often with the idea of not doing much work.

Maybe we should refocus our attention on making "reasonable" or "sufficient" amounts of money. Statistically speaking, in most fields, nobody makes the bigs bucks.

In sports there are many many minor league players just scraping by for each major league bazzillionaire. In business, most places are small mom-and-pop (more than 50% of the US ecconomy?) compared to the relatively few McDonalds out there. Maybe Open Source is a bit different in that it is virtually impossible for there to be even this many (or any?) BIG winners - but that doesn't mean that everyone is thus forced to be a "looser".

It seems as though there are lots of opportunity for making a living with creation, support, etc. of Open Source solutions to various people's problems. And in fact there are a lot of people making decent livings providing those services.

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[Arandir]

In business, most places are small mom-and-pop (more than 50% of the US ecconomy?) compared to the relatively few McDonalds out there.

Last I checked, which was five years ago, 90% of private sector jobs in the US are provided by business employing twenty or fewer employees (mom-and-pops). This included independent franchises (including the few independent McDonald franchises), but did not include and corporate owned or operated stores.

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[Zico]

I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself. Except for maybe a few nutcases, who has ever claimed that OSS companies would be making money hand-over-fist? The doubters among us don't scoff at them because they're not making Microsoft-type megabucks, we scoff at the naïve faith that business newbies have in such a shaky and unproven (and seemingly failing) business model.

Who is giving them crap for raking in billions? Nobody is, and it would be a strawman argument to claim that people are doing that. What some of us are giving them crap for is that for the most part, they can't even bring in more money than they spend. We're talking about the inability to make just a simple profit here, not vast riches.

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, that should read, "Who is giving them crap for NOT raking in billions?" So much for previewing my post...

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[j-beda]

I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself. Except for maybe a few nutcases, who has ever claimed that OSS companies would be making money hand-over-fist?

I think that a large part of the various company failures is that the company participants seem to think that they would be making money hand-over-fist, and based on that made some pretty piss-poor business decisions.

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to work on open source software for a living, and I don't need a truckload of cash.

However, I expect to get approximately the same amount of money as I get for working on non-open source software.

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[Elbow Macaroni]

There are a lot more companies out there making silly decisions than their are companies making good decisions. Maybe the OpenSource software has nothing to do with their problems.

OpenSource is really just extending out computing power, it's like someone somewhere saying, "Okay I trust you to be intelligent enough to be able to change the programming if you want to."

Bill Gates should have known better that we are smart enough to change our own software.

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[NineNine]

Exactly. Me too. That's exactly why I don't develop anything OSS. College kids don't seem to realize that once you have mortgage payments and a family (ie: once you grow up), that OSS is no longer fun or 'kewl'.

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[Junks Jerzey]

OFten it seems to me as though when people talk about "making money" in Open Source (or in other contexts) they seem to be talking about "making shitloads of money", often with the idea of not doing much work.

No, not really. Even a company of 25 people may need more than US$100,000 a _month_ just to pay their employees, cover rent and electricity, and so on. So to keep such a business going, you've got to at least pull in 1.2 million a year, after taxes.

Considering that many dot-coms weren't pulling in *any* income, this is very significant. You really need a good, solid, and somewhat sizable income just to keep afloat. Most of the responses in this thread are from college students thinking "I only need $500 a month to get by," and not thinking in terms of what's involved in a real business. And the question then becomes "How can I use Open Source to pull in 1.2 million a year, just so I can stay in business? That's a tough question.

Re:Making "money" vs "a living"

[Anonymous Coward]

Writing open source software while employed at RedHat for the past 4 years has ensured that I never have to work again. Even though I sold less than half my shares at WELL under the peak (doh).

How's that little porn site working out for ya?

Catch up?

[sterno]

So when was the last time you heard about somebody building something like a beowulf cluster out of Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP boxes?

It lags in some areas I grant you but it isn't all catch up.

Re:Catch up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beowulf clusters are playing catch-up to VMS clusters.

Seriously, I challenge all to name an innovation in GNU software or the Linux kernel. Half credits for ideas well-known but not implemented outside research systems.

Re:Catch up?

[Anonymous Coward]

emacs?

Re:Catch up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Free labor.

making money?

[Lxy]

It's easy to make money in open source. First, grab Freemoney

[root@localhost freemoney_0.02]$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/
[root@localhost freemoney_0.02]$ make
[root@localhost freemoney_0.02]$ make install

That wasn't so hard now, was it?

Making money is hard to do

[snoozerdss]

If you look at many examples it's hard as hell to make money with open source. On the other hand it's alot easier to SAVE money with open source. For example switching over to linux servers like mentioned in that recent slashdot article. Switching applications over to open source as well. I can see people saving money with open source but making money, well thats easier said then done.

Re:Making money is hard to do

[j-beda]

But if OS software can save a company money, then there is some value to the company in supporting the development of that software. So that company (say GM for example) might hire some programmers to fix up some critical part of OpenOffice, or maye send some money to some central clearing house that supports OSS projects. This type of behaviour would make some money for the OSS programmers, even if it doesn't create any huge OSS company.

A consultant who can save a company $X should be able to make a living by charging such companies $Y for doing so, as long as Y < X

Location, Location, Location...

[imrdkl]

Yup, those Apache configuration directives can really help...

I guess profitability from day one is a plus too.

This is encouraging. And it's good ol' C code... Killer apps still use pointers!

Let's hear it for...

[Anonymous Coward]

diminuitive members!!

You are right

[einhverfr]

Most OSS companies don't know how to run a business because the paradigm and rules of the game are too different. Look at Caldera, for example. There is a company which seems bent on selling Linux as if it were proprietary software, which looks like the safe choice to the novice, but really provides the worst of both worlds...

The real problem facing OSS companies is that the rules of the game are so different than they are for proprietary software companies. You cannot make your money on licensing because if you try to do that, your competition makes a cheaper clone. OSS commoditizes the software market.

I think that companies like Sleepycat are honestly trying to find out how to make money in a commoditized world, but I think they will have to transiton into another mode. Repeat after me: "You cannot make money selling open source software that you develop yourself." The market is simply too competitive.

What more companies need to do is offer tailored services, utilizing open source software to produce less expensive, more competitive packages of services. Of course, then you are competing with IBM, etc. but I suspect that this is EXACTLY why IBM is starting to move more open source.

Re:You are right

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think that companies like Sleepycat are honestly trying to find out how to make money in a commoditized world, but I think they will have to transiton into another mode. Repeat after me: "You cannot make money selling open source software that you develop yourself." The market is simply too competitive.

You read the article, right? Sleepycat's doing fine, and looks to be doing finer. They seem to have put a lot of business-though into making their license-based plan work, and so far, so good.

When/why would they need to change to another model?..

Re:You are right

[Z4rd0Z]

You cannot make your money on licensing because if you try to do that, your competition makes a cheaper clone.

That is what they're doing, however. They have a dual licensing scheme that allows customers to incorporate the db software into proprietary products. They are targetting the embedded market, where companies usually do not want to release their source code. You're right, though, if someone came along and made a BSD licensed clone, that would probably kill them. However, if they make the best available product for the price, they will probably continue to make money. It sounds like they have something good going, they have made profits without any outside investors since they began and have continued to grow. They have only 13 employees. This is quite different from failed companies like Eazel that got tons of venture capital and blew it all in one shot. They're making money on their merits, not on open source hype.

Making money in Open Source?

[cibrPLUR]

It's easy.

Phase 1: Steal the Underpants.
Phase 2: ?.
Phase 3: Profit!

It's a cultural thing...

[sterno]

A large number of americans have a lottery mentality that they are always looking for some way to make lots of money with little effort. All of the economic bubbles have been built on this tendancy. The dot com boom and the related boom in VC funding for open source was all about getting the big payment without doing the hard work. When the dust settled turned out a lot of those companies didn't have a clue and died.

I think there's a lot of money to be made on open source, but that's spread out over a lot of people. Support, custom development, integration, lots of useful stuff that isn't sexy and isn't going to make anybody fabulously rich but is valuable and will provide a more than adequate living for a lot of people.

I think if anything open source is a big bomb shell for the whole notion of making the big money. A lot of companies who got cozy making proprietary software, charging huge license fees and then selling exhorbitant support contracts on top of that are in for a big wake up call. When everybody can have access to the code you don't need to be addicted to one vendor. That breeds competition, and competition drives down prices. Those companies that can provide the best services for the best prices and can create the best brand will be the ones collecting the money in the future but because they necessarily must be efficient it won't be the really big money.

Re:It's a cultural thing...

[BluedemonX]

If you see what they charge for rent and/or real estate around here, you'd understand why. The only way I'd ever be able to afford my own home is to either win the lottery or invest in the next Amazon.com at $2 a share before it goes through the roof...

Re:It's a cultural thing...

[j-beda]

The only way I'd ever be able to afford my own home is to either win the lottery...

Or move?

Re:It's a cultural thing...

[BluedemonX]

Sure, I could move to a cabin in the Ozarks. But then I'd have to quit my IT job and do something else, like running moonshine.

Anywhere remotely desirable to live is overpriced. Anywhere noone wants to live isn't.

Re:It's a cultural thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like you need to somehow make your metrics for what is desirable, different from everyone else's.

To do this well, requires wisdom and vision. Consider only: what is really important?

Re:It's a cultural thing...

[NineNine]

Have you ever just considered developing proprietary software....?

This is exactly the problem... OSS is developed by college kids living off of mommy and daddy, or by people in their free time because they think it's 'kewl', and that same work literally takes food out of the mouths of professional programmers who program to make a living. Right now, 99.99% of all IT jobs are NOT in developing OSS. But if enough people develop OSS code, there will be less and less need for 'professional' programmers. Thus, there'll be a bunch of people programmign for free, while their day job is at Dairy Queen. Nice. Real nice.

Re:It's a cultural thing...

[Sir_Real]

Hobbyist code does not make it into Real Time Systems, or OS kernels or anywhere important. RMS, Linus et all are not 'college kids living off of mommy and daddy.' They have not put ANYONE out of work. In fact they have created jobs for people who don't want to use Windows, something that I praise them for daily.

There will always be need for 'professional' programmers. Especially if more OSS software is written, because software gets used and modified and maintained. Software is often used to provide a service, and no offense intended to the multitudes of Dairy Queen hackers out othere, but I won't trust them to maintain production code.

feh

Re:It's a cultural thing...

[NineNine]

RMS, Linus et all are not 'college kids living off of mommy and daddy.

Actually, RMS is a nut. Last I heard, he didn't even own a car. Any normal person could NOT afford to live liek him. And actually, Linus WAS a college kid when he did all of his coding.

They have not put ANYONE out of work. In fact they have created jobs for people who don't want to use Windows, something that I praise them for daily.

Of course they have! Look at yesterday's news. Amazon decides to use Linux as opposed to HP-UX. That probably put at least a few HP-UX salesmen and technicians out of work. Absolutely it directly affects people.

There will always be need for 'professional' programmers

But that's the thing... 'professional' programmers don't write OSS code. They generally get paid to program (like myself). Who do you think does most of the OSS development? There are a few people with day jobs, I'm sure, who do the dicey stuff, bvut by and large, from I can tell, most of it IS done by college kids.

Windows Beowulf Cluster?

[13013dobbs]

There is one here. And there are others. You just won't hear about them on Slashdot.

Software for its own sake?

[Phaid]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really see how a company can make money at being purely an open source software vendor. The idea behind open source is that good software should be freely available to everyone. Selling software for the sake of software is sort of missing the point.

The company I work for develops embedded and realtime systems. Some are sold as products, others are custom developed for clients. We use Linux and other open-source software in our products. And we make plenty of money at it. But we don't make money from the software, we make money from the hardware and from our expertise at systems integration.

We support open source because we don't have to pay someone for basic things like operating systems. We contribute things like device drivers back into the open source community because they improve the OS, even if the drivers are for hardware which is too specialized for most people to care. Someone might have a need for this stuff and find it useful, and perhaps this someone might find a bug in it or add new features or expand it to be compatible with other, similar hardware.

And to me this is what open source is supposed to be all about. It's about people and enterprises with particular needs working together to solve common problems. As these problems are solved, the solutions get released back to the community and the software improves. Yes, this does make it rather difficult to simply be in the business of selling commodity software. In order to make money at it, you have to make the software do something useful.

And making software do something useful is what it's all about...

Re:Software for its own sake?

[seanadams.com]

If we learned anything last year, it's that you can't make money giving stuff away for free (duh). But "freeness" barely scratches the surface of what open source is all about.

I remember that the user's manual for my first Apple computer came with a huge fold-out schematic of the entire motherboard. The design wasn't free, but it was open insofar as I didn't have to reverse engineer it just to hack on it. Do you think any more than a tiny handful of Apple's customers had the faintest clue what to do with the schematic? Or course not.

However, when you open up your product, even if it's not to the full extent of GPLing everything, you're inviting hackers and hobbyists to develop all sorts of software and peripherals... AND THIS HELPS YOUR BUSINESS ENORMOUSLY!!! Open source developers sometimes do it because they want to give something to the world. Other times, we do it because we just want to improve the stuff we own. We share our changes because it doesn't cost us anthing to do it.

It's not too hard to think of business models where both your customers *and* your business can benefit from open source. Make a software product and open source the hardware, or <plug>make a hardware product and open source the software</plug>. You could even make a software product and open just part of it. Neither the open source community nor your customers will demand that you give away the farm for nothing.

Re:Software for its own sake?

[NineNine]

However, when you open up your product, even if it's not to the full extent of GPLing everything, you're inviting hackers and hobbyists to develop all sorts of software and peripherals... AND THIS HELPS YOUR BUSINESS ENORMOUSLY!!!

Wow. Talk about naive. Ever heard of competiton? They save a fortune in R&D if they can just use your design.

Re:Software for its own sake?

[King_TJ]

I think you just hit on a very important, and often overlooked issue!

Earlier in the growth of the PC, it was easily possible to develop a number of applications and mass-market them, because you were filling very common needs that hadn't been addressed yet.
This is what brought about the idea of shrink-wrapped, retail-boxed software on store shelves.

Before the personal computer became a staple item, people using computers had pretty specific and unique needs, so they'd pay programmers to develop custom apps for them.

I think we're now entering the age where things are coming full-circle. The world has more than enough pre-packaged solutions. Businesses are growing frustrated at buying canned solutions to complex needs, and finding out they don't really fit. The software making the big $'s right now is the heavily-customizable stuff that is sold along with training and consultants on-site to tailor it for each business. (EG. ERP software like J.D. Edwards OneWorld, PeopleSoft, etc.)

Since a lot of the common stuff isn't ported to Linux yet, it does leave some room for people to re-develop all the common stuff (word processors, desktop publishers, spreadsheets, commnunications software) as native Linux apps. Still, I think these people are many of the ones complaining that "My Linux software isn't making any money!" Nope, it sure won't either - as long as all you're doing is re-inventing wheels. You're either on the cutting edge or the trailing edge. The customizable, tailored software as a service is where the $'s are at now. Show companies how an integrated, complete Linux solution can benefit them and you'll do well. Try to sell them more pre-boxed software, just because "it's a Linux edition!" and you won't.

Re:Fun Facts for Kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Your list is incomplete. But why should Slashdot readers care? As long as they're all right, right?

Never argue with capitalists. All they're trying to do is make you believe that their interests are your interests.

slashdot trolls

[Jeff Probst]

have a valid point.

1. Release free software
2. ???
3. Profit!

Banner Ads, Lots of Banner Ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Rosanna Rosanna Danna: "The key to making OpenSource profitable is banner ads. Preferably, big banner ads that use a lot of bandwidth. Adding a navigation bar at the top also helps. Also, you should change your name to whatever the latest hot release is."

Chevy Chase: "Rosanna, VA Software tried that and it didn't work."

RRD: "Never mind."

Am I the only one...

[philovivero]

...who read that and brain automatically s/Sleepycat/VileCuecatCompany/ ???

It made my head spin.

I've made money on open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash back to 1995, I'm contracting for my university building a client server application. I find an open source solution that does what i need. I then sell them that solution, for real money. Sure i had to make changes, but the source was there. I didn't release the source, or tell the client where it came from. I met their need, they gave me cash, and because open source isn't owned by anyone, there isn't even anyone around to care about it.

GPL -- nice but inconsistent

[Anonymous Coward]

Software is good when it's Free for everyone. Yes, I agree. But why should this only apply to software?

Capitalism is about property. Property is about me having something and not letting you use it unless I want to. So, it's about making things unFree (restriction).

So, the GPL allows supporters of restriction to take advantage of Freedom to further their goals.
For example, it doesn't require modifications to GPL software to be released under the GPL, unless the binary itself is released. It doesn't require software compiled using gcc, or linked with some libraries, to be released under the GPL.

And why doesn't it? Because then no business in its right mind would use it for any product who sale is critical to the success of the business.

So, the basic result of the GPL is to provide cost-free high quality productivity and development tools, with which businesss can thrive and further restrict other tangibles and intangibles.

Software becomes more Free, everything else becomes less Free.

The GPL is a self-defeating ideal.

Re:Please post to VA Software Management

[I.T.R.A.R.K.]

Anyone got a rock?

billyuns for everybuddy? I DOWt IT

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as the VAST majority of end users/businesses are NOT in the software 'business', I doubt they could give a fud whether or knot o-s is a money-maker. They are, however, VERY interested in dependable/economical solutions to father williams' gangster liesense bugwear hostage scam, & will pay somebodies to help in that area.

It's hard to imagine anyone paying thousands of dollars for ViWormic M$BugWear (then paying someone else to pretend to make IT work for them), when superior alternatives, are available, absolutely free, but it does show the power of deceptive marketeering. Who wants to be LIEk that? In the gnu/o-s world (dare I use the two in the same post?) there is no eternal liesense/'upgrade' path, therefore no billyuns, or stuck market FraUDs, to be perpetrated (other than the ones already being prosecuted). So, here/there we are, with the best solutions that can never be sold in some canned version. Most likely j. public will have to take IT in the .asp for a while longer, before he can see the function (or lack of) behind the ?pr? bs. EVERY person I speak with, is angry/discouraged/disgusted with father williams' garbaage, but is resigned to believing that's the way IT is.

God willing, when j. finally does get the head extraction he's been promising himself, there'll still be some choices available. We'll still be here (increasingly busy ourselves lately). Meanwhile, don't forget to check out our web address giveaway. Includes a year's free hosting. Just in case o-s/the web/commerce, etc... continues in some form.

Today, I heard again, the rumour that fud is NOT dead. Hard to believe, having seen the face scans, of the gottiesque felons of the kingdumb. They are the REAL .commIEs, know? Next, we're starting to work on this cite.

Nice plan, but...

[jdludlow]

Phase 1: Steal the Underpants.
Phase 2: ?.
Phase 3: Profit!

That'll only work for Gnome.

Linux Business plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux business plan:
1. Write Free software.
2. /* drunk... fix later... */
3. Profit!!!!

Re:Linux Business plan

[Anonymous Coward]

No! The official Free software business plan is as follows:

1. At least one of:
(a) Have rich parents who send you to University;
(b) Get highly paid job in network administration.

2. Join clique of Free software nerds at either University or workplace.

3. Use nepotism to socially engineer way into various Free software projects, regardless of skill.

4. Write a bit of code.

5. Place huge list of Free software products in resume, including project mentioned in (4) at at least three others to which problem reports were submitted.

6. Use (5) to get a (better) job.

7. Rinse and repeat from 1(b).

Handy reference for pronunciations

[dstone]

Okay, now this is thoroughly tongue-in-cheek, so chill on the flames, but here are my predictions of what you'll find yourself saying if you choose to invest in Open-Source companies...
(Thanks to Merriam-Webster for the pronunciations.)

...when you see your portfolio statement...
...as above, if you're American...
...describing the outlook for profits...
...what you'll mutter to yourself constantly
...to your broker who recommended Open-Source companies...
...as above, if your broker is female...
...what you'll call the CEO...
...what you'll call the CEO if you're American...
...and don't forget the CFO...

Not Making Money In Free Software

[Florian Weimer]

If I understand the license situation correctly, Sleepycat makes money because others do not want to release there software as Free Software. This is slightly different from true Free Software companies such as Ada Core Technologies (ACT) which usually do not slap different licenses on public and customer versions of a software package.

In fact, Sleepycat's business model stops working if the Free Software revolution has taken place because no one would need a proprietary-compatible license for Sleepycat's software. ACT's business model continues to work because their customers still need support, and still pay for enhancements to the GNAT toolchain.

I guess Sleepycat is just an Open Source company, but not a Free Software Company. ;-)

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[err666]

ACT don't need to play the dual-licensing game because their original license is already well suited for Open Source *and* commercial, proprietary development.

I'm enjoying GNAT while I let others wait for the mythical Free Software revolution ;-)

-- Gerhard

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[tim_maroney]

You have an excellent point. Three quarters of their revenue is from commercial licensing, which is to say, selling their software as proprietary under a proprietary license. In an all-free world, there would not be customers for the closed version, and Sleepycat would be making one quarter of the money.

Tim

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[Ogerman]

Sleepycat's business model stops working if the Free Software revolution has taken place because no one would need a proprietary-compatible license.

Most definitely true. And someday, that WILL happen unless bad laws get in the way. So essentially, they are helping to support the Free Software revolution at the expense of those less enlightened. Kinda funny actually

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[tim_maroney]

So essentially, they are helping to support the Free Software revolution at the expense of those less enlightened.

I think you may hev missed the point. They're only able to make money developing free software because they sell it under non-free licensing arrangements. In the hypothetical post-proprietary world, they would not be able to continue improving the software because they would not be making any money.

Similarly, for ACT, the income stream seems to be based on a similar dual licensing agreement, with the latest and greatest only available under a proprietary license. If all software were free, they would not have sufficient revenue -- they only make money from their software by protecting it, not by giving it away.

It's very interesting that free software can be part of the business model of a successful business, even if only a small mom-n-pop operation. However, it also needs to be noted that neither of these business models is compatible with free software utopianism. The legend of the future will need to be revised if these companies are paradigmatic.

Tim

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[Florian Weimer]

Similarly, for ACT, the income stream seems to be based on a similar dual licensing agreement, with the latest and greatest only available under a proprietary license. If all software were free, they would not have sufficient revenue -- they only make money from their software by protecting it, not by giving it away.

No, check your facts, even the GNAT version you get when you are a fully supported GNAT customer has the GPL on it (with an exception for the run-time library, but this exception is present in the public version, too). Large parts of the compiler are copyrighted by the FSF anyway (and I'm not sure if this copyright is exclusive; for the machine language backend, this is true, of course).

There are other reasons why people do not give away their supported GNAT version.

Anyway, now that GNAT 5.00w is part of the GCC CVS, we have got a completely new situation.

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[Florian Weimer]

Yes, but they chose to use this license. As far as I know, the DoD contract didn't enforce it, it required only that the FSF must get a copyright, too. So they could have chosen the GPL without an exception for the run-time library for the public version, and grant supported customers a completely different license.

Incidentally, ACT tried this with XML/Ada in previous versions (which was pure GPL in public versions, and GPL-with-exception in customer versions), but stopped the experiment with the most recent public GNAT release.

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[Anonymous Coward]

"Three quarters of their revenue is from commercial licensing"

Whoa what a concept!!!
Making money is considered BAD practice that might lead to future problems.
Sure, it will, if we'll end up in Soviet Union of America but until then, they will do just fine.

"In an all-free world,"

Impossible.
Unless your force your "freedom" on other ( Soviet style) but then it wouldn't be a free world, would it ?

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[Jason Earl]

That's more that a little simplistic actually because it ignores the fact that most software development is currently proprietary software development. It shouldn't surprise anyone that three quarters of their revenue comes from commercial software developers, that's how business currently gets done. If the day and age ever comes where most people are using Free Software then there will be a great deal more customers for Sleepycat's service and support contracts.

There will always be businesses that are willing to pay for support, customization, fancy dan new extensions, and a whole host of other services. Right now Sleepycat sells software licenses to hardware OEMs, a rather limited field. If Free Software were to become the de-facto standard, then they would certainly see more people interested in their software, many of whom would be willing to pay for their particular expertise.

Besides, the alternatives are far worse. If the day comes that everyone switches to Free Software the commercial software companies will have no revenue. Free Software is going to be developed whether you like it or not. The smart thing to do is to make sure that some of it is yours.

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[tim_maroney]

If the day and age ever comes where most people are using Free Software then there will be a great deal more customers for Sleepycat's service and support contracts.

And that conclusion is derived from... what?

If Free Software were to become the de-facto standard, then they would certainly see more people interested in their software, many of whom would be willing to pay for their particular expertise.

Again, whatever chain of reasoning may underlie your conclusion is not apparent to me.

Free Software is going to be developed whether you like it or not. The smart thing to do is to make sure that some of it is yours.

Why? What benefits accrue to me by making sure that people are using software that I wrote, if they're not paying me for it? The wonderful satisfaction of a job well done? Great, but I got bills to pay.

Tim

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[tim_maroney]

No, check your facts...

I'd like to, but the ACT website is not very forthcoming on the open-source question. It left me with the impression that they'd rather you didn't know you could get GNAT for free.

There are other reasons why people do not give away their supported GNAT version.

What are those reasons? Don't disincentives to copy stand against the whole free software/open source philosophy?

Again, it seems that to make money on open source, you need to find a way to make it not really open source. We get back to the issue that the commercial value of something that can be freely copied is effectively nil.

Tim

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[Florian Weimer]

I'd like to, but the ACT website is not very forthcoming on the open-source question. It left me with the impression that they'd rather you didn't know you could get GNAT for free.

Well, they clearly state that GNAT is Free Software on their Services page (in fact it's a selling argument because this means that there aren't any run-time licensing fees).

Don't disincentives to copy stand against the whole free software/open source philosophy?

Many large-scale Free Software users do not act as distributors. What's wrong with that? Of course, you could phone Boeing and beg them to send you a copy of GNAT. ;-)

We get back to the issue that the commercial value of something that can be freely copied is effectively nil.

Do you really assume that the ACT business model is built around the fact their supported customers get access to new GNAT releases 15 month ahead of non-supported customers? This is completely off target. In contrast, ACT is selling support for their GNAT technology. The exact version number of the product does not matter much if you can contact the vendor in case of a problem, and hours later it has been analyzed, and a solution is proposed.

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[tim_maroney]

There are other reasons why people do not give away their supported GNAT version.

What are those reasons?

You elided the above. Please answer the question. Thank you.

Do you really assume that the ACT business model is built around the fact their supported customers get access to new GNAT releases 15 month ahead of non-supported customers? This is completely off target.

Do you have some basis for that assertion? It seems to make commercial sense that they would be keeping the latest and greatest for paying customers. Fifteen months is a lot longer than it would take to put it into CVS for GCC, especially as an unstable build -- an accepted practice in the open source community.

In contrast, ACT is selling support for their GNAT technology. The exact version number of the product does not matter much if you can contact the vendor in case of a problem, and hours later it has been analyzed, and a solution is proposed.

Do you have some basis for that assertion? In Sleepycat's case, there is a three-to-one ratio in favor of licensing over support revenue. Do you have some verifiable reason to believe that ACT's revenue model is primarily based on support rather than on selling software?

Tim

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[Florian Weimer]

There are other reasons why people do not give away their supported GNAT version.

What are those reasons?

Oops, sorry. Distributing software requires bandwidth and (in the GPL case) personnel to handle requests for source code. It requires consent of your legal department, and of your management.

Of course, this only applies to professional distribution. If you want to know why GNAT 3.14a1 or so hasn't leaked to the public yet, I don't know. However, usually, users respect the wishes of developers. For example, development on GNU Emacs 21 was rather closed over a long time period, too, despite the GPL.

In contrast, ACT is selling support for their GNAT technology. The exact version number of the product does not matter much if you can contact the vendor in case of a problem, and hours later it has been analyzed, and a solution is proposed.

Do you have some basis for that assertion? In Sleepycat's case, there is a three-to-one ratio in favor of licensing over support revenue. Do you have some verifiable reason to believe that ACT's revenue model is primarily based on support rather than on selling software?

Robert Dewar, the CEO of Ada Core technology, happens to be a frequent contributor on comp.lang.ada, and he has explained the business model of ACT more than once over there. ACT is not in the software licensing business (apart from a experimental disgression for XML/Ada, which has already been corrected). All software gets released to the public over time, and in almost all cases, you can develop proprietary software using the public versions.

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[foog]

Do you have some basis for that assertion? In Sleepycat's case, there is a three-to-one ratio in favor of licensing over support revenue.

Hello Tim!

Remember, though, as stated in the article, much of sleepycat's position in their proprietary licensing market comes from their open-source software strategy.

It does look like dual-license strategies do significantly better than the "write free software and charge for services" model, doesn't it?

I wonder how well sleepycat does compared to other niche "embedded" database vendors like Polyhedra or Solid.

foog

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[tim_maroney]

Hello foog,

Remember, though, as stated in the article, much of sleepycat's position in their proprietary licensing market comes from their open-source software strategy.

Indeed. Open source as loss leader, with traditional licensing for revenue, may have possibilities. If so, this will require substantial changes to the open source/free software mythology, from a revolution model to a peaceful coexistence model. It's not compatible with the slogan that in the future, all software will be free.

It does look like dual-license strategies do significantly better than the "write free software and charge for services" model, doesn't it?

Yes, although in this case, not enough to get past the mom-n-pop level, at least not so far.

I wonder how well sleepycat does compared to other niche "embedded" database vendors like Polyhedra or Solid.

Hard to say. They're all privately held. The Polyhedra site doesn't say how big they are, though it offers a wide variety of product, service and support options. It shows no current job openings and does not have an "about the executives" page, which are not good signs. Oh wait, there's this inconspicuous note -- they were acquired in whole by Enea Data AB in March 2001 for their RTOS. Doesn't exactly sound like a high-ticket sale.

The Solidtech site says they closed a $50M venture capital round in 2000, which implies that they are probably not profitable but were seen as having the potential to become profitable. They have only one job listing at present, an account manager, which as bellwethers go is not a particularly good one.

Tim

Re:Not Making Money In Free Software

[tim_maroney]

Robert Dewar, the CEO of Ada Core technology, happens to be a frequent contributor on comp.lang.ada, and he has explained the business model of ACT more than once over there.

Thank you for the reference. By looking on Google I found a 1997 thread entitled "Towards a free GNU Ada" that shows that quite a few people are not satisfied that the late-public-release strategy employed by ACT is providing them with free software of adequate quality, and who are not convinced by Dewar's explanations of the policy -- which are, in a nutshell, that they will release no wine before its time. If you don't pay for support (the story goes) a premature version would only hurt you, even if you think you want it. I'm not involved enough myself to have an opinion one way or the other, but it does appear there is a significant divergence in opinion on whether ACT's model is in line with the goals and principles of the free software movement.

One thing I did find interesting was Dewar's statement bearing on the "to many eyes all bugs are shallow" dictum:

Even for those who do know the technology well, formulating a correct fix to a problem is not easy. We get a stream of suggested fixes from people who know GNAT pretty well. In nearly every case, the person has correctly identified a problem, but produced a fix that is either incomplete or plain incorrect.

I've made a similar argument here myself a few times, with respect to the open source mythology of easy and valuable outside bug fixes. The startup time for any significant bug fix on a large project like GCC or Mozilla is itself quite large, and quick fixes in a complex system are likely to be the cure that is worse than the disease.

I also found this message which is instructive on ACT's history and size. It's still in the under-twenty-employees mom-n-pop category, or was in 1999.

Tim

The transgaming model

[HanzoSan]

The best way to make money in open source is not to even try to sell software, but to use the transgaming or redhat models.

This is selling services.

It's in the hardware

[Lance Fuckhoff]

The only way to make money in open source is hardware revenue. IBM and Apple both understand this, but apparently no one else does.

You guys are just too funny

[pvera]

Let's see...

"Microsoft is evil"

"Microsoft is an anticompetitive monopoly"

".net is the end of the world as we know it"

"Fuck the RIAA"

"You can pry my DECSS from my cold, dead fingers"

Then you turn around and peddle open source as a way of making money.

Oxymoron anyone?

Pedro
http://veraperez.com

Re:You guys are just too funny

[perky]

Oxymoron: A rhetorical figure by which contradictory or incongruous terms are conjoined so as to give point to the statement or expression; an expression, in its superficial or literal meaning self-contradictory or absurd, but involving a point. (Now often loosely or erroneously used as if merely = a contradiction in terms, an incongruous conjunction.)

Going with the "contradiction in terms" definition, I don't really see how any of the slashthink statements that you mention preclude the notion of making a living from open source. I think most people here would make a distiction between monopolistic and anti-competitive practices and selling expertise to pay the bills. In fact I think it is reasonable to argue that OSS presents a framework in which anti-competitive practices are impossible given the low barriers to entry to the market and the high degree of transparancy. In other words if everyone can duplicate what you are doing and see what you are doing, then you have to be competitive and good else you go out of business.

Re:You guys are just too funny

[Anonymous Coward]

> Let's see... [snip] Oxymoron anyone?

OK, I'll bite. Where is the contradiction between your list of Bad Things and selling open source-developed products?

Re:You guys are just too funny

[Anonymous Coward]

OSS presents a framework in which anti-competitive practices are impossible given the low barriers to entry to the market and the high degree of transparancy

Are you refering to the transparancy of your paycheque?

Re:You guys are just too funny

[perky]

=)IBM pay reasonably for OSS. But I'm just a student, so I don't know about how the real world works...

Negotiating has its problems, alas

[ghostlibrary]

>Why not drop the developer/company an email?

Always a good idea, but many projects either involve several folks or have a history.

If there are several developers, all have to agree-- and even if you can get several programmers to agree to let you use it, you're still asking the contact person to do a lot of talking on your behalf.

If there's historical code (i.e. programs built on earlier GPLed work, or similar), even the Lead Developer of the current version can't necessarily break "their" own license, since their use of older code requires abiding by the license _it_ was made under.

So negotiating is best if it's a new, from-scratch, single developer project. That's a narrow subset of robust open source stuff.

The purpose of a license is to clearly state how people can use it. Negotiating 'better' terms is an option, but also keep in mind that, having provided a license, a developer can easily say 'no' to requests without stigma. So I hope folks don't ask for better terms, then kvetch if they aren't granted. Hey, they _did_ open source it in the first place!

Re:Negotiating has its problems, alas

[technos]

Yeah, it has problems. If you can't work out a license change, no big deal. Never hurts to ask or offer, tho.

It's called capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism sez that the money goes where it gets the best return. If that isn't software, it'll slosh over to some other thing, like biotech, energy, real estate or donuts.

Perhaps you're saying "tech isn't boomtown anymore." That's probably true. It feels more like the Auto biz in the 30's, when the big consolidation happened, and we got the Big 3. Probably true. Time to move on and start thnking nano.

First off, it's Rosanne, not Rosanna. . .

[kfg]

Second off, you are actually refering to Emily Latella.

KFG

You forgot Lebanon

[jjn1056]

Reagan shelled the place after a suicide bomber drove a truck into a Marine barracks, killing something like 200 soldiers.

Then we left and less than 20 years later a bunch of suicide terrorist kill thousands in NYC, so we bomb Afganistan.

We'll probably leave again.

wt?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP"

That sounds like a merger! :)

Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[Chris Johnson]

Thanks for the article, guys- what a nice thing for me to read right now. I'm fighting off an attack of what is probably tendinitis rather than, say, carpal tunnel, due to one too many 12 hour days working on _my_ software.

I do dithering/wordlength reduction software under the GPL (it's not C code, mind you, but it is still GPLed) and the last version did fairly well, competing with some extremely formidable proprietary dithers from places like the POW-R Consortium and Apogee. That stuff pretty well held its own for the most part with the best that the proprietary world had to offer.

Over the last week, I've drastically overhauled my noise-shaping code, and am trying to get final work done on a new release of my software- and this time, I've blown everything proprietary out of the water completely (w.r.t quality of output- not workflow convenience- I don't do hardware, or realtime output). I've got one dither that's consistently -160 db noise floor from 0-2K. Another one hits -170 db at 1.8 and 3K, right where the ear is most sensitive. Another steadily drops to below -170 db at the lowest frequencies. Another uses unusual methods to produce soundstage depth (a comb-filter-like noise floor- never heard of anyone doing that one before).

This is _all_ GPLed. You can't use any of it in proprietary software without violating the public license it's released under.

This is also _all_ mine. It's not even written in C, much less based on GPLed code from others. (That's one reason why my file reading routines suck ;) ). It uses none of the 'many hands make light work' concept of open source- I do all the work and have not had any offers of help from anyone at all, except some mastering engineers who've given their thoughts on early versions of its audio performance, and they don't write code.

With that in mind, I have to say I'm delighted to see SleepyCat's take on all this: it confirms what I had suspected, and gives me hope for the future. You can make money on open source by indulging in people's desires to NOT play along and open their own source. You can charge them to NOT share (if they share, they get it for free. How much is your paranoia worth to you? ;) )

The only requirements are that YOU have to do the work- which stands to reason- that you have to not only do all the work but also outperform everybody else- and that there have to be enough others out there who want what you have to give, but won't themselves share. Basically, you're charging people for their own greed. If they were willing to give their work to the world as you do, they'd get your help for nothing. But if they want what you have, and won't do as you do- they must either do without, or come to terms with you. (or rip you off outright, but that's another story).

It's inspiring to see how these folks do it, and definitely something to emulate- makes me glad I've been using pure GPL all along, rather than something like LGPL. They're so right- you can't exert this kind of pressure UNLESS your 'free' licensing is hardcore 'libre' with no concessions to business. It's gotta scare the suits and the lawyers enough so they come to you and say 'maybe we can work something out' (*kaching!* good to do business with ya!).

Wonderful to see this. And again it's so simple that I marvel that nobody else has been suggesting it- I thought I had sort of invented this concept for myself out of necessity and it's reassuring to see that people have actually tried it and it works. You have to have a product so good that people _do_ want a piece of it- a libre license that scares the suits- and a willingness to release private versions under non-free parallel licenses to companies that want what you have, but won't share code themselves.

Maybe this _does_ lead to doing yourself out of a job, in the future when everybody is nice and shares ;) or maybe the 'bar' is very high, in that you really have to perform to get in such a position. If that's the case, then (a) explains why I haven't made money this way yet, and (b) if 20 db better noise floor than the top proprietary dither isn't enough, I'll keep working until it's 30 db ;) it looks like some entire concepts like indeterminate-order noise shaping are mine alone. I don't think you can even get error distributions anything like what I'm getting without it- so for a change, rather than indispensable technology being owned by a patent holder, indispensable technology is 'owned' by the sphere of GPLed free software. Any arguments that code or algorithms are property and not speech will only enhance the value of this 'ownership'. Or to put it another way: so software is not speech? So you can 'own' an algorithm, huh? Well, _this_ one you can't have unless you go libre with your own code, or pay! *kaching*

Hah!

I gotta get back to work- the main dithers have been hammered out, but I need to adapt some of the others, like Logic and Ambient, to the new error-feedback routines. They probably won't outperform the others in numbers, but they're geared to different needs: Logic turned out to be good at revealing depth cues accurately, and Ambient was particularly warm with very authoritative bass, and I gotta see if I can bring out those qualities more.

If there's anybody else out there capable of doing this type of thing in other fields, please, please, go for it with every bit of effort you can come up with! Maybe 'open source' as a way of not having to do as much of the work has an immediate appeal to people- but the only way we're gonna REALLY get Software Libre out there and impossible to avoid is if you do the work yourself, do it BETTER than anyone else can (pick your field carefully, and narrowly!) and then put your stuff out with a hardcore libre license and a willingness to charge for dual-licensing! It's gotta be 'This is mine- you either share, or you pay. My way or the highway'. That's the only way to win...

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not patent the algorithms and license them freely for use in Free Software but not proprietary software? Then you can stay GPL-compatible, and make money from anyone who wants to sell proprietary software with your techniques.

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[stripes]

Wonderful to see this. And again it's so simple that I marvel that nobody else has been suggesting it- I thought I had sort of invented this concept for myself out of necessity and it's reassuring to see that people have actually tried it and it works.

Well ghostscript is vaguely similar. The MPL is designed for this sort of thing (it does give a specific entity the right to release under a different license, in that respect it is even better then the GPL for this business model).

I don't know of anyone doing it a successfully as Sleepycat though...of corse the sleepycat software is also damn fine. I have written some very big projects that used it.

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any arguments that code or algorithms are property and not speech will only enhance the value of this 'ownership'. "

Dude, if you did all that work, you deserve to be paid.
They only way to see if your product is really what you claim it to be , is to offer it for sale.

Society does not work by "sharing" but by people contributing their work on free market where everyone with enough interest and money can purchase their skills.
Sharing does not work and even RMS won't be able change that.
We had various entire societies (Russia etc ...) run for decades on the very same concept of sharing and results are widely known.
Be smart, charge for your work. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that.

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[Chris Johnson]

Actually, dither and wordlength reduction software can be objectively measured using FFTs and spectrograms of the noise floor. So it doesn't have to be for sale, for its claims to be tested :)

Also, it's audio software, so it produces a sound-file output. The way you test that is by listening to the result...

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[NineNine]

Thanks for the information. I'm going to start a company, spend a bit on marketing, and sell your product!

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[NineNine]

Hey, if he wants to develop for free, that's his loss. I'm sure that someone will package up his software and make money hand over fist with it. If he wants to be stupid about it, let him.

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[Anonymous Coward]

Its GPLed. Why would they buy it from you when they can download it from him for free?

What he's selling (since you evidently can't read) is his software under a different license (which you can't do legally, since you're not the copyright holder).

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[alexburke]

'Hipass'? Haha, that's priceless! :) What does the Hipass dither do?

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[Chris Johnson]

*g* didn't notice that until just now. It's meant to be read as 'hi-pass' not "this is one hip-ass dither, babee!" ;)

Hi-pass is a type of filter. You start with regular white noise, which has substantial low and midrange content (it's not particularly colored and contains all frequencies- this is what flat and TPDF dither are made of).

The thing is, with dither you don't want low frequencies- they don't help linearise the system particularly, they just add energy to the noise floor unproductively.

So, you filter the white noise: you can do this by producing a high-attenuated version (averaging nearby samples, for instance) and then subtracting it from the original so that only the highs are left.

Do that a couple times and you might have a fairly sharp cutoff, like 18db per octave.

The Hipass dither in my software is _100_ pole: it does this "produce averaged version and subtract it from the original" 100 times before you get a signal out. That produces a very near-Nyquist dither component. Truly it is indeed a hip-ass dither ;)

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[Chris Johnson]

Build it into hardware! I'm certainly not going to, and I can point you to numerous pro mastering engineers who are not like us computer geek slashdot readers- they really NEED realtime hardware before they can make use of the tech, even if it's better than what they have.

Besides, if you try to sell software I will just laugh at you and give your customers copies of my own original software for nothing. Go right ahead and spend money on marketing, if you're serious and not just some wanker talking big and not doing anything. Here's the source, go nuts... note the GPL at the top, and sell away my friend, just have your source ready to include...

Re:Fascinating, inspiring- I'm in the same boat

[Chris Johnson]

Go right ahead. Free publicity and I might get some additional codebases to play with, like a proper C port or a Linux port or better file reading libs for sound files. Or realtime- that's the big thing that's missing right now, and I'm not competent enough with sound hardware to cover that base myself.

Somehow I think we have a failure to communicate here... ;)

Die Gadanken Sind Frie!

[kfg]

You have to bare in mind that the GPL is not, despite popular belief, anticapitalistic and RMS is not anti property.

The GPL is founded on the idea that *ideas* are not property. Hence the catch phrase, " Free as in speach, not as in beer."

If you make beer you are making property. A manufactured item that can be inherently possesed and traded. If *I* own *this* beer, you do not. You inherently *cannot*, as the beer is a physical item. It is, by its very nature, exclusive in its title of ownership.

RMS believes that software is more like F=ma. As an IDEA it cannot be restricted as can a beer, and should not be. Indeed, like RMS, I am old enough to remember when all software was essentially academic in its derivation and distribution. The very idea of propriatary mathmatical formula and algorithms was once considered ubsurd.

Much of the reason we are in the mess we are at the moment with regards to propriatary information, ( like what Mickey Mouse *looks like*), is due to forcing a legal structure of ownership upon items which are inately of * the mind.*

Play Tolstoy for a bit and go stand in the corner and * not think* of a white elephant for half an hour.

I think this example goes right to the heart of the concept of propriatary knowledge.

The GPL does nothing to make beer "freer," nor is it intended to, any more than the law of gravity is intended to make anything "freer."

But if you run a brewery and your software is freely aquired OSS than perhaps you can sell your beer *cheaper* and make the same profit.

The GPL makes ideas free, and actual *property* cheaper.

Now perhaps my beer is popular because of some "secret formula." That would be a trade secret, so long as I don't tell anybody about it.

The GPL has not problem with that. Trade secrets, are fully recognized and supported by the GPL.

Just don't TELL anyone.

There is the crux of the matter right there. A secret is only a secret so long as it's . . .well, a secret. It's YOUR choice whether to let the cat out of the bag or not, but once it's out don't complain if it runs away from you. That's what cats, and ideas, do.

The GPL dosn't require you to let the cat out of bag, only admit that it's a cat once it's out.

KFG

Re:Die Gadanken Sind Frie!

[Anonymous Coward]

By the same token, work which does not result in tangible goods is pretty much worthless.

"The GPL makes ideas free, and actual *property* cheaper."

GPL doesn't make shit.
It is utopian theory dreamed up by some folks with no real world experience in running anything ( FSF being basically bunch of glorified beggars)

Please, our history is full of half-baked "revolutionary" ideas, most of them too ridiculous to even being remembered.
That is where GPLs future is.

Re:Die Gadanken Sind Frie!

[Voidhobo]

(You mean: Die Gedanken sind frei.)

That song is actually kind of perfect in the Free Software context. If you know German or French, check this out: http://ingeb.org/Lieder/diegedan.html

Reminds me of a scene in the movie Dreiundzwanzig (23) where these two guys take out a joint in a train, smoke it, and start singing that song at the top of their voices.

Re:Die Gadanken Sind Frie!

[kfg]

Yeah, I a multilingual dyslexic. : )

KFG

Re:Die Gadanken Sind Frie!

[kfg]

Ironically you make RMS's own point for him. Since software is not a tangible good it has no * monetary* worth. That's the whole POINT of the GPL you know. The media it comes on, and the manuals that accompany it have monetary worth. MS realizes this better than anyone. That's WHY they absolutely NEED to maintain a monopoly. Without it Windows would only be able to sell for about $20. Tops. With or without the GPL eventually software will be viturally valuless unless proped up by some artificial legal structure.

Did you know that tomatoes are free? It's absolutely true. Anyone can grow tomatoes at virtually no expense. They are "worthless." What costs you money at the store isn't the tomato. It's the transportation and storage of the tomato, which is STILL so "worthless" that you find it preferable to buy it rather than grow your own. Zuccinni has NEGATIVE value. Sometimes you literally can't give it away.

It's just basic economics. Anything ubiquitous and transmitable without cost has no monetary worth.

Which is not at all the same thing as saying it has no *value.*

Interesting isn't it? The language of our merchant ancestors places monetary worth at such an extreme that the words price, value and worth, all orginally with different meanings, have come to blend with each other and all stand in some way for *price.*

For instance, the *value* of a house is that *it houses you.* This has nothing at all to do with its price.

This is why some prefer to use the French word "libre" when refering to OSS. It has no context of price.

I have already made you a free gift of F=ma. There would be no point in doing otherwise. It has no monetary worth. It is, however, an idea of such import that it literally changed the world, and vast fortunes have been made by knowledge of it.

But it isn't *yours.*

KFG

Re:Die Gadanken Sind Frie!

[mpe]

The GPL does nothing to make beer "freer," nor is it intended to, any more than the law of gravity is intended to make anything "freer."
But if you run a brewery and your software is freely aquired OSS than perhaps you can sell your beer *cheaper* and make the same profit.

Or even you can sel your beer for less and make more profit.

Re:Die Gadanken Sind Frie!

[NineNine]

There is the crux of the matter right there. A secret is only a secret so long as it's . . .well, a secret. It's YOUR choice whether to let the cat out of the bag or not, but once it's out don't complain if it runs away from you. That's what cats, and ideas, do.

Well, that's well and good, but it's completely unrealistic in business. There's no way that a company can keep a trade secret. None, whatsoever. What would keep any number of employees running to a competitor with that GPL'ed idea for a large sum of money? That's not realistic. This happens every day, and the only way you can stop it is through legal/financial means. Look at Apple. They wanted to keep their new designs/products secret, but they kept leaking out. So what did they do? They sued the people leaking the information. Problem solved.

Re:Die Gadanken Sind Frie!

[NineNine]

Did you know that tomatoes are free? It's absolutely true. Anyone can grow tomatoes at virtually no expense. They are "worthless." What costs you money at the store isn't the tomato. It's the transportation and storage of the tomato, which is STILL so "worthless" that you find it preferable to buy it rather than grow your own. Zuccinni has NEGATIVE value. Sometimes you literally can't give it away.

No, that's not at all true. There are companies who have spent millions developing vegetables that grow faster, bigger, are bug and disease resistant, etc. Those are NOT free.

Open Source...proof of concept?

[Anonymous Coward]

You open source monkeys gotta stop insulting billg's genius and accomplishments. Until you can show the world that your software can make even a hundredth of the impact that gates and ms has, you really have no argument.

anonymous w2k using coward.

How Does ACT Do It?

[Anonymous Coward]

They release a commercial supported version to their paying customers, who pay dearly. Then for a year or more they tell all the non-paying customers about the advantages of the commercial release. Then they release the free-software version of the GNAT Ada, but the next commercial release goes to the paying customers within a few months. Maybe they have some way to convince the paying customers not to distribute copies of the commercial versions. Maybe the commercial versions are not GPL. Whatever, you can't find GNAT 3.14 for free last time I checked, but the paying customers have had it for about a year. How's that work?

Re:How Does ACT Do It?

[Florian Weimer]

The commercial versions are GPL (after all, they include the GCC backend, too, which is GPLed). It's true that there isn't a public version of GNAT 3.14, but GNAT 5.00w has been released and committed to the GCC CVS.

It takes quite an amount of work to create a public release, and I can understand that public releases do not have the highest priority for ACT. Delaying the release of the public version does not encourage people to get a support contract. Either you can afford one, or you can't. The audiences for the public and customer versions are just too different.

MAKING MONEY IN OPEN SOURCE WORLD

[Anonymous Coward]

I THINK THAT MANY ARE MISSING THE BOAT ON OPEN SOURCE. MOST OF US FORGET THAT THE REAL MONEY IS IN SUPPORTING THE SYSTEM AFTER IT IS SOLD. CALL ANY MICROSOFT HELP LINE AND YOU HERE $365.00 PER HOUR PLEASE. OPEN SOURCE WILL TAKE MANY PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR WINDOWS WORLD AND PUT THEM IN THE WIND. COMPANIES LIKE REDHAT OFFER CUSTOM INSTALLATION AND SETUP TO SPEC INCLUDING OLD WINDOWS COMPUTERS WITH SAMBA. WAKE UP TECH WORLD!! HERES THE MONEY THAT YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR, A CHEAP OS WITH SUPPORT THAT MONEY CAN BE MADE ON A LOCAL LEVEL. REMEMBER WHEN WIN95 OR 3.11 CAME OUT. THERE WAS MONEY FOR ALL. NOW ALL THE MONEY GOES TO UNCLE BILL!!
WE SHOULD ALL GO OUT AND SELL SETUP AND SUPPORT TO OUR LOCAL CUSTOMERS

Fuck You, Moderator.

[dbCooper0]

I have a valid point, whereas you have moderator points. Wasting them on a post with a value of "0" just shows how STUPID you are. Asshole. Go browse GOATSE or something...

jussi funny

[Erris]

Heh, no doubt. And you have not yet even been tortured by my finnish accent.

=:>

OSS is just as good a start to a consulting firm as civil engineering, but the timing is better. The money now flowing to Redmond will soon be available.

fundamentally opposed

[man_ls]

Open Source per the ever-present GPL is fundamentally opposed to making money. It is, in fact, actively discoraged. You are forbidden from incorporating publically-gathered code into a propritary library or program without releasing its source as well. Lets say that Microsoft did this with Office, released the source code. Then someone came along, and fixed the bugs in the source, and sells it as a different product. 100% office-compatibile, but better than the real thing. Sound like a good business model to you? I didn't think so.

People in OSS generally are totally open source and won't try. Anyone who tries to make money while following the terms of a license that almost prohibits making money off the intellectual property is asking to go bankrupt. The product may be sound, but the business practices aren't.

Re:fundamentally opposed

[greenrd]

Open Source per the ever-present GPL is fundamentally opposed to making money.

#include rtfa.h

actually, that's basically the idea

[raistlinne]

The standard idea for making money by open source software, if that's what you're trying to do, is to give it away as a loss leader and to sell support and feature enhancements and such. While not exactly what you describe, it's close. Making it pure software, Cygnus used this model and was quite profitable. They made prettymuch all of their work on gcc distributable, but they would generally have someone pay them to do the work. That is, someone would want a compiler for a given platform and then comission the cygnus people to port gcc to it, since gcc is such a high quality compiler and getting a gcc port was a lot cheaper than writing an equal-quality compiler from scratch. Then the port would go into gcc proper, generally, because the company in question wouldn't gain anything from keeping the source closed. They also made a decent revenue from people who bought support contracts on gcc, IIRC.

You're quite correct that almost noone is going to want to buy for $50 what they can get for free off of your website, and if that's your business model it's only a matter of time before you're going to fail.

However, that's only one of the many ways of making money from open source software, support and comission work being the obvious ones. However, as you point out, there's probably an even bigger market in people who indirectly make money from open source software, i.e., that it's only a component, possibly a small component, in what they're selling or doing. And this is one of the things that really gives open source its power. It doesn't need companies dedicated to developing open source software, though that does help, honestly.

Patches

[Tim Macinta]

I had an idea once to do dual licensing along the lines of what Sleepycat is doing. My biggest concern was what to do with patches to people submit to the open source licensed version. I wouldn't own the rights to the patch, so I wouldn't be able to redistribute it with the proprietary license. I would need to get their permission to dually license the patch as well. My thoughts on this were, why not pay them for ownership rights to the patch? Maybe $20 for a simple bug fix or much higher for substantial new features. Just a thought - maybe this would encourage outside improvement.

Re:Patches

[Anonymous Coward]

I had an idea once to do dual licensing along the lines of what Sleepycat is doing. My biggest concern was what to do with patches to people submit to the open source licensed version. I wouldn't own the rights to the patch, so I wouldn't be able to redistribute it with the proprietary license. I would need to get their permission to dually license the patch as well. My thoughts on this were, why not pay them for ownership rights to the patch? Maybe $20 for a simple bug fix or much higher for substantial new features.

No need. Lawyers for a large corporation who wanted to use my code looked at this and concluded that if you have a license which says XYZ and someone sends you a patch then they've implicitly agreed to have their patch redistributed under terms XYZ. Since this company is notorious for the meticulousness/paranoia of its lawyers, I'd say that's pretty safe.

Someone else commented:

That's harnessing the hard labour of the Open Source developers, and saying "Thanks lads, we'll just take all your hard work on enhancements and fixing the bugs, apply it to our proprietary version, and we can then flog it off under a closed source license to the big boys, who can flog it off in their proprietary stuff, etc."

Re-read the interview. Apart from a very small number of trivial fixes contributed by outsiders, they do everything else themselves. They're not exploiting anyone.

re: A lot of good ideas

[mellonhead]

How about utilizing grammar on your website?

Making money with open source

[Animats]

It should be possible to make money in open source, now that the overcapitalized gonzo operations like VA Linux have crashed. The business model will be service and support, not products. Look at all those Microsoft VARs. Those people don't have any intellectual property. There's potentially a similar Linux VAR business.

It's not a get-rich-quick business, but it's a real one.

Consider a "we'll convert your company to Linux" business, for example. Set-up, training, tech support, customization, all those people-intensive functions.

Ozarks vs City Life

[Elbow Macaroni]

Well let's see...

Ozarks - fresh air City - bad air that might kill me one day

Ozarks - make moonshine & sell moonshine to happy customers (give some away to the police to keep them happy too) City - make programs on computer for irritable people who don't really understand what I do for a living

Ozarks - Work when I wake up until I don't feel like it anymore City - work upon waking, and continue working until I fall into bed fast asleep at 4am.

Ozarks - live among natural surroundings with trees and birds and all that stuff. City - live? I have to work!

I think the Ozarks idea sounds pretty good! You could probably afford a house in no time because you could wear ratty clothes and live in a tent too and nobody would care. You could even save on grocery money by eating roadkill.

Hmmm....now not everyone can do this or it won't work....

Re:Ozarks vs City Life

[BluedemonX]

Consider this - I happen to really enjoy what I do. For me, doing what I do for a living is enjoyable. It has its drawbacks and its share of headaches, but I happen to enjoy it. On the other hand, staring at a bunch of trees all day would drive me insane.

So to you and the AC who talks about priorities, well, mine is doing what I do.

Re:Ozarks vs City Life

[Elbow Macaroni]

I know, I was just kidding.

But personally I wouldn't mind living in the ozarks and having a good internet connection....

Re:Ozarks vs City Life

[BluedemonX]

I'm sorry, I didn't want to be too harsh, it's just that leaving a place you've always known and moving to another country is hard enough, without moving into small-town version of same, with way different customs.

There are obvious open ways to make money

[niksilver]

You can make money with open source just like everyone's making money with HTTP. A whole industry has grow up around that, albeit with many casualities. And most people here would agree that layering proprietary protocols would be a bad thing.

My company is taking the same approach with the Jtrix platform which is a completely open source way to implement Web Services. We're a commercial business and need to make money, but if others make money too, then great! Our use of the LGPL means they don't even have to pay us.

We don't have ambitions to take over the world, but want to create an industry. Open protocols might mean you can't have it all, but they do mean you can have an awful lot. And that's more than most people have now.

Nik.

Dual licensing still sounds dodgy to me

[godot73]

If I understood the GPL right, one of the basic ideas is to protect the work of someone out there on your code. You can't take it and go making money with it, closed source. So you can only do dual-licencing if you have separable code, say, the client side and the engine or similar. Did I get that right? So you'd need a LGPL to link your free part to your proprietary part, and your proprietary part you have to look after yourself (unless there's someone in the field helping you with something you make money with).
I understand that we are happy to see an open source company doing well but I can imagine how you all would scream out if Microsoft was going to make money with free software.
GPL and OpenSource are A Good Thing (TM) because they take the money issue away from the development of the software. Make money with your knowledge! Make money with your service! But don't sit there and just collect the dough.
As much as I like to see companies providing software to the community and still earning money with it, I am scared that this could be used by stronger companies one day, say IBM, Sun or Microsoft, by inserting one essential component in copyrighted and patented form to gain control. And to make money with it.

Re:Dual licensing still sounds dodgy to me

[crosbie]

Yeah, I wondered about this too.
A GPL license still applies even to the company that issues it. Just cos you wrote it doesn't mean you're uniquely positioned to sell it under both a GPL license and a proprietary license. Sure, you can cobble a license that looks like GPL, but has this tiny little amendement that permits dual licensing...

That's harnessing the hard labour of the Open Source developers, and saying "Thanks lads, we'll just take all your hard work on enhancements and fixing the bugs, apply it to our proprietary version, and we can then flog it off under a closed source license to the big boys, who can flog it off in their proprietary stuff, etc."

They should come clean on this. It's a BSD license in GPL clothing!

Nothing wrong with a BSD license of course, but at least it's upfront and honest and let's everyone know that it's free to be utilised in proprietary software.

A true GPL license has no back doors.

And yeah, the LGPL is a fine compromise and marks clear boundaries between GPL code and potentially proprietary code. I got no problem with companies utilising LGPL modules alongside proprietary ones.

Re:Dual licensing still sounds dodgy to me

[crosbie]

Hmmmn....

Just went to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html

and it says:

"The Berkeley Database License (aka the Sleepycat Software Product License).
This is a free software license and is compatible with the GNU GPL. "

Maybe the GPL should apply to the issuer of the license too???

Can a company really release software under the GPL and yet re-release it under a separate closed source license?

Sure, they can say "Ah, but we don't look at or incorporate anyone else's changes to our software. Our proprietary license only applies to software developed in-house."

Yeah.... right...

What about bug-fixes? "Well, we have a clean-room of developers who re-engineer a solution to each bug that is reported".

So this is a bit like holding Open Source in contempt then? You're not actually interested in any of its potential fruits (apart from bugs getting reported), so it's only an altruistic gesture? It's like saying "We basically have a proprietary licensing model, but because we're convinced that public distribution of our source code represents no threat to our business, we're happy to ride on the coat tails of the Open Source movement. Our licensees like to have our source code anyway, and an added benefit of making it public is that it helps prevent bespoke developers end up with a competing product they've been forced to develop from scratch. But, no, although we republish our proprietary source under a GPL-like license we're not really Open Source developers".

So this is not an 'Open Source' company making money. It's a normal software company that has no worries about publishing its source code (that is restricted to further development by a sector of the development community that it doesn't perceive as a competitor).

If it had been put this way, it wouldn't be remarkable, it would have just been sensible, enlightened practice by a commercially oriented company.

But, instead it has been put in a way that tries to portray the company as an Open Source development company.

The company is being run by a moron

[NineNine]

We contribute things like device drivers back into the open source community because they improve the OS, even if the drivers are for hardware which is too specialized for most people to care.

Any company that is doing this is not going to be around for long. Once you do this, you make it easier for competitors to come in. They A. Will have the same technology you do (ie: those drivers for that specialized hardware) and B. They'll be FAR ahead of your company since they won't have to spend the money to develop these. It's basic business. Once you do this, you lower the barrier of entry for other companies, and you give them a SIGNIFICANT competitive advantage over your own. Think about it... would you buy a piece of a company in which the owners were spending money to develop a technology (of any kind) and then give it away for free to everyone, including the competition?

Re:What do you mean???

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of how much you would have made if you shorted LNUX at $200+!

Re:Let me see..

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see the uptight moderators are out today

why is this business model limited to user apps?

[shibboleth]

Berkeley DB is a library. In order to use it, developers must link it with their applications. ... We can force them to use an open source license or to pay us money. This strategy doesn't work for standalone applications like Web servers, relational database servers, or mail servers, because the end user doesn't change those or link directly with them.

I think this is saying that Berkeley db is free to all for internal use (by a business, etc) and that internally is the only place servers are used, so there their business model wouldn't work. But why couldn't someone selling server-type sw use a license that requires $ for any commercial use of their software, internally or externally? Doesn't that have the same (or more) $-making potential?

Why no $ in custom coding?

[shibboleth]

We can't charge very much for custom code creation, Olsen says. Anyone know why not?

(And what are the problems alluded to with "open-ended no-cost full-version evals" when companies evaluate Berkeley DB vs. its competitors?)

I hate sounding like a broken record. Free != free

[xtal]

Ok, I'm sure I could run through my submission records and just find something to cut copy paste, but everyone here (or a good number) has missed a very important point about the GPL and Open Software, and always miss it. Maybe that's an american thing too :). Anyhow, just to repeat myself (and I'm sure others are typing this up as I am right now).

Just because I sell software under the GPL -does not mean I have to give it to you free-. It just means that whoever I distribute - or trade for women, booze, chests of gold, fast cars, whatever - binaries to also gets the source code and the ability to do whatever they want with that source code. Nothing stopping them from turning around and selling it for even more chests of gold! The key point is that they are free to do whatever they want with the software what they want after delivery of the product, as long as they stick with the terms of the GPL.

In many open source projects, everyone can get a binary, so everyone gets the source, too.

This means there's great money to be made in producing customized software for people, scratching other people's itches, you name it. What I see open source doing is commoditizing the common tools - the compilers, the kernel, the window managers - and providing a free platform that the customized stuff can be executed and manipulated on. The customized software, or the engineers working it, is where the money part comes in for most companies, that I can see. The things that Ximian is going with gnome is part of this. I'd have no problem chucking Ximian a few bucks a month to maintain versions and dependencies so I have a up-to-date framework to work on.

There's lots of money in Free software, and it's about freedom - those who pay for software can do what they want with it. Read the GPL. It is quite a departure from how things work now, though.