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Can Open Source Companies Stay That Way?
JoeGee writes: "According to this article on ZD Net, more and more companies born from open source projects are beginning to move towards closed source products as a source of revenue. Version 5 of GFS will be closed source, and even SuSE's director of sales Holger Dyroff has a quote that seems to disparage the service model of revenue. The one company that refuses to change its operations is, surprisingly, Red Hat. Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann says 'We believe the Red Hat brand stands for open-source.'" Yes, this is a dupe. Bad Tim! *whack*
They shouldn't sell something that can't be sold butsell expertise.
The product actually doesn't matter but if it is free then we all are happier.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
it was posted yesterday...
keep up the good work pals...
They make money
I thought they removed "Linux" from their name.
I also thought that they are pushing a closed source SourceForge for companies.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Yesterday or the day before? What's the deal?
But the amount of source code that is out there.
The most source code wins. Simple.
Open Source companies come, Open Source companies go.
They all leave the source behind.
My first experience with this model was when I was trying to get Corel Linux installed on my system.
I was not about to pay over the phone for support, and I found a few websites that did offer free messageboards.
If you think you're going to base your business off of service revenue, then you shouldn't make something and expect to sell/distribute exact copies of it.
I can see someone personalizing on a case by case business, and it would make sense to charge for the support then. People would basically have to come to you, or to someone else that can code at least.
It is too bad that so many companies are affected by this so much that they are going closed source and/or out of business.
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
Does moving towards Closed Source Products ensure every one will live happily ever after? Look at the number of Closed Source Product Companies that have shut shop. It is probably not the model, but the condition of the economy that is responsible for the poor performance.
In God I trust... on others I use dsniff.
I am aware of a number of medium sized software developers producing specialist systems for specific industries, who are considering 'going open' and charging solely for deployment and support. I come into contact with these systems pretty regularly through my work - and usually call the company to ifnd out what their plans are as much through noseyness as need.
They are considering it for a pretty simple reason - giving software away, and making it open so the client doesn't HAVE to buy your service agreement, gives the client great confidence in YOUR confidence in the quality of your service.
Most users of such systems understand that the service component of the charge is the 'expensive' part anyway. By going open source a company can relaunch, give away the software and offer 'as you need it' support at rates likely to undercut the opposition.
Open means customisable, which opens up another potential revenue stream to the producing company.
It also lets the pain in the arse customers do some modifications themselves. One or two of these can account for 60-90% of ongoing support effort for some of these companies.
You don't have to go 'open source' to follow this business model, but its a great shorthand, and a great differentiator. Anyone work in a firm thinking of following this route?
Why is that surprising? Red Hat have previously done the part-open/part-closed thing, and realised that it doesn't really help that much, and that well packaged all open source packages are just as marketable, cheaper to license and earn you good will in the community. Most of the other companies (SuSE excepted, as the YaST licensing was clearly designed to protect their market) are just ill-thought-out dotcom cash-ins struggling to cope with a dose of economic reality.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Or is it an open-OS company? The revenue model is different for redhat. Imho, they dont rate any special recognition for not succumbing to the green monster, here.
I think you mean owned by VA Software, a - gasp! - closed-source software company, it would appear.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
How is this surprising? RedHat has always been one of the most staunch endorsers of Open Source/Free Software. Did anyone else watch the videos of the O'Reily OSS convention? The RedHat guy was amazing. And how about the comment posted yesterday (about RedHat willing to give Free Software to every school in the US) ? This doesn't surprise me at all, I don't see how it would surprise anyone.
I read a very interesting book called 'Distraction' by Bruce Sterling. In it, the Chinese have broken the American economy by open sourcing all intellectual property over the internet. Will we all go that way without closing the source? The only way the open source companies are going to survive is if a) the public suddenly become all honest and willing to pay (yeah right) or b) if someone comes up with a new strategy for charging for services or whatever.
....
How about open sourcing everything but the bit of code that requires the activation key? Or charging a shedload for user documentation and training. Or
I imagine all these have been tried, and all seem to be failing.
I really can't believe he said that! If nobody (including presuambly SuSE) cared about profitability two years ago how can these people be serious about running a business?
I can only assume he was being somewhat facetious.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
without having to use a closed-source business model is to sell support and service contracts for the software. I work for a company that offers a free software product (it's closed source BTW). The customer has the option of downloading the software for free, or can purchase the same product and get live tech support (i.e. talk to me on the phone) for a year. I believe Red Hat is doing this already for Red Hat Linux. If Red Hat were to offer free support on every product that they gave away for free, they would not be in business for very long, and the only users of Red Hat Linux would be those who either work with the code or us anti-M$ /.ers who answer tech questions with "RTFM you moron!"
The same thing is happening all over the Open Source Service front, so it should be expected that not all will be equally able to sustain a revenue, when supply exceeds demand. This will of course not be as juicy a story to tell, so instead Darwin will be arrested as soon as somebody tells the police where he is currently. That way we will no longer have to deal with the realistic world.
//Wegge
When a piece of code is GPL'ed it can NEVER be closed source again. This is why several companies are using a dual/triple license trick to allow them to close the source under the other license. This is for example how Mozilla (MPL) and the Qt (QPL) library is developed.
But as long as the code is under the GPL it can always be forked.
What i cannot comprehend is how external contributions to the GPL'ed source can be embraced by the other incompatible licenses in this scheme???
Why is it suprising that Red Hat should remain Free? They have always released all their source code and have cut paychecks for many an Open Source programmer. For them to remain steadfast in their policy is hardly suprising.
Personally, I don't use Red Hat Linux as I find it rather byzantine, but I have always held them in the highest regard when it comes to their ethical stance on Free software.
Open Source was a mass delusion fueled by the internet bubble. These types of mass hysteria are very common during economic booms. History will look back on it as a form of collective geek madness. With the benefit of hindsight any objective person can see that open source makes about as much sense as farmers giving away food and trying to generate revenue by providing cookery lessons. The whole open source meme plays on the idea that geeks in their bedrooms want to believe they can out-code the big players and produce better software. The real flaw in the whole thing is that the strength big players is not (and does not need to be) in their coding, but in their ability to organize and focus enormous human and financial resources on creating and deploying software technology sustained over the long term.
Since the last time this article was posted, I have worked out my comments a little more completely and posted them to Oomind. Basic summary: recession is bad for capitalist enterprises relying on OSS business models, but good for the community aspect of OSS.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Why show your ignorance so clearly - you are almost flying it proud like a flag... RedHat has always been true to Free Software principles, unlike some others (hello Caldera).
Please don't knock RedHat without good reasaon - they *are* one of the good guys out there.
The big problem is that in order to make a living out of open source, companies have had to sell services.
This doesn't work to well in the (our) geek world as we all know what we are doing and in the rest of the personal computer market MS is still King.
This leaves the Business sector, which as we all know is run by PHBs who beleave everything MS's markitdroids spoon feed them.
If OS is going to make any head way we need a MUCH bigger marketing budget
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
In the end there will probably be a small handful of business models that are really successful. But things are still evolving to quickly to really know what will work. Especially given the current 'irrational negativity' (in contrast to the 'irrational exuberance' of recent memory), it's too early to tell what will work and what won't.
RedHat is, in a way, in the same position as IBM. They've already established a strong reputation and consulting organization and don't need proprietary IP to compete. A small company with no track record can't successfully compete with RedHat.
The same isn't true for a lot of smaller Open Source companies. Small companies can spend a lot of time and money developing an Open Source product, and then find a competitor selling against them using the same product, but with no investment in R&D. The client can't tell the difference, so in the end it comes down to straight marketing, with no points given for actually having developed the product.
My company has faced this situation in the past and now we develop custom proprietary applications on top of an Open Source platform. We still believe in Open Source, but for now we need to keep some stuff to ourselves in order to compete effectively. I'm hopeful that over time we can swing back towards Free software - after all it does help to produce better software. Perhaps after we've had more time in the market and are a little more established. Or perhaps we'll open up certain pieces of the product while keeping more specialized functionality to ourselves. It's hard to say.
It is clear that Open Source/Free Software is here to stay and will take a big chunk of the software market, but individual participants have to find a formula that works.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
They have a lot of smart guys, they took over Cygnus, they employ people like mr cox to work remotely. If you want the GNU compiler chain ported to your new processor, or even architecture (like the PS2), they can do it. You want a custom linux kernel, they can do it. The support companies that are folding are those that do "easy" support - installing linux, configuring networking, etc. just isn't that difficult.
I doubt anyone will bother to redo and close the kernel, which means there might be some more high quality programs (not that money==quality, but it helps) for alterniative OSs, and the applications may of course at some later point in time might be taken over by open source or free alternatives. Sounds a lot better to me than closed-source Windows with closed-source applications, which is the case today. Of course in a perfect world *bzzt* in a perfect world every OS and app you'd ever want would already be written.... *returns to real world* ... uh nevermind.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's the developers you are paying. Why are we paying for software? It doesn't cost anything to copy software, just 5cents or so for the cd and however much for the printer manuals and box, if you even buy that part. We should be paying for developers time instead, this is where open source fits in.
Let's take an example. The Linux kernel is free, everyone can download it. So how do people make money off of it? Contracts. A company can hire out a person to write a kernel module for their new hardware. The developer gets paid by the hour to write the module and the module can be released open and free. Then later another company can hire someone else to make another module and add it to the kernel. All these contracts may be small, but they keep adding to one big project.
Now this only works with Free Open Source software that can be incrementally improved. A large game for end consumers won't work with this model. What company is going to pay a large group of developers to make a giant game and then release it for free? Maybe as Open Source, but not free.
So Open Source developers should get into contracting to work on open source projects that can help large companies. If a project is Open and Free, it can help everyone and save money for large companies as they don't have to pay for large software packages and then upgrades... and Open Source developers can still be paid.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
BTW, looking at the long roll-call of PhD's, grad students, and very experienced and skilled professional programmers contributing to Free software, one could hardly dismiss us as "geeks in their bedrooms."
Are you saying that PHD, grad students and programmers aren't geeks? Or they don't have bedrooms? In what way can they not be dismissed as 'geeks in their bedrooms'?
The point has been made many times here before, but bears repeating once again: Free Software and Open Source are two different things, regardless of what you might read on ZDnet.
- fr eedom.html
"Moving to a proprietary system also can spur ill will. Because of the freedoms afforded by the open-source movement, older versions of software may live on as competition. The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1984, continues to work to ensure open-source versions of programs live on as long as possible."
Not true. The Free Software Foundation was established to promote and support Free Software. They have nothing whatever to do with Open Source, and are careful to say so.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for
The term "Open Source" is much abused, because it lacks sufficient precision. Everyone from authors that really want to encourage software freedom but do not always want to use the GPL, for entirely honest reasons (e.g. the BSD folks, Eric Raymond etc.), right down to parasites who care only about a quick buck (e.g. most of the shiny-suited salesmen who leaped briefly onto the Open Source bandwagon), call themselves part of the "Open Source movement". It's a conveniently huge umbrella under which even Microsoft might have fit, had they needed to. It was started by well-meaning people for the right reasons, but with a flawed charter, which may or may not be fixable at this point.
It's not necessary to agree with everything the FSF and Stallman have ever said to see that they are right about several things. One of these is that a genuinely Free Software license can be an effective way of reducing your risks, if someone decides to close part or all of the source of software that you or your business depend on.
Perhaps this is a necessary and inevitable shakeout, where we'll see a clarification of what the world wants from software freedom. It comes at a time when many different freedoms we take for granted are under attack, from many sides. In the case of software freedom, we will need to look hard at what we want, and what we're willing to do to defend it.
The vast majority of open source software available has been produced by individuals or not for profit groups. Look at most of the major projects, the Linux Kernel, GNOME, KDE etc. These are not funded by companies, and if all of the companies trying to make money off of open source were to disapear tommorow, they would carry on.
Sites like ZDNet are fundamentally biased towards thinking about the world in terms of companies and their success. This is how they have always worked and why they don't understand the os world.
Yes, corperate help can speed up developement of a system but it isn't critical.
The way I see it, there are three business models that can, and have worked, and two that won't.
The Red Hat way - Selling totally open systems with support and (shock!) manuals etc. Adding something to a fundamentally free product.
The IBM way - use free software as a base for your proprietory products. Why make your own UNIX when there is a free one. Mabey give developement back to the community.
The QT way - Create a product that people have to pay for if they make money out of it, but is free if they don't
The VALinux way - This is just another dot com and isn't really about open source, they just work off the open source community. The sourceforge model is broken in the same way as...
The sistina way - Provide a product that is both open and closed source. This will fork. Unless the closed version is a long way ahead of the open version people will not pay serious money for it. GFS is not protected by the GPL in the same way as QT. I could package GFS (gpl version) with a closed source product and sell it, I can't use QT in closed source without paying.
Of these, only the first three will work. Red Hat does not depend on a massive in house development effort to produce its product (unlike sistena). IBM and QT are both profitable companies. IBM is using Linux and Apache to reduce costs, and gives a little back in return, especially where specialist development is needed, but again it does not involve a major (relative) developement effort. Trolltech makes money, but gives its product away to people who do not make any money out of it, thus increasing its visibility. I hadn't heard of QT before KDE came about.
VA Linux is just a web publisher like any other. Sistina is fighting a loosing battle against its own technology. Once something is GPL'd you can't unGPL it.
Whatever ZDNet says. Open Source will continue for the same reasons that it got started in the first place, because people enjoy writing software and creating and sharing something, and mabey for the kudos. These are the same reasons that I want to start my own project (a developent env for Prolog), not for the money, but because I enjoy it, and it would be an interesting challange. OS has never been about the money. If it had been, GNU would not exist, nor Linux, nor any of the other major components of the OS panthion (*BSD etc).
End sermon
Paul Leader
Do any small open source consultancies release their custom JSP/JDBC applications/cookbooks/templates that may be used to set up (franchise :) ) other small open source consultancies? [EJBs seem too complicated to start with]
JSP/JDBC and open source seems a reasonable way to explore and gain experience, before I give up my day job.
Be Free: Free Software Tuition
I find the main problem with OS (Open Source) companies is that they tring to make money off of service for their product. While that is great when people have a lot of extra money but in a tight echonomy people will try to find less expensive means of support. While other companies like the one I work in. Although their is some OS development it main focus is on Suporting a companies infastructure.So basicly we give away our software because it helps our jobs but our revenu is created by actually supporting the companies computers ,Cisco, Linux, Solaris and NT systems and make them talk to each other and make sure that their network is secure, and they are getting maximum effiency out of their investment. OS development is only a small portion of our jobs but it exists and it works. but OS software works better as a form of advertising gimic (cringe) then as an actuall product.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The point isn't whether Open Source companies can stay Open Source or not. The companies could all go bankrupt and it wouldn't stop Open Source. Before it had a catchy name, Open Source was just people writing programs that they wanted for their own purposes, and sharing them with other people. The loss of a few trendy business models won't change that.
In fact, it might actually help Open Source in general by sweeping out all the cruft, just like the current slump is cleaning up the dot-com fad. The people who are left will be the ones that develop Open Source software because they just care about having the software, not because they want to capitalize on a freely available army of developers.
Before, developers (or their companies) wouldn't openly release things that they felt really created a competitive edge. (Non-software companies didn't try to sell such systems either. They kept the advantage for themselves.) Now, these Open Source companies are trying to make a profit from creating software that, by definition, is their competitive edge. And they want to release all the source? Not likely. I don't want to sound like one of those people who yammer about how Open Source advocates shouldn't want everything for free, but it doesn't surprise me that these companies are dropping off and selling out. In the end, it doesn't really matter- the heart of Open Source exists outside of these companies.
--WH--
I must admit that I've never trusted SuSE. Not once.
They have always played license games with their installer and configuration tools. For some reason, they get more credit and less heat than RedHat, even though RH is, without a shadow of a doubt, a bigger contributor to Linux and a 100% supporter of the GPL.
I did indeed buy Corel Linux. So in the first place, you assumed, but ignoring that part, do you think that my sole purpose is to support them just because they are open source?
And no,I would not have paid for a personal versioon of Corel Linux.
Economies of scale are nice and all, but with open source, I was suggesting that perhaps it does not work so nicely.
If anyone can copy and run the program, then obviously you aren't going to sell as many copies as you could potentially if you didn't offer free (as in beer) copies.
So no, I was not saying that I would pay for a personal version of Corel's software. I was saying that perhaps open source is not a perfect model for every type of software. Economies of scale are great, in terms of making something once and then cheaply distributing it, but then again, if I am not making any money off of any distribution, then what good does it do me if my sole purpose is to make money? People can easily get free support, as I did, especially if it is for something that is very popular.
So yeah, it is too bad that open source companies are so affected by the fact that people like me won't pay more than they have to. Service and support revenues are more likely to come from services and support that only you can provide.
To me, it makes sense to be able to customize software for individual businesses and other clientsand charge them for service, since they would most likely come to you.
If everyone else can do so, and for free, you are charging too much.
That is what I was saying.
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
Lets use an example of why I think things are going wrong.
Supplier A "gives" software away and sells support.
When times are good customers pay for the support, well because they can afford it. When times are bad, people cut overheads, one overhead that could be ripe for major trimming is outside IT support. Now if a customer buys a new PC, or needs the software upgraded then they can do it themselves. Supplier A loses out on the support contract, because its argued they are not needed.
Supplier B sells software and support
Supplier B charges people for the software & for support. When times are good people will be convinced to pay for both, when they are bad they cut support. Now if someone buys a new PC, or needs the software upgraded they have to pay Supplier B not only for the software, but also for the cost of installing/updateing the software.
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
Why can't these guys see that the nature of the software industry is changing?
Let me spell it out:
If you have a software product which is very widely used, there is no business model that will be highly profitable in the longer term.
The nature of the IT industry is changing due to the Internet and the web. These changes may take a long time, perhaps 20, 30, 40 years. Unless draconian progress-halting laws are passed, the Internet is going to completely screw the 'old' software company business model.
The invention of new processes during the industrial revolution lead to the death of many industries and professions. The "Open source development model" is a new process for developing software. It has been brought about by the fact that software can now be copied and distributed at virtually zero cost, and multiple individuals from multiple companies and other organised groups from around the world can work simultaneously on projects of mutual benefit. So, if you hope to make a long term business based on selling a widely used software product, forget it.
Isn't that a campain for encourage companies to develoe stuff in OpenSource/SemiOpenSource?
With a big blade and loads of beer, there's nothing I can't do.
Contrary to the premature rumors, the open source movement is going more and more popular. Now of course, there are companies that dream about getting big and strong and concur the world all for themselves using open source.Some of them move to closed source chasing that dream ... only
to desapear and no one to hear about them again.
That is right - when was the last time you heard
of a prosperous company that started open and
switched to closed?? If things are not going well,
an open source company should think of scaling
down the operations, change in the product and
improving their relations with the comunity.
It is that simple. In the world of open source,
small is beautifull.
Happy open-sourcing!
Chears,
da bear.
The one company that refuses to change its operations is, surprisingly, Red Hat.
Red hat started making profit as soon at it became fashionable. And even in the first years they only lost amounts measured in the hundreds of thousands. Not millions, like VA or hundreds of millions like so many dot-bombs.
It isn't surprising that red hat is sticking with it, since it's actually working out pretty well for them...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
They are going to bring up the issue at a stockholders meeting, but I don't belive it's happened yet. Probably will though.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't TheKompany change the license of Quanta Plus ?
The license i see on their site, forbids redistribution, so it's definitely not GPL (as the original Quanta was).
Isn't that a GPL violation?
Ahh, nothing like the bastion of hardline journalism that is ZDNet...
According to this article on ZD Net , more and more companies born from open source projects are beginning to move towards closed source products as a source of revenue. Version 5 of GFS will be closed source, and even SuSE's director of sales Holger Dyroff has a quote that seems to disparage the service model of revenue.
And plenty of companies born from closed source software are beginning to move towards open source. What a world!
Any business model that sells open source software alone is flawed. If open source companies can't manage to make money, that's their problem. Business isn't easy, people.
Why doesn't ZDNet trumpet the demise of closed source? You can find hundreds of companies that are going out of business right now that sell nothing but proprietary software.
Open source is doing better than ever. And the companies that claim to be "it" are only a small percentage of the business generated around open source in general.
Sorry I just had to
Everyone likes to bash RedHat, but how many other tech companies do you see out there which are alive and doing as well as RedHat is? Thats right, almost none.
They know their responsibilities, they know how to provide services and support, while still giving back to the community.
Have you looked at how much RedHat has contributed back? Last time I checked, they host projects like cygwin, gdb, etc and have turned important apps like anaconda and even rpm (as much as people say it sucks, but it is the most popular package manager out there) back into the community.
Brielle
We know S/W is not a tangible resource. Try telling beancounters. They build their careers around boxing up and selling a tangible resource.
The fact that alot of development is done for free by people in their own time alters this. Its like trying to make money from a charity.
Think of how you would sell GreenPeace - how do you sell the common knowledge of don't screw the plannet. People are willing devote time and effort to this for nothing. So can you boxup leaflets and books, and then expect to make huge amounts of money - NO. You can however develop products that help to implement that ideal.
Same with Linux. You can't sell Linux to the masses it's free. You sell to businesses how you are going to save them money by using Linux/OSS. Every business that uses MS Windows (or other closed source systems) is a potencial customer for the 'service' of moving to OSS/Linux. Others will sell the 'service' of maintaining their OSS systems.
OSS is not a tangible resource - lots of people can't handle that.
.
"Things that you own end up owning you" - Tyler Durden (via Diogenes of Sinope).
Take a look at the list of publically traded software companies, ordered by market cap. What do you see? Microsoft's market cap is almost equal to the market caps of all the other software companies combined. Oracle is way behind with over 1/10 of the software market. Most of the top of the list is B2B.
The moral of the story is that consumer software (other than maybe games) does not make money. It doesn't matter if your product is open, closed, shareware, freeware, whatever, because copyright law is pretty much universally ignored for consumer software.
At least explicitly making the source open gives you some good PR, and forces management to come up with a workable business model which doesn't presume consumers paying for software, which just isn't going to happen.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
has a good advantage and slight edge based on our old freind called: "Brand Name Recognition". (Plus it does not hurt that they employee some of the doers rather than the thinkers....)
I have to chuckle inside when I hear of a company going belly up because they can't make money from free software. It's like the California gold rush -- they think just because they made the trip to California -- they deserve riches and fame.....But in this business, riches and fame do not come from association -- they come from talent, the ability to do more with less, and some luck. I mean look at the cash Eazel went through ($11 Million Plus) just to try to get a file manager off the ground......Note to the masses: File Managers are best developed in the basement in the evening with a six pack of Dr. Pepper, an itch to scratch, and no overhead. How much VC did Linus have to work with when he got the whole ball rolling? -- I think I recall he did it because he wanted it....He did not see dollars and fast cars coming out of it....I think that the "hobbyist" business model is the best way to go here folks.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Any businessman or financial analyst will tell you that any corporation has only one objective: profit. The aquirement of financial wealth is the first and foremost responsiblilty of a company. Producing its product or delivering its service are just means of achieving profit: if they could turn a great profit without selling anything they would. What they provide to the consumer is secondary and only important insofar as it makes money. Sadly, this holds true for open source as well. As soon as a group of people who believe in the ideas and principles of open source come together, for effeciency reasons, they run the risk of becoming a company. Gradually the financial necessity of upkeeping a corporation becomes their primary motive. This takes much longer in such a rigidly principled market as open source, but eventually it will happen. That doesn't say anything about the future of open source though. As long as there are individuals who believe in it and work on it, not as members of a corporation, but because they think it is a good thing, corporations may depart from the movement as they please, and while devastating to open source, it will never be fatal.
What's in a Sig?
Where is the great american spirit ? If I have a good idea, why should I make it using the open source model ? why not become rich ?...
With Sistina, you have that sneakiness involved. People don't like feeling like they've been had- and what Sistina pulled tends to make people feel like they've been had. This feeling tends to make people take the GPL version and transcend the closed version- if this happens, there's little reason for buying the closed one (Certification? Anyone can go through and audit the code and run bounds checkers over it, if they've got time and money- then sell the certified copy plus consulting services, etc.).
In the case of Ghostscript, they were up-front about what they were about from the get-go and haven't made people feel like they were had. In the case of Sistina and GFS, we have the reverse and people are peeved about it.
I don't think Sistina's going to last with the current course of actions.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
even if the product is very widely used.
If several products are widely used, people will expect them come with a box, then there is a chance - packaging. Contract with hardware vendors to help them save money from propriatary software and to directly support the software after box sold.
*ouch!!!*
;-)
What did I do?! Okay, okay, so I took a three hour lunchbreak when I should have been at work, and I met up with a female friend which my (paranoid) girlfirend probably wouldn't aprove of, but hey, I'm only human!
Cheers,
Tim C
PS Yes, I know this is Offtopic...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Two years ago, the standard business plan was:
Collect Underpants > ??? > Profit!
That's the crux of the 'dot com bubble burst'. Half me me hopes Mr. Dyroff is being facetious, but the other half appreciates his candor if he's serious... it's a lot more refreshing than the usual 'Our product was just too far ahead of its time, and nobody could see our vision, and *that's* why our stock is now worth $0.03' excuse you get from former dot com executives.
Good ridance, now that all the goofy, ooo I'm gonna make a million dollars off a pet rock idiots are out of the picture, we can get back to what we're good at. Coding for love of the art and nothing else. Whoever it was that thought making money on opensource was a good idea should have been shot. It's kinda like building a log cabin, you can sure save yourself alot of money and get more personal satisfaction compared to hiring a contracter to build you a more conventional house, but once you start a company building log cabins, you just took away the whole point of the log cabin in the first place. This analogy isn't perfect, I understand that, but the point is, these are the same idiots who overvalued the stocks, and overvalued the internet. Overvalued is probably the wrong word, unless you attach the words "from a monetary point of view" to the end.
I always wondered why these companies feel that they can't sell their product with the source code?
I mean when you buy something from them, included on the CD is the source AND binary versions.
I think many business people just can't wrap their brains around the whole concept.
hmmm...
Open source in a depression market(that we are in) cannot survive unless pushing some ssort of cross pollen nation........................
I can already feel heat from the flames starting to come...
Lets compare 2 companies, Apple and Sun...
Apple has always held tight control all their OS, not allowed the manufature of apple clones etc. They have acted MORE LIKE a closed source company.
Sun has allowed Tatung, Axil, and others to make clones. They have acted MORE LIKE an open source company.
Apple has a smaller pie but owned all of it.
Sun has allowed the pie to become bigger and owned part of it.
SO what does this mean? If you put something out that is good, in use by a lot of people you should be able to get a smaller piece of a larger pie.
In other words you should be able to stay open source.
first they release a product using the GPL, then they release a commercial/close source version of the same product with new features, but the question is, is the commercial version using code from the GPL version, is that a violation of the GPL?
Actually, the standard business plan was:
Produce a sexy business plan > IPO > Sell stock to the unwitting public.
Many venture capitalists didn't fund businesses with the expectation of them ever making a profit. They funded businesses with the expectation of them going public and making a killing on the stock market. Many of these businesses were never built to be profitable. They were built to look good to the unwary investor. Now that the bubble has burst and investors are wary, only the profitable will survive.
The sick thing is that most people didn't care about the long-term viability of companies like VA Linux so long as they had an "exit strategy" for getting their money out (usually selling stock to the public). Now that the carnage has commenced, the people being burned are either idealists who really want to make the company work or greedy bastards that didn't get out in time.
The law of Wall Street: The bulls survive and the bears survive, but the pigs get eaten.
This
That's the main reason I keep resisting buying another copy of SuSE. But I find it sufficient.
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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Clearly if you are offering something for free, then you shouldn't be surprised if some of the people who use it are cash-starved (or even just cheap). This had better be factored into your business plan.
... it might free them of maintenance costs [use the GPL here!]). You might like to have the right to reuse the code, so you could give them a cut rate if an Open Source license were used (they might release the code to you, with the proviso that if you reused it you would need to make the changes available back to them ... GPL would simplify the bookkeeping [with them as the original owner, so they could decide to release it, or a modified version of it, under any license that they choose]).
If someone downloads software from you, they have cost you
1) the price of a download, and
2) the loss of the chance that they might have purchased it (but some of those will purchase it if they like it).
If they get support from elsewhere, this isn't a cost to you. Your loss is that they didn't buy it from you.
Now adding these together, the total cost if someone is cash-starved or cheap, is the price of a download. This cost needs to be a part of your business plan.
The real question is, why should anyone purchase from you? That's the question that needs to be answered. There are 4-5 major distributions (of Linux), with slightly different flavors, which satisfy the answer "because it's easier". And there are numerous minor ones that may make enough to keep afloat, but probably won't be able to afford to become major. Several of these probably survive on being consultants. But that's Linux.
Text editors?(As an example of minor applications): One person can write a decent text editor. This may be a personal ad: "This is an example of my skills", but it's unlikely to be a major financial prop of anyone. A few companies live in this niche already, and there are many free examples, so it's probably full. But if you write a good one, you can probably give it away as free (the costs are sunk) advertising.
Larger applications? Either you are working as a part of some group, or you were hired. If you were hired, the company may not care whether or not the source code is given to others (or they may prefer it
Lots of special cases. Not many general ones. The real point is that Free Software isn't usually about making money, or even saving money. It's usually cost neutral, or a hobby activity. But in special circumstances, it can make money. Open Source is a bit friendlier to making money, but sometimes doesn't work as well.
However, Free Software can help you *SAVE* money. Used as components, it can reduce your development expenses. This is where GPL shines. And if it becomes popular, then your maintenance costs can descend to nearly nothing (but don't count on this one!)
So generally the only people who make money off Free Software are the consultants and the end users. But there are special case exceptions. The problem is, most software companies tend to think of themselves as being one of those "special exceptions", but they are rare.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
RedHat have stated over and over, their commitment to the GPL, both for the stuff they distribute, and for the stuff they produce. You may not like their public MO, but you don't need to make snide comments like this.
lets not confuse "open source" and "gpl".
*thousands* of companies working with bsdl code are alive and kicking, and doing well. check out apple for starters.
How many of these companies would do well to adopt a dual GPL/proprietary licencing scheme as did Sleepycat?
Considering that the open-source model is working quite well with RedHat's business model I'd say that it is not surprising.
And then when you consider the public voice that RedHat has given to the open-source concept along with the contributions of RedHat to the community it is quite obvious that the statement is purely subjective and meant to draw fire.
Yeah, I can hear the rants already, "what voice?, what contributions?". Well, if you can't figure it out then you'de better pay more attention to the world around you.
My point would be more clearly stated that RedHat is one of the few companies born of the dotcom era that has a model that looks to actually succeed in making it profitable?
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!