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theKompany's Shawn Gordon On The GPL
replicant_deckard writes "In this short but insightful essay Shawn Gordon, the founder of theKompany, explains why GPL doesn't work for software companies producing graphical and end-user friendly stuff. This reminds us that GPL has so far been useful just for infrastructure-level hacker stuff like operating systems, databases etc. " Of course, it's been used for end user - OpenOffice, GAIM, and other projects.
With "Public Domain"?
It's still a copyright(?) license, just not nearly as restrictive as a traditional license.
I'm all for reasonably priced software, but giving it away for free often isn't.
There doesn't appears to be anything in the essay that suggests that "GPL doesn't work for software companies producing graphical and end-user friendly stuff." It *does* note -- and this is no shock to any of us -- that GPL is inappropriate for commercial software, but "graphical and end-user friendly stuff [sic]" isn't a complete subset of the former.
-Baka!
There are a few sticky issues (like pre-release distribution of binaries only to outside contractors because you don't yet have a clean source release mechanism), but with proper planning, even these can be overcome.
As for selling GPL source, this is permitted, though I thought that there was some cap on price, based on reasonable distribution expenses (media, shipping, overhead, etc.)
You could've hired me.
While I agree with the author that it's hard to sell an Open Source only project, I'm really curious to see how Covalent does selling Apache web server management systems. They take a good open source engine and add something of value, a good user interface for doing complicated tasks, to it before selling it. Perhaps that's a better business model than trying to sell GPL'ed software directly?
> Of course, it's been used for end user -
> OpenOffice, GAIM, and other projects.
All these projects do not aim to be profitable for their original developers. GPL might work for purely volunteer projects, but world has yet to witness sustainable business model for commercial companies developing GPLed products.
Most of those projects don't plan on trying to make money. A vast majority of those projects are by people like you and me who have an itch to scratch. If someone else finds it useful, then great.
I think Shawn Gordon is right in saying that for a user-friendly piece of software there is no money to be made in services because the goal of the software is to be easy to use. If they meet that goal, no one needs the service.
at last someone with proper experience has spoken in a sane voice.
its _easy_ to say sell services . its pretty easy to say hack at your will and lets develop things as a community - it just doesnt hold water in a serious [read enterprise] environment. its very tough for everything to be projected as a service.
its surprising NOBODY thinks like an enduser, it really begs the question whether the open source people are techno-elitists. i know because i am one of them:) but after having so many sessions with my friends and helping them out - its almost stupid to think that selling services is enough and being noble in intent and academic in character is the right thing to do. people dont care for that, they want things to use, support in case of help and a smooth passage in unknown waters. NOTHING of which is provided even remotely by the warped and usually obtuse/convoluted software which come out from people like us [the oss community]
the GPL has a lot of problems. it does solve a lot. BUT it has its limitations. if OSS people are not so fanatical they might actually realize this and present an _easier_ option for most people.
think enterprise. you have a loose group of hackers , no documentation, all irritable and having no time [standard response: i am doing it in my free time, dont bug me] and you want a million dollar company to trust these software ?:) yes msft is evil, OSS coders rock but please lets be a little more _realisitic_ . fanaticism doesnt get us anywhere.
i mean , look at linus and his statement on the bk license. he is right...there is no pt in arguing about license because if the tool is right you use it .
a rant , flame me all you can......
linux will never rule the desktop unless they actually get out of this horrible mess and convolution that the licenses have come to
be. guess why people like windows? why people prefer aol? dammit , its easy to use. everybody is not a CS hacker, physicists need to use comps - they dont give a jackass that qt violates the license and debian wont include pine. PLEASE.
whatever...maybe i am too put off this morning...
v
now go back and look and actually tell me how many of those projects are actually usuable by the average person (ie consistent UI, help files, manual, etc.).
It's not that the GPL is bad but rather with few exceptions because you can't make money on GPL software the programs don't get the "polish" that most people expect from their programs.
Speaking generally, communities are almost always their own worst enemy. This goes for the linux community, the GPL community, and just about any moderately social community you can name.
And the reason for it is stated quite clearly in the article:
We sell one product that is GPL. On at least a weekly basis we get someone telling us that we have to give them the source code because it is GPL. Some of them become verbally violent and abusive when I point out that the GPL provides for us to charge for the source code, we just have to make it available, and this we have done. Some of these people even tried to hack our system to get the code because they thought it was their God-given right to have it. These are also typically the people who contribute nothing to the community.
While I think that the majority of any community is made up of decent, honest people who truly care about what they're involved with (yes i am that idealistic), there are always those marginal and VERY vocal few who MUST ruin the party for everyone else.
These people usually know just enough of what they're talking about to make them dangerous... the uneducated public believes them because they sound like they know what they're talking about. The business community listens because they're loud, vocal, and usually ready to do something stupid to get their point across.
It's because of people like this that GPLd products haven't gotten a big foothold in the commercial world. The thought that someone might actually CHARGE for their hard work and effort sends these people over the edge into a screaming, frothy frenzy of angry postings, DoS attacks, and god knows what other lame actions to 'punish' the bad guys who won't give them something for nothing. Never mind the fact that what they're doing is completely legal and good business... this self-righteous minority doesn't need messy facts to get in the way.
It's those marginal people that make me see red, and make companies head in the same direction as TheKompany has.. they won't bother with the GPL because the vocal, obnoxious minority makes it too hard for them to be profitable from their work. Frankly, I don't blame them for deciding not to GPL anything else one bit.
End Rant.
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo - H. G. Wells
ESR says in Cathedral and the Bazaar, if you are a company who's primary business it writing and selling software, then GPL isn't going to be your bag. That's ANY software. You may write software an give it away hoping to sell some other service on top... in which case your company's primary product wouldn't be software would it?
However, if your company sells widgets and you maintain an in house software development team to manage your process/accounting software, then you are the perfect candidate for GPL. Outsource your software to the world and get more code review, more features, and more man hours spent on the product at a lower price... then you can dedicate yourself to what you do best, making widgets instead of overhead (software development).
Other GUI and cool software maintained strictly as software under the GPL is done for fun not profit.
It isn't rocket science.
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
A programmer who use the GPL see it as a tool for distributing code that he wants to write. The programmer knows that no one will be able to do more with the software than he can. Since he doesn't care about commercial concepts like support and ease-of-use, the GPL allows him to do only what he wants to do with the code, and doesn't give him any incentive to do more. How many times have you emailed a developer of a GPL'd program for some feature or help, and gotten a reply along the lines of, "You have the source code, you figure it out!"?
Frankly, I like the idea. Without the GPL, a lot of programmers who don't want to worry about support and end users constantly bugging them for new features would never have released their programs at all.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
To Eat!
Contribute Free Software
The Kompany manages both, and yet people are getting all hot and bothered about the fact that they have software that you must pay for if you want it.
As long as the Kompany keeps making contributions to Free Software - they are alright by me.
Let's judge the Kompay an their efectivness in giving Free Software. If they happen to make a buck on the side, good! That money helps them make more Free Software.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I don't get all these people who slam the gpl because they can't make money with it. Well duh, it was not designed to help companies make money. It is for people who want to make their code available, but want other people's code as payment for their own.
Of course there are always the people who go on about how they don't think it is fair that they pay with thier source code to get some small piece of functionallity from a peice of gpl software. Well if you don't like the price, don't pay it. Changes are there is someone else that wants money instead of code.
As for this article, I can understand the trouble that people are causing with gpl inquireries. But I can't blame the gpl people either, since they are trying to protect themselves from people stealing their source code, without payinging them the price they are asking. Violating the gpl is the same as stealing a copy of word. So yes switch licenses if you think it is better for the company, it is the smart thing to do. Everything does not have to use the same licence, use the one that does what you want. And of course it is the less informed people that are causing the most problems, that is how it works for everything.
But Gordon doesn't seem to understand the purpose of the GPL. He seems to think it's some mastermind plot to undermine Microsoft and commercial software vendors. He seems to think that the main aspiration of Linux is to become just like Windows and used by just the same class of people. But what the GPL really is is a way of giving users the tools to build the environments they find useful; that the software ends up costing nothing in many cases is just a side-effect.
And the fact that Gordon doesn't get it shows in TheKompany's products. Kapital just isn't competitive with Quicken or Money in terms of functionality or support by financial institutions, but it also fails miserably as a flexible, end-user programmable UNIX-style component.
Maybe Linux will become a mainstream desktop platform, and maybe eventually, there will be a significant market for Windows/MacOS style applications on it. But I think that's a long shot, and until that happens, I'll just get the real thing in the few cases where I just want a consumer-grade piece of software.
If there is a cap on the price it is only a "gentlemen's agreement" because it's not in the GPL. It's just one of the things he was talking about when he said that the GPL is vague in some areas.
The argument is so simple and brilliant that I can't but wonder why no-one else has said it out loud before.
If you license your software so that the only thing you can charge for is service, then why should you make the program easy to use? That would just deprive you of the only way you could make money with it. Combine that with the elitist geek bullshit about how "real men" should only use programs that are difficult to learn and use (emacs, for instance, is an extreme example of this - a bloated 23 MB package with absolutely incomprehensible key-bindings) and you see why OS desktops are so full of crap.
The owls are not what they seem
Bzzt! Wrong! Shawn can charge whatever he wants to. Of course, there are practical problems with trying to charge $500 when somebody else can put the source code on his website. Unless, nobody buys that first copy, in which case he still won't make any money.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums...
BSD is for people that love Unix.
Linux is for people that hate Windows.
Gawd, I wish every GPL advocate really understood the significance of this statement. If you give the software away and sell support, then the only way you make money is by getting enough people to pay for support. Logically, the more valuable the support is, the more likely people will pay for it. In other words, people will only pay for support if they need it. So what kind of support could a user want?
- New features or other code modifications, like customizations specific to your company
- Outsourcing of installation or deployment. That is, instead of installing the software on every computer in your company, you hire them to do it for you.
- Help with using the product itself.
Let's evaluate the problems with these on a case-by-case basis:- Because the user has access to the source code, it's possible for him to make the modifications himself. In fact, the GPL encourages this. So chances are, he won't pay someone else to do it.
- Only large corporations will be interested in this, and only if the corporation has an insufficient internal IT staff to do the job itself.
- The end-user will only pay for help using the program if he can't figure it out himself. However, the easier the software is to use, the less help the user will need. That's what the term "ease-of-use" is all about. So the developer has an incentive to make the software hard to use, to improve the likelihood that the customer will pay for support. In other words, the pay-for-support-only model is completely contrary to making the software easy to use! The ramifications of this are astounding. It results in a business model that encourages making the product difficult to use, but not too difficult that people won't use it.
The kicker is that because the revenue model is so weak, the company will charge more for support than if it also sold the software.Although I hate Microsoft as much as anyone else (I'm an OS/2 user, so I've been hating them longer than most Slashdot readers have), they have been trying to explain these issues to everyone. Of course, in typical Microsoftian style, all they end up doing is making themselves look stupid to anyone who isn't computer illiterate.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
GPL is a license chosen by authors who want their source code to be available and to remain available. The question is, why should they have chosen GPL for this product? If they are the sole author of their product, then GPL is simply a really poor choice for what they wanted to achieve and they should simply release under a different license. In this case, he may have a point about GPL activists.
If this product is a derivative work, then they were forced to use GPL. In that case, charging high reproduction fees to create a barrier to users (as Mr. Gordon frankly admits he is doing) is a violation at the very least of the spirit of GPL, if not a legal violation. It breaks the understanding under which he was granted the right to use the original work by the original authors. In this case he has no right to complain about people attempting to find clever ways to get their hands on source code without paying, since he would be doing exactly the same thing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The GPL *can* be used for sexy, graphical, user-friendly stuff. Look at KDE - as much as I hate it for being a Microsoft clone, I will admit it does look sexy. And look at the sheer graphic beauty of Enlightenment (If you've got a beefy box).. I'd say that's graphically sexy, moreso than anything Microsoft has produced at least.
:))
Userfriendliness is another issue (I fail to see MS Windows or clones as userfriendly), but that's another matter.
Here's the thing - many of the best people working on Linux projects are command line commandos. They don't *need* sexy, user-friendly interfaces.
The people who do may be journeyman coders, but they tend not to have the experience necessary to lead large groups to the end of a project.
I do think we'll continue seeing vast increases in graphic beauty and userfriendliness as more people use Linux. Look what we've already done.. E!, KDE, etc. It's a far cry from some of the things being distributed with earlier distributions.
Anwyay, in the end, I think people will wise up and start using the best tool for the job. Want a low cost decently stable server? Use Linux. Want the latest and greatest games? Install MS Windows (Or even better, learn how to code, how to write docs, or how to test things, and hop onboard a Linux project.
It seems Mr. Gordon's complaint with the GPL is similar in nature (but not quite the same in "spirit") to Microsoft's - "If someone releases software under the GPL, the license says that if you redistribute something made with it, you have to also make your changes available under the GPL, and, gosh, that's just too much hassle. No fair." (more or less).
That's what the GPL is FOR. Now, don't misunderstand - I'm GLAD to see (believe it or not) proprietary software available as a choice, whether I would choose to buy any or not. I also have no problem with a company choosing to avoid GPL-licensed code because they don't want to deal with the hassle of contributing back to the community in the manner that the GPL requires. I further sympathise and agree with Mr Gordon's characterization of the handful of loud, self-appointed "GPL Zealots" that tarnish the reputation of the more numerous but quieter "normal" people who just happen to agree with the GPL's philosophy.
What I DO dislike is hearing companies' ever more frequent complaints about not having permission to do whatever they want, at whatever price they want, with GPL-licensed source code. First MS, now TheKompany (and surely I've missed one or two others in between, didn't Caldera or someone from Mandrake or Red Hat say something similar a while back? I forget...). It seems obvious to me that if a programmer offers original source code under the GPL license, it's BECAUSE they don't want their work to be capitalized on without the "community" benefiting at the same time. In that respect, the writing in this opinion piece might have been "I went outside while it was raining, and I discovered that I got all wet, and people who I visited sometimes got unreasonably upset when I dripped all over their floor, and some of them got irrationally upset when I told them I wouldn't dry myself off before coming in if they didn't supply the towel for it themselves. Therefore, I felt compelled to write another editorial explaining why rain is bad for people who go outside..."
Please excuse the touch of "rant" in this post. In fairness I should emphasize that I can't fault TheKompany themselves too much, as they DO seem to contribute in one way or another back to the community (e.g. the GPL'd version of Kivio in the KOffice CVS), and even their "proprietary" license seems pretty darn reasonable as far as proprietary licenses go, but the continued complaints by proprietary software companies in general that the GPL doesn't let them redistribute proprietary, modified versions with restrictions (and typically at the same price as completely proprietary software developed from scratch, it would seem) and the implication that follows that it is therefore somehow "unfair" or unduly burdensome is just getting on my nerves...
(On the plus side, at least the complaints reaffirm that if you don't want your software to be "hijacked" for the profit of proprietary software companies [which here I define as companies whose business model is "charge for permission to use software"], the GPL will keep them away...[and for the moderators reflexively reaching for the 'flamebait' button, I reiterate - I'm not accusing TheKompany, specifically, of doing this])
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
This man has a very skewed idea of what's going on here. He says that he gets regular complaints that they don't release the code, and then tries to jump from there to the idea that using the GPL has hurt them.
:-/
Um... sorry guy, but Microsoft gets this complaint EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR. Hell, they get that from much larger and more influential commers than poor little RMS.
As for RMS, if I had a dime for everyone who had a troubling conversation with RMS, I'd probably be providing dimes to the US Treasury... they would be out. RMS is a fanatic. This is neither good nor bad, really. He has done a lot of good because he cares a heck of a lot more than he should. He's also refused to back down from some ideas which are pathalogically idealistic, and that has caused any number of problems. In the end, I think we should all reality-check Open Source against RMS just to keep that perspective, but he should never be thought of as the ultimate voice of anything (including, oddly, his GPL).
The GPL is an amazingly good tool for protecting free software AS free software. If that's not your goal, you probably chose the wrong license
Sorry man.
This is the reason that the price of GPL software tends to zero.
Example of workaround to GPL:
This software is a derivitive work based on an open-source GPL licensed forum system. This means that this derivitive work (FunnyExample Forums) MUST be free software as well (as stated in the GPL, free means in terms of rights, not in terms of price) per clause 2B of the GNU GPL [ http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html ], the FunnyExample Forum system can be relicensed (including all source code) under the terms of the GPL as well at a source code transferrance charge of $30,000,000.00 U.S. dollars. Please note that this system is a seperate entity than the FunnyExample site, even though the application is called within an iframe in the site. This means that no portions of the site other than the FunnyExample Forums will be made available. If you are interested please contact me immediately!
It isn't FUD whatsoever : To use GPLd code you might apply the GPL license to your own code as well. That is a viral license, and just because you might not like the term viral doesn't mean it isn't so. Again, to each his own: And to some they think that's a great idea, but then there are people who seem offended when someone points out the reality so they cry FUD incorrectly.
They want to make sure that their idea will be used to benefit others, not hidden away in someone's proprietary software to fatten someone else's wallet. That would be absurd.
If someone incorporates your code, in no way do they make what you've actually created disappear or lesser (it doesn't matter how many people incorporate zlib in proprietary programs, you can still grab it from zlib.org), but instead the GPL is saying "here's what I've done....but now you have to give me what you've done as well.". It ISN'T protecting the original work because there is nothing anybody can do to degrade the original work. Instead it's claiming ownership over derived works as well. The real FUD is the perpetual claims of GPLers that somehow they would be deprived of their code is someone else used it in a commercial app.
what seems absent from this discussion is the notion of free speech, versus free beer.
my understanding of the Free Software Movement's origins are that RMS and colleagues were frustrated that they had no access to source code--thus they couldn't fix problems with software they used at work or school, even software which had been donated. they couldn't fix, learn from, couldn't write better versions, couldn't help their neighbors etc. anybody who's used commercial software should recognize this limitation. the four freedoms embodied in the FSM are about this--the ability to study other people's code, do something with it, change it, fix it.
if the kompany doesn't make source code freely available for their products (any of their products) then you, as a person who may be a programmer, are dependent on them to fix bugs, make changes, etc. you also can't learn from what they've done and come up with something better--something which may not even be a competing product. this type of relationship is frustrating to those of us who are forced to use commercial software packages that are buggy or limited in some way.
i think the question of the value of the software then becomes very difficult to place. software as a commercial product is valued based on its apparent usefulness, dominance in the marketplace, uniqueness, etc. i don't have proof, but i suspect that software is rarely just valued directly in relation to the cost to produce it. companies sell products at a loss to gain market share (thus opening up a wider market for other products), or in other cases, resell products they bought from another company who was already selling it, and where the development cost was either recouped or written off.
the FSM suggests that the value of a software package is not tied to the cost to produce it. this is implicit because as we all know, if the source code is made freely available (or at low cost) and documents are available, savvy users can roll their own distribution and share it, reducing the income of the original provider to (in principle) zero. so the question i have is then, what is the value of a piece of software, if we believe in the freedoms of the FSM?
p*ya*ya
"I honestly would vote libertarian if their candidates weren't usually total cooks."--slashdot poster
The people who choose the GPL for their software do so because they don't care about making money but they don't want anyone else to make money. The software is done on the programmer's free time as a hobby, and the GPL allows others to use his work without giving them to opportunity to make money from it.
I'd substitute "making money" with "limiting access to the source code". GPL is not about money at all. Why make it look like it is?
He simply doesn't understand the value freedom would give his own software. Indeed, he doesn't appear to understand the free software/open source community at all, which will likely cost him his business in the end.
... the kind only free software can really offer.
Contrary to popular myth many, probably most, free software users will pay for software if they see a clear benefit in it. However, there are certain things free software gives a person that many of us are not willing to sacrifice, whether the product is free-as-in-beer (like Blender was) or not.
One of these, and perhaps one of the greatest values of free software (although it has many, mind you), is that one will not be left with an orphaned product should a company go under.
I have hundreds of hours invested in Blender animations that are now essentially worthless (or soon to be, as soon as the binary I have stops working with current libraries and the older libraries become harder to get, and harder to make work). I will never put myself in that position again, which means I will never use any of the Kompany's products, with the possible exception of the one they GPLed. Period.
This isn't because I have some philisophical ax to grind against proprietary software, it is because I've been burned once and will not be burned again. It is because my data is far more valuable than the software I use and the hardware I use it on, combined. It is because companies do not necessarilly last, particularly in these post-boom times with the Microsoft Monopoly hovering over us all and likely to get away with the corporate equivelent of assault and murder with little more than a slap on the wrist, thanks the Bush Junior's DOJ snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.
There are other models for making a profit on software and keeping the code free that he didn't address and likely hasn't explored. One is the service model, which he declines to use because it "doesn't fit" his business model. Fine. There are other approaches.
One, which fits any software product which improves and adds features over time is to "time shift" the freedom. The author of Ghostscript understood this well, in releasing a free version of his software about a year behind the non-free version. Want the latest drivers and features? Pay up (if you're using it for commercial use). Want the free version? That's okay too, just expect to wait about a year for the same features the paying customers are enjoying today.
This approach would at least insure their paying customers against the possible orphanage of their product (and is an approach Trolltech has used, with a little twist, quite successfully...indeed it makes their commercial product far more appealing than any of their competitors for that reason alone).
If blender had done that their animation community wouldn't have died with the company a week ago. If the Kompany were to do that, I would consider using their products.
But, having learned the lesson RMS, for all his abrasiveness, has been trying to teach us for the last several years the hard way, I will not be using any product that results in my data, my work, loosing its value and usefulness simply because the software seller goes out of business.
Which means the Kompany will never have me as a customer, and that is a shame, because contrary to popular myth about free software and GNU/Linux users, I do pay for software, as evidenced by a shelf full of commercial Linux apps, from Applixware to Mainactor to various and sundry Linux games.
He simply doesn't get it, and if he doesn't figure it out it will likely cost him his business as a result. And then his customers will be SOL, something they wouldn't have been had they insisted on some insurance
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy