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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.
TheKompany's URL
Mozilla is (partially) GPL too. There are good and bad sides to the GPL... it's a tricky issue for sure. There's a good criticism of it here... in my opinion, there are extreme views either way. But, a company (or a Kompany) has to make money. But really, a copyright and its terms would be just as enforcable on open source code as it would be for a fiction, paperback book, wouldn't it?
samrolken
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!
I had RMS come to me on this product to make sure we weren't violating the GPL, and he admitted that we were not, but in the course of the conversation he proceeded to project onto the KDE project aspects of theKompany in a totally inappropriate fashion and was very negative about KDE in this regard.
He talked to RMS; always best avoided, at least without shielding. That's enough to throw anyone off their game.
THe Gardener
--
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
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
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.
Yes, the GPL allows you to charge for the source, rather than offer it as a free download. But, IIRC you are only allowed to charge for your cost in producing the copy of the source. IE you can charge for the cost of burning a CD and shipping to the customer, but you can't offer the source for $500 and be compliant with the GPL.
Anyone else have more details on what he meant by this? If they're using GPL software, and then trying to charge for the source in order to make a profit off of distributing it, then the customers have a right to complain.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Let me know if it's a problem.
Red Hat does not own Linux, so it cannot charge for each copy it puts out in the way that Microsoft charges for Windows or Sun charges for Solaris.
"The only way we can make money in this business is in support," Mr Hoffmann told BBC News Online.
"That ranges from training down to system maintenance, deployment and integration with other applications.
"We focus on those customers who are able to pay the bill - the enterprises," he said.
Give me a company that sells support over one that sells software any day. The moment you put software in a box, its most important component -- the ability to be adapted and updated for security fixes and feature enhancements -- dies. Anyway, which is more successful, "theKompany" or RedHat?
There's also an interesting analysis on LinuxToday of theKompany's tactics and how they allegedly intentionally damage Free Software. Although I wouldn't take all the accusations at face value, there's certainly something worrying about the claims.
How is he removing them freedom? He gives the people that buy his software the source code. If you don't buy his software, you don't get it.
He hasn't taken away any freedom. He just hasn't given you anything.
You want freedom not his crappy software. Well, then don't buy it. Problem solved.
- Steve
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 certainly agree that it is (often) harder to make money with free-software licensing than with a proprietary model (although it's not true that you "can't put [free software] on a store shelf"). However, I am disappointed that he (apparently) tries to shield himself from criticism for abandoning free software by ostensibly attacking only the GPL, everyone's favorite bogeyman (citing unnamed "ambiguities," complaining that RMS doesn't like them, ...)
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
I am not at all surprised by some people's reaction to theKompany. However, I think it is terrible that the Linux community (which does not necessarily equal the Open Source or Free Software community) acts hostile towards commercial software. Most people agree that not all software can be reasonably free - not enough end users would pay.
Frankly, in many cases we as a community are spoiled. We've lived through the internet bubble of free services and negative cash flow companies having free websites, and now we can't accept the fact that all software and internet sites can be free. Some sites are simply too expensive to operate without subscriptions, and some software simply doesn't have the developer support to create a competitive Open Source version. For proof just look at the KOffice interview from earlier - creating Word filters is tough work that people simply don't want to do for free. Open Office, Mozilla, and many other Open Source software is created in part by paid programmers from big companies (AOL/TW, Red Hat, IBM, etc.). But certain software projects will inevitably not prove worth the time of those companies.
I think it is important to remember that not all commercial software companies are as bad as Microsoft. Commercial software (especially games) is a HUGE market, with a very successful business plan. We need more commercial developers for Linux - users will want to see their familiar software, games, etc. available for Linux before they decide to switch. Even the simple presence of more Linux software at your local Best Buy will get Joe Windows User to think about Linux if he's tired of Windows.
I think it's wonderful that I can build an entire system from nothing but Open Source software and have it perform a good majority of my daily work. Much of this software is worth purchasing, but we are lucky in that we have the choice with who and how we choose to support the software programmers. In the end, regardless of whether or not you like theKompany's software, the fact that they remain one of a few commercial software developers for Linux is important. Other companies will be looking to it as an example of how viable the future Linux market is. Loki has already stained Linux's reputation for commercial software.
I wish theKompany the best of luck in developing high quality commercial software.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
He says Gnome is supported by companies, but these companies respect our freedom and release their software in a way that respects us
C-X C-S
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.
Of course, it's been used for end user - OpenOffice, GAIM, and other projects.
... ok and which ones are owned by companies that are actually attempting to make money? Oh wait.... none of them? Thats what I thought.
What Shawn said is correct. The GPL only requires you to provide the source code on request (for a reasonable fee). However, most companies realize that it's a whole lot less trouble to put the source up on a website than to deal with obnoxious people on the phone. This is an excellent example of that phenomenon, and though I agree that folks shouldn't try to hack into a server to get the source, people do have the right to vent their frustration over the phone. If theKCompany doesn't like it, they can easily address the problem.
I'm also curious why some of these folks didn't just write away for the code and post it on their own site. This is the best way to guarantee that code is easily available. Perhaps some did, and the "hackers" were just too lazy to google for it. Or maybe the "hackers" were just typical malicious types who would have gone after any company with every bit as much gusto.
You are the one that doesn't get it. He charges for the source code, this in no way removes the GPL definition of freedom from the software. Don't fucking bitch because you can't download the source code for zero dollars. Can you get the source and change it under the terms of the GPL? Yes you can. No GPL endowed freedom is removes. What part of that don't you get? The Free Software community isn't necessarily a community that gives their code away for zero dollars.
This confusion and retarded statement is a direct result of RMS and his dumbfuckery using recursive definitions. The free as in beer free as in speech crap has caused more needless confusion than LSD. The GPL goes into the fact you can charge money for your source code. The provisions for the "free" software are source code must be available. It doesn't say I you can't require someone to reimburse you for your work.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The interview says "We sell one product that is GPL", but doesn't mention which product, but a bit of Googling reveals that it's Korelib, and in principle there's a uri for the source: ftp://ftp.rygannon.com/pub/Korelib/releases/koreli b-0.0.1.tar.gz, though the server is very reluctant to let anyone in. I got the message "Sorry, rygannon.com already has 6 users logged on. Try again in 10 minutes.". A bit more Googling reveals that there are RPMs and debs (libkore0) available, and I can (on my Debian box) get the source with apt-get source libkore0.
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!"?
Never. Not even once, and I've been on both sides of that conversation, many times. I don't buy your argument that a programmer of GPL'd software has no incentive to support or improve the program beyond what they personally see fit to do. I get a huge kick out of the fact that people use and enjoy my program, and I've made a large number of changes based on user feedback. I think the same can be said for many (if not most) GPL'd programs, including all of KDE.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
First of all you need to meet certain usability constraints before anybody will use your software in the first place. Second, if you don't make it usable and relatively bug free, somebody else can come along and hijack your software and fix it (or write something new from scratch that is better).
Remember that a corporation doesn't pay for software under the assumption that it's going to be a pain to use and buggy. They assume it's going to work well and yet they still pay for support contracts as insurance. It's risk aversion and has almost nothing to do with the inherent quality of the product. I worked at one company where they actually forced Microsoft to sell them copies of IE (yes, SELL, for money) so that they could feel they had some leverage in seeking support if something went wrong with it. Corporations will always buy support contracts for the same reason that people get health insurance. You don't buy health insurance because you plan to get sick, you do it just in case.
Now, assuming that corporations are going to get support contracts anyhow, the underyling financial model of support contracts becomes important. If you pay me $50 and it costs me $25/hour to support any problems you have, then I need to keep it under 2 hours in support calls or I'm losing money. Companies don't want to get into open ended time and materials contracts, so you have a strong incentive to get rid of bugs because they cost you money.
Having said all that, I grant that if you could write a piece of software that was:
1) instantly intuitive for everybody to learn and use
2) completely bug free
Then the service models would cease to be viable. Furthermore, I'd personally open a church to honor your name since you are clearly a God of some sort.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
he's probably right, it doesn't work for a business to release their gui application as gpl source code. if you business model is based on producing IP, you want to try to get some revenue generating from that IP.
this could too very easily be taken to sound like quality, business level software doesn't come in the form of a gpl. many times when i mention to people that i use free software, they get some look in their face like i'm using low quality tools. articles like this scare busnisess folks away from the gpl/free software.
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
There is such a license, and it is called the GPL.
Red Hat's boxed distros, just as an example, fulfill your requirements exactly. The only real difference is that RHAT ships source CDs instead of making you download it off the Net.
Or have I missed the point of your post?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
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.
How is he removing them freedom? He gives the people that buy his software the source code. If you don't buy his software, you don't get it. He hasn't taken away any freedom. He just hasn't given you anything.
He is taking away the freedom of his users to user/modify/share the software. This is clearly opposite to the way the FSF sees the world. He is clearly doing something that the Free Software community thinks is wrong and that the GPL was written to prevent. So he shouldnt complain that the GPL is making is life harder because that's exactly what is was written to do. Make as much code Free as possible. His software is useless to me.. I dont want it. What worries me is that its availability will discourage people from making a good free replacement.. That's how he is taking away my freedom...
My main point is that his business model is exactly what the GPL is there to prevent, so its normal that he doesnt like it... But many people dont seem to get that. The FSF wants all proprietary software to away! And yes, that will piss off proprietary software vendors!
Interesting you ask this. Anyone who's written to me asking questions about my software always gets their question answered. I take pride whenever someone asks me a question, because to me, it means that I have another person using my software. It's definitely an ego thing, and might not scale if I got dozens of people asking me questions every day, but for now, it works, and I like to think my users are happy.
Oh, and if someone mailed me with unreasonable requests, I would never say anything along the lines of "use the source luke", but probably more along the lines of "That isn't a high priority for me" or "That would not fit well within the scope of the program", both of which would be entirely accurate statements.
From the article:
Look at it this way. I can send 1,000 copies to a distributor who will put it on store shelves around the world. People will walk in, pick it up and buy it. Now let's say that the software was free (as in cost) and I just sell services. Well, now I can't put it on a store shelf and for every customer; I have to go and hunt them down somehow and persuade them to use our free software and then pay us for support -- but they should only really need support if our software is hard to use or poorly designed, which isn't the case or our objective.
Now this is an argument, but he doesn't adress the most common case, namely:
You package the thing with manuals and charge for it (with 30 days free support),
but also provide a free download at your site.
Now send it to the distributor.
This is how most distros work, and Redhat seems to be doing fine. Even I was surprised when I saw SuSE Linux on the shelf at the store Åhlens
(~Walmart, but not cheap) here in Sweden last christmas, that's good market penetration!
But he does have a point: Consumer-oriented products shouldn't need support.
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.
You can charge as much as you want for GPL software no matter where you got it from. However, if someone you sold a binary-only copy to comes asking for the source code then you have to make it available to them for a reasonable cost of media and distrobution only. You can't sell GPL software for $19.95 and then say source will cost an additional million dollars (effectively making the software closed source.)
The clincher is you can't stop someone you sold a copy to from giving it away for no cost.
burris
This is the reason that the price of GPL software tends to zero.
Great statement, I agree totally. Of course, the best part of this comment is the word "dumbfuckery"! I laughed hysterically in my office when I read that one. :)
Honestly, the "I sell software" market is just not what it used to be. I think that the internet changed things. Software is now abundant, easy to come by.
Except for games which aren't really 100% software (mix of art and code), the consumer market doesn't exist or will not exist much longer for software-only solutions.
Corporations will always buy software... or will they? For niche applications, I think that proprietary software will always survive, but for generic software, I don't much of a future. As soon as the market is dominated by both free software (GPL and al.) and large corporations such as Microsoft, there isn't much room for growth anymore, not much room for new software companies.
It has been my experience that coders working inside companies that sell code have had very stressful lives recently and this isn't about to go away. Salaries might be high, but requirements are also very though.
So, not only is the market more difficult, but coders have a more stressful life... I just think that a lot of them will eventually switch to companies who make a living off something else (not software) and people who know the market well will not want to invest and start companies in the software industry.
In ten years, you'll have Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, a couple more... and everything else will be free software.
Want to bet?
No, you don't get it. Neither do I. In fact, nobody could get it by reading the article, because he simply doesn't explain what he means by "charging for the source."
If he means, "You don't get our GPL'ed product with source until you pay us $50," that's perfectly OK. If he means, "You get the binary for $50, and the source will cost you $5000 extra," then that's not okay under the GPL.
In the latter case, Windows XP perfectly and completely fulfills the terms of the GPL. After all, if you were able to scrape together $300 billion, I'm sure Bill Gates would be more than happy to sell you a copy of the source code with unlimited distribution rights. And then come over to wax your Ferarri.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."
(with apologies to Douglas Adams)
.sig: file not found
Everybody who's against the gpl or some subset of it wants to make money off their code. That's fine, but they want to be part of the open source movement too.
His argument is so hilarious. GPL is fine for others, but I want to make money. I love the fact that I can base my code on free stuff and run it on a free platform, but I want people to pay for my stuff. sheesh.
How's this: The OS should be free, but the device drivers should cost money. no, wait, the OS and drivers should be free but (insert your money making scheme here).
He's a hypocrit IMHO.
Push the button Max!!!!
Actually, it's the (GNU) General Public License.
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.
From a business perspective where you are focusing on the product more than the services, GPL is a horrible, horrible idea. His company is intentionally trying to profit off of the work of others, charging for the programs and making it more difficult to get the source.
At the core, they are selling code written by others without compensation.
In this circumstance, there are two ways to go. First, find BSD licensed code to steal from. This is still bad behavior, but it is more legitimate bad behavior, the original authors by using BSD license have consented to the bad behavior.
Also, how much of what they make use of from the GPL community is LGPLed? That is a very good license for libraries that don't mind commercial products based on them, yet want to protect the freedom of the bits they did themselves. This would fit perfectly with the Kompany's goals without bastardizing themselves.
On a side note, how does QTs licensing play into commercial products like this? I guess they can still claim the work is GPLed and therefore they can ignore the commercial license of qt, but in practice could Trolltech have legal grounding to punish them for being a commercial product without paying commercial fees?
I think qt's license is a very big reason why a lot of companies push gnome more than KDE. Even though they have to dance around the GPL with Gnome, at least they don't have to worry about Qt's license on top of everything else. The result I see is that very good free software is available for KDE (qt's license is perfectly fine for free software), but some big players mostly ignore KDE if they can..
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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
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
No, this is not nearly the same. In neither case is using my hardwork a RIGHT for you. It's neither equivalent to freedom of speech (a so-called natural right) nor is it like the "right to work" that some courts have found to be valid and can be said to be necessary for survival. You are perfectly capable of doing without my software and the conditions for its use are quite reasonable and germane to my software. You are simply being asked to make a choice, a choice that is not so different then choosing to pay for a carpenter's handiwork or not get it at all.
In any event, if you wish to claim that you are somehow entitled to do whatever you want with your computer, then with your same reasoning the GPL is absurd on its face as it demands that you share your modifications. Even if the intellectual property framework were torn down, this simply does NOT come along with the package and is quite contrary to even that notion of freedom. Nor does a world free of copy prevention techniques, and so on...
It would be *far* too easy for them to abuse this by making the package depend on items installed by the proprietary installer.
No that would violate the GPL.
I agree with the previous response, the GPL allows exactly what the anonymous poster is asking for. He seems to think the GPL requires the user compile the code, that is absolutely false and I don't understand why anybody would think that.
He also seems to think the GPL means the source code must be free to anybody, in fact the GPL says the source code must be available to the person who buys the software. The source code could in fact be on the disk, or the downloading could require something proprietary from the disk, so you have to buy the disk to get the source code (the GPL does say that you can't prevent one person from buying the disk from doing anything with the source code such as give it away for free).
Also nothing prevents a company from packing the disk with proprietary add-ons as long as they can make a convincing demonstration that these add-ons are not required by the core GPL program for it to do useful things.
The GPL was good for giving momentum to the idea of Open Source Software by throwing the doors open to hobbyists and smart, curious people, capitalizing on tremendous interest and enthusiasm by people who didn't already know they liked this field to build intellectual excitement to a movement. For evidence of its power, just compare Linux culture to *BSD culture.
But at this stage the GPL is starting feel restrictive. Yes, it protects your intellectual freedom in the absolute (RMS' failure to include this adjective, which is totally obvious to him because his life is lived intellectually, is the source of many flame wars), but it restricts your practical options very severely. It's a bind, because the GPL builds intellectual excitement into Open Source, and giving it the boot could cut the movement off from its fueling enthusiasm. But clinging tightly to the GPL is a pretty sure way of making sure OSS stays inside the academy and a few l33t h4x0r circles. To see what OSS can be, you gotta give people who don't live by ideas a crack at seeing what they can do, in the way that they do it.
So good for you, Shawn Gordon, you are reaching the inevitable phase where the student supersedes the teachings of the instructors. So far you've kept the Open Source spirit of contribution to a community pretty well intact. Perhaps you can take Open Source where many of use would like to see it go.
Hemos: Of course, it's [GPL] been used for end user - OpenOffice, GAIM, and other projects.
Well duh! But that's really not germaine to the discussion now is it? You can count the number of people who have purchased OpenOffice on one hand. It's a free download damnit!
Shawn is trying to sell a product. He's trying to be a team player in the community. But he has suddenly realized that he can't do both.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You know, you could have fooled me. It looks to me like the GPL is second to the BSD License. Operating systems, databases, webservers, scripting languages... It seems that the best stuff is under the BSD (or VERY similar) license.
So if we follow this logic the way you have, changing the license of the Linux kernel to the BSD license will instantly improve it by leaps and bounds. It will be as secure & fast as OpenBSD, as portable as NetBSD, and as popular as Apache.
That solves EVERYTHING. The LICENSE. It's just so simple. The LICENSE has been the problem!
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
You pretty much nailed it with that statement. I've written a number of GPL'd programs, my current project being phpShare. I originally wrote it for personal use, but decided that it would be a good idea to give something back to the community, However I didn't want some company just stealing my hard work. The GPL fits that perfectly. I don't use it because of some political notion that all software should be free, but because it's the best fitting licence for my needs. If a company wants to sell my code commercially under a non-gpl licence, I can decide whether to give them the right to use it (possibly for a modest fee), or force them to abide by the GPL's rules.
If I wanted to start my own company and write software commercially, I most likely wouldn't use the GPL. I would probably release various parts of the code because I believe in Open Source, but I do not believe the GPL alone is commercially viable long term. Yes, there are companys that are starting to make a profit selling GPL'd software, but most of the revenue comes from services, not the actual sale of the software.
To sum it all up, the GPL is a great licence that is best suited for "part time" projects. It has proven that the community can come togethor and write some excellent software, BUT it is not the licence-to-end-all-licences. the Unix mantra of the right tool for the job applies here- use the right licence for the job at hand.
Ignoring numerous details:
This is the way that software licenses were generally licensed prior to about 1980 (perhaps 1975). Then there started to appear large software houses that created progressively more restrictive licenses. When most of the customers were large businesses, and the software houses were relatively small, they didn't try to beat up their customers. If they did, the customers would go somewhere else. Generally access to the source code was guaranteed, and the larger companies often arranged provisions that in case of contractual problems, they could have someone else fix any problems.
Predictably, as the vendors became more powerful than the customers, this declined. The GPL is about creating a new base level playing field where the customers are more important than the vendors, starting from the original assumption that every programmer is a software customer.
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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Oh please, the GPL states you can charge a reasonable fee for source based on the price of the binary. If you sell the binary for 20$ you can't charge 3000$ for the source code. What the original poster was bitching about was the act of charging for the source code. It isn't some given right that source code ought to have zero cost like I fucking said. How the fuck did this get modded up to 4?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Many of the comments here essentially say "software companies should base their revenue model on support and services." Setting aside all the questions about the obligations and advantages of GPL and LGPL and other licenses, let's just look at the "software companies ought to be support businesses" argument.
There are some business plans that work very well with a services model, and can leverage the strengths of an open source infrastructure to provide good value for customers. But there are other businesses where this just won't work. A relatively small, specialized market niche requiring sophisticated software is often unable to sustain an open-source community robust enough to address its technical problems adequately. Instead, some bunch of high-powered wireheads needs to work full-time on those problems, and somebody has to pay their salaries. Support/services revenues are often simply not an adequate way to recover the R&D costs of running a team like that. If you sink a few million on a project, how can you recover your costs through distribution charges and manuals? Never!
For such problem spaces, proprietary licensing schemes prove more practical -- licenses are an easier and better-understood way to get a group of user organizations to chip in the $50-200K a year or more, each, needed to run the development group. Companies are familiar with the idea of buying a license from a software vendor, and expect a bunch of contractual benefits as a result that they couldn't get through open source strategies. It would be riskier (and more politically dangerous) to pay comparable fees to a support organization that isn't contractually obligated to develop and maintain its own product, but instead is promising to work earnestly with a bunch of public-spirited open source volunteers to get the code written.
A strong engineering group is simply easier to build and run when one company controls the checkbook. With a big, diffuse problem space, like an OS or a DBMS, this isn't so important, and the open source advantages are more pronounced; but with a specialized need, the open source route can be more problematic.
The bottom line is that it's fine to say "you shouldn't be a software vendor, you should be a service vendor" but some companies really ARE and SHOULD BE software vendors -- they do a good job at it, they keep their customers happy, the business model pays for the R&D work, and at the end of the day the guys who founded the company WANTED a software company, not a services company. If you've worked in both environments, you know how different they can be.
Some of these closed-source companies are in fact Good Guys, and the open source world should try to find ways to let them into the tent. Locking them out, and just saying "proprietary is evil," limits open source to those problems that lend themselves to group solutions. Not all do, IMO.
-- We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of other people. La Rochefoucauld
I agree, stuffing the viral marketing concept into software was a horrid mistake, and is a major reason why I avoid the GPL issue. Look at all the white noise created by the people trying to force this thing down everyone's gullet. One of the main complaints of theKompany was the incessant humming caused by GPL rants, source code requests, etc.. I understand the desire to be able to focus on ideas and work, and not this type of stuff.
Quote from the article:
I think far too many people spend far too much time and mental energy tied up in license discussions when their creativity and focus could be spent building something fantastic for themselves or maybe the community.
If I wanted to waste my life yammering about legalese, I would have gone to law school and make more money. Have you notice how lawyers tend to strut about blabbering about their great altruism, and some seem to sneak out the back door with all the cash. GPL is just another case showing that people feigning altruism generally have a deeper greed than the people they denounce.
I've given out a great deal of code. Released stuff into the public domain, etc.. But I would never touch the GPL just as I try to avoid forwarding email with virii. If I give something away, I do so because I want to help increase the knowledgebase (some times just cause I am an egotistical snob) but never because I want to spawn a revolution.
BTW, I dislike the viral nature of other licenses as well. A lot of contracts have this nasty effect. Having a non-disclosure agreement in one contract will force its way through other contracts. If your code encapsulates someone elses code, then your license has to encapsulates the other license. In just about all cases, however, the legalese ends up diverting attention from the problems to be solved to pure power mongering. TheKompany has x amount of altruism. They want to spend that on the community. The people people pounding at the door demanding the souce code were simply playing power mongering games.
I have to agree with Shawn Gordon. Life is too short to waste it on chain letters and GPL.
kd
The people who worked at Cygnus claims it has been profitable in all the many years (since 80'-something) it existed as a seperate firm. Cygnus was for many year the main contributors (and often official maintainers) of the GNU development tools.
That is a lot longer than most other commercial software companies.
Is it?
Prove it.
You wrote:
You are encouraged to charge as much money as you can get for distributing free software [gnu.org].
This is not entirely correct. You can charge as much as you want to distribute free software with source code. However you cannot (or at least ought not) distribute free software binaries and then charge restrictive fees for the source code afterwards. From the FSF site:
The one exception is in the case where binaries are distributed without the corresponding complete source code. Those who do this are required by the GNU GPL to provide source code on subsequent request. Without a limit on the fee for the source code, they would be able set a fee too large for anyone to pay--such as, a billion dollars--and thus pretend to release source code while in truth concealing it. So in this case we have to limit the fee for source, to ensure the user's freedom. In ordinary situations, however, there is no such justification for limiting distribution fees, so we do not limit them.
There you go. In a nutshell: You can charge as much as you want to distribute the software, but you can't use distribution fees to separate source code from binaries.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I've heard the arguments about selling services, but for what we are doing it just really doesn't work.
Software that everyone needs should be developed by everybody--sorta like the idea behind Apache. Everyone chips in a little and everyone gets back a great piece of software. GPL works beautifully here. The same can apply for all of the "general, end-user" software that Kompany produces because none of it is all that specialized. Perhaps the question becomes: Why is the Kompany trying to make money on general purpose software like development environments or messaging/organizer clients or whatever that literally hundreds of thousands of people need? That is software better written as a community. The place to make money in Open Source software is consulting--providing solutions, not services. He's right: selling services as an after-market.. err. after-download.. addition to free software doesn't work very well. But there is money in customizing or extending existing free software to clients likings, assuming that cost is less than they would have to spend on proprietary solutions. There may never be a place for corporations of any size in free Open Source software. But there will always be a market for the individual or the small consulting firm.
why do you say it's a broken concept?
:) ). this cost is factored into the cost of the item, along with printing costs, administrative costs, etc.
.5mill copies at 14$ each. this covers the cost of support along with recouping the cost of our investment. that's right, we just spent 2.5mill$ on creating this damn thing, i sure as hell as an investor will want some ROI. i could have put my money in stocks otherplaces, but i invested in the flimsy software company because they said they could build something that people will want to buy. so, unless all those builders (developers, testers, doc writers, etc) are working for FREE, and i can get free bandwidth or "printing", i'll need to charge money for the product to be successfull.
i agree that there's _lower_ copying costs for software than traditional ip mediums (paper), but that doesn't consider the fact of the time to create the item. even a book/magazine takes time and arguablly skill to write (certainly some spell checking skills
please correct me if i'm wrong, but the software model is really no different that i can tell. we figure we've spent 2.5mill$ over all to create our software package, and we'll be able to sell
even universities, which revolve around IP, aren't really giving it away. they have the same business model, to attract more customers, which in this case is students of education.