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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Head down, go to sleep to the rhythm of the war drums...
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
It isn't FUD whatsoever : To use GPLd code you might apply the GPL license to your own code as well.
Incorrect. If all you want to do is use the code, you are under no obligation to give anyone the source code. You can even modify the source to fit whatever needs you might need and nobody can force you to release those changes. It's only when you try to distribute your modified version of the program that you are also forced to include the source code.
Instead it's claiming ownership over derived works as well.
As our current copyright laws already enforce...
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.
You don't get it. What we are being deprived of are the improvements to our code, which is all we are really asking for in return for the use of our code.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
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.