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Open Source Limitations?
_aargh writes "This ZDNet article by John Carroll makes the claim that open source is flawed because there isn't a way for programmers to earn money by developing open source software. It annoyed me so much that I wrote this response to it on the O'Reilly Network."
The best response to the incentives problem for contributing to open source, imho, is not the usual boring ESR reputation benefits, but rather Eben Moglen's classic "metaphysical corollary."
"The dwarf's basic problem is that "incentives" is merely a metaphor, and as a metaphor to describe human creative activity it's pretty crummy. I have said this before, but the better metaphor arose on the day Michael Faraday first noticed what happened when he wrapped a coil of wire around a magnet and spun the magnet. Current flows in such a wire, but we don't ask what the incentive is for the electrons to leave home. We say that the current results from an emergent property of the system, which we call induction. The question we ask is "what's the resistance of the wire?" So Moglen's Metaphorical Corollary to Faraday's Law says that if you wrap the Internet around every person on the planet and spin the planet, software flows in the network. It's an emergent property of connected human minds that they create things for one another's pleasure and to conquer their uneasy sense of being too alone."
And then, even more fun, he adds:
"The only question to ask is, what's the resistance of the network? Moglen's Metaphorical Corollary to Ohm's Law states that the resistance of the network is directly proportional to the field strength of the "intellectual property" system. So the right answer to the econodwarf is, resist the resistance."
Brilliant.
Actually a lot of people writing the software are employed to provide software based solutions. Open source development and free ( GPL/LGPL ) licensing provide a very productive way of encoraging participation in collaborative development. It can provide better solutions to the use of proprietary close source packages.
See Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!
90% of programmers don't work on creating shrink wrap software but on customising solutions for clients.
From a personal perspective it is far more intellectually rewarding to the joint developer/user. You really can know exactly how the damm thing works and you can in most cases fix or adapt it to your own, your client or your employers needs. Do you wish to live and work in an enviroment where every damm box has the lable "No Serviceable Components Inside"?
As for free GPL/LGPL licensing; the reality of the current employment market is that jobs come and go - BUT, you can take the knowledge you have gain though developing and adapting free licensed software and approach other users of that software for either employment or as clients. You DONT have to "start from scratch" with each job.
If you are a programmer, in the long run, the open source free licensed software model makes it easier for you to remain employed. Unless, that is, your sole career plan consists of being employed by Microsoft.
Another question, how many of those programmers expect to use the open source they contibute at their current and future places of employment?
I think there is a whine about how people can't make money from Open Source software because Microsoft can't make money from Open Source software. And that scares them. Their two bread-and-butter software categories: Operating Systems and Office Suites, now have to compete against open-source competitors. Microsoft has never been about being better than the competition; they started out being cheaper; once that drove out the competition (CPM-86 & P-system, mostly) they moved to "don't let anyone choose to not pay you". They crushed their competition in office apps using similar tactics.
What happens when Wine gets "good enough"? Who would pay Microsoft the $49/year that they want for their every-other-year updates?
You're also missing an important point, one that is not often discussed but which holds the key to that "unfair competition" problem you talk about. The thing is - and correct me if I'm wrong - the GPL requires to to distribute the source code along with the binary, but it does not in fact require someone to actually distribute any new software created from GPL'ed code at all! In other words, if you build something out of GPL software and it somehow gives an advantage to your company in its industry (which I presume would not be software-related), then there's nothing to force you to reveal it and distribute it. Just keep it! But if you do release it - perhaps when the competitive edge it gave you is gone - then you have to give the source code as well.
What OSS really means is that there will be less money in the software industry itself, but more programmers working for companies in other industries, and more programming "studios" that will do work-for-hire. Anyway, do you know a lot of programmers who receive royalties on their creation? There's not going to be less money around, not even for programmers, but it's not going to move the same way. The industry will transform - that's okay, programmers will still be able to make a living; that's what's important, isn't it?
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