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Open Source, Closed Documentation?
sunset asks: "Recently I was motivated to look at WebGUI which looks like a pretty cool open source project. However I was having trouble making it work with Red Hat 8.0 which includes Apache 2.0. This seems like a reasonable thing to want, as Red Hat 8 has been out since September and Apache 2 has been publicly released for close to a year. Checking the WebGUI community discussion forum, I found that
someone else had already inquired about this. Following the rest of the thread, you learn that the product's vendor considers this information to be proprietary, and that you must pay $50 to join their Support Forum to get the information. It gets better. The associated Membership Agreement for the Support Forum includes the clause 'You shall not to share [sic] the information contained herein with any other party.' So if I join up, I am locked out of sharing valuable information with the open source community about how to install this open source product. In the end I found out what I needed to know without giving up my rights or my hard-earned bucks, but frankly this attitude from the vendor pisses me off. Am I alone in this? What do you think?"
considering the only way for them to make money is to charge for support, this makes sense to me
I thought this was how open source companies were supposed to make their money? You get the software for free, but you have to pay for support.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
I think it's completely asinine that a company thinks it can charge a fee for a product or service they provide.
Greedy bastards!
Sounds like the books O'Reilly publishes - the Missing Manual series. Software released with minimal "help" documentation, so someone comes along and actually makes a book about it.
Or try to learn Checkpoint FW-1 NG with documentation they provide. You have to go to a multi-thousand dollar week long training just to get a decent, helpful manual.
Well, now that you've found out, write a HOWTO and contribute it to the LDP. This will undercut their revenue stream and teach them that trade secrets won't protect them in a world where they publish the source ... wait ... I MAY have made an unwarranted assumption that there are people who will READ a HOWTO ...
utter rubbish
Inline WYSIWYG content editors. Built in editor (IE Only), and integrated support for Real Objects Edit-On Pro.
Wow, IE-specific features. Good to see that stupidity crosses all license barriers.
"and you must pay $50 to join their Support Forum to get the information. It gets better. The associated Membership Agreement for the Support Forum includes the clause 'You shall not to share [sic] the information contained herein with any other party.' So if I join up, am I locked out of sharing valuable information with the open source community about how to install this open source product? "
No, you're just limited from spreading information around for free that they own.
If you wrote a book, would you want people copying it and giving it away for free outside Barnes + Noble?
Not a solution for the original poster, obviously, unless they have a lot more time than I do. Still, it could save the next guy's bacon, and discourage what seems to me a rather underhanded letter-not-the-spirit implementation.
I love doing documentation. Too bad I can't program my way out of a batch file.
Every company needs some sort of motivation for creating Open Source software.
:)
I'd hate to state the obvious, but if you want to make the opensource community attractive... there needs to be money involved somehow.
RedHat charges for support, some charge for documentation. Aside from the hobbiests out there, you expect large companies to throw away time and money into opensource, and getting NOTHING in return by making everything 100% free?
Did you really expect a free lunch? You know the saying I hope
--Zuchini
This is a way that companies are getting around the gpl, lgpl, et al... I am not surprised by this tactic at all. With the economy the way it is, IT spending is at a near all time low. Companies scrambling for survival are going to use any and every dirty trick in the book. A previous post at the right of it. Post a review with the 20% relevant info and dump the rest. Reverse it on them. They use the law to get around issues they don't like or that affect the bottom line (read Cable Companies), so why not us?
Your actions in life will determine your children's future.
You know, charging for support is one thing. I can understand the need to generate revenue by having people pay for service.
This however is a whole other issue. What they have in their license agreement is "You shall not to share the information contained herein with any other party."
Sounds to me that if they help you resolve a technical issue in the forums then you can not share that resolution with any other person. Not on IRC, not with a person in the cube next to you, not in USENET...nowhere!
These guys do have a reasonable expectation to be able to profit off their inventions. Many linux distros encourage you to pay for support, how is this any different from them requiring you to pay for the manual?
;)
Since it is open source, one could argue that all the documentation you could possibly need is already available to you.. just read the source.
Is it a little underhanded, yes. But there's nothing terribly unethical about it.
Depending on the license of the software (site is already too hosed for me to find it myself), there's nothing stopping you from forking your own branch of the source, documenting that, and continue on your merry way.
JBoss follows this same idea. The software is open source but the documentation must be paid for. I don't disagree with this because its a business model supporting open source that may work. To JBoss's credit, they do offer a basic manual for free.
1;
Quoting Sarah from the list:
Of course, selling the manual is a completely different matter. What they're doing isn't selling the manual; they're selling the manual and then telling you that you can't share the information.
These guys are shooting themselves in the foot. The main strength of open-source software is that open source empowers the user community. By segmenting the user community into those who pay vs. those who don't, one hobbles a large segment of the user community. It doesn't help, either, that someone publicized their behavior on Slashdot.
I certainly hope they "get it," sharpish.
Finding God in a Dog
I thought the open source model was "give your software away, charge for support". Am I wrong? Why is this really a problem?
Here's what I really don't get. If it's OSS, why not start digging into the code and start finding answers for yourself? Start a forum, find some other hackers who want to help out, and tear apart the source to find answers/solutions. If it's truly OSS, there's nothing saying you can't start writing your own docs.
What? That's too much trouble? pay the $50 or use something else then.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Perl works on a similar model. Larry Wall gets paid by O'Reilly & Assoc. to maintain perl. He adds new features, releases the code for free, and everyone's happy. The only stipulation is that O'Reilly gets first crack at the new documentation for their Perl books. I own several O'Reilly books and they're worth their weight in gold. I'm also happy to know that by purchasing these books, I'm supporting OSS coders.
This is the equivalent of someone GIVING him the car, FOR FREE, and him saying "how do I get the trunk open?"
Their response is "Figure it out yourself or give us $50 for the manual. We GAVE you the damn car for FREE!"
Frankly, this article, as well as almost all of the Ask Slashdots in recent memory, are no longer questions. They've become "I had a bad experience with (my employer, a company, a developer, you name it) and I want to build a little bad PR to get back at them". Ask Slashdots have become just a place to bitch, not a place to ask questions.
This really is a shame, because the idea of Ask Slashdot is very valuable. Editors simply should not let articles that are not *questions* through. Articles that contain one long string of complaints about someone followed by a random "question" tacked on the end to make it fit the format do not count.
May we never see th
In fact, that's the biggest problem with Open Source. This concept that people are owed something.
Sorry. This is my billable time, and if I support your family, then I don't support mine. And that's a problem.You can have the source as freely as I can, but you can't have my time. Sorry. Back to our example, why should they work through the issue with you for free so that you can "sell" it to others? If you want to provide support for WebGUI, then you should start from scratch, just like they did.
-BrentI fully agree...if a company won't give me the product for free and then support it for free, then I'm not going to not give them any more of my money.
Seriously, if open source is going to thrive (not merely survive) then corporations will have to take it up and that will require making money off of it somehow. If the only way this company sees to make money off this product is by selling the documentation, then they need to make sure they don't just sell one copy. If you have a problem with this, then to me that is an indictment of the feasibility of the open source model...not an indictment of the company that just wants to make a profit (or at least break even).
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
Stallman has been talking about this for some time. Although he's talking about free software and not open source software, the idea is the same.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
What,s so stupid about that? It's not as if non-IE users are locked out, since they can probably use an external editor quite easily.
If IE provides a native feature that will enhance the product for those users without hurting other users, it'd be stupider not to enable it. Would you say it's stupid for someone to design a website that works either way, but only gives advanced layout features to browsers that support SVG? If there's any stupidity, it only starts when you lock people out.
Agree to nothing. Study the source, write your own documentation, and release it under GNU FDL.
The beauty of open source is, you can't get away with keeping secrets for very long.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Oh wait...I never did spend any money with them.
The biggest problem with open source as I see it is an entitlement mentality that just because someone wrote something cool, I should be able to use it for free. Being a developer that owns my own company, I have found this amazing realization that I need food. It's really a good thing. And to get food, I need money. Therefore I exercise my rights under the laws of this country to charge people to use my hard work to make their lives easier, and send me money so I can eat dinner. It's really quite a convinent arragement that has worked for quite a while.
I find that these guys have struck on something ingeneous, and have actually been reading the reports on the practical problems of Open Source software in the marketplace. The biggest problem is support. You need to have a team of experts on staff to deal with it, because M$ won't come out and fix it for you. This is really expensive from a resource point of view, because you then have to cover the HR costs of these people even when they're sitting idle, because you will need them in a pinch. Dumb arrangement. Therefore charging for support is absolutely ingeneous, and is a great model, I think. INCLUDING the documentation. We happen to give away ours for free, and charge for licensing in commercial products. We are looking at a QT type dual-license model so that we can stay in buisness. For all their detractors, I want everyone to notice that they are still in buisness. And important point since if you're laying cable with a bunch of Mexicans, you find yourself too tired to program.
Software is inherently expensive to produce. Open source has been subsidised through tax dollars via the university system (student loans, grants, etc). Before you bitch about people having to pay for software, why don't you think about the fact that people who don't have crap to do with Linux, etc, had to pay for it's construction...
Anonymous Coward wrote:
"They do however refuse to give you free support, unless you cough up some money - which makes perfectly sense to me."
The problem, as others have pointed out is NOT that they sell the manuals. It is that they forbid you to pass on information that you obtained from the manuals.
RMS started the GNU project because NDAs on software made it impossible to "help one's neighbour." NDAs on documentation, Gawd help us, are no different, so this is certainly contrary to the spirit of free software.
Once again, not because of sold documentation, but because of the NDA attached to it.
-Gareth
And that is exactly what we are working on at WebGUI.nl.
sig not found
Frankly, this article, as well as almost all of the Ask Slashdots in recent memory, are no longer questions. They've become "I had a bad experience with (my employer, a company, a developer, you name it) and I want to build a little bad PR to get back at them". Ask Slashdots have become just a place to bitch, not a place to ask questions.
Hmm...if only there was some way that you didn't have to rely on your memory, some way that you could actually check and see if your "people are just griping" theory is accurate, or hogwash. Perhaps, with the promise of technology, this will some day be possible!
-Waldo Jaquith
TridiaVNC is been doing it for years now. It took me a while to figure out how to make the java component to work, with noone to help me (hint: I went to websites that had the component installed and copied their html)
There's a certain level of basic familiarity people have with cars -- if it's a car, odds are you know where to put the key and how to drive the damn thing. Software isn't quite like that. Remember the first time you sat down at a UNIX box (command line, none of that easier GUI stuff for this analogy) and didn't know the first place to start? It's like having to pay for the man pages, and if you pay for them, you can't tell anyone else that "ls" lists your files.
It may also be illegal. At least, it's asking for more protection than copyright law provides, as far as I know. Paraphrasing the manual to pass on knowledge or quoting brief excerpts for a review are considered fair use, aren't they? Although the situation is probably different if they're asking you to sign an NDA and claiming trade secret protection.
Click here if you just like to click on shit.
Not everything can be free... if you think it can, then write it all yourself. And, no, writing a text editor in PHP/MySQL (apparently the preferred combination for *any* programming project on Slashdot) will not work. (Before you flame, I am certain that such a beast exists, although it does seem a bit ridiculous to me). Do you realize that corporations are doing you a *favor* when they release products under an OSS model? Do you realize the huge amounts of money it takes for a commercial entity to create quality software? Do you realize what a fight it is to get something open sourced in a corporation?
Please don't take all of this for granted. Corporations are there to make money (hell, *people* are here to make money) and they have a right to do so.
Since when does being open source mean that everything's free? Or that you're entitled to get everything for free? Redhat has commercial services they charge for, same with MySQL. What's the difference? Sure charging for documentation may not be the most warm and fuzzy thing in the world, but that's their decision and right. You don't have to use their software, and I'm sure there's a lot of other places to go for support (Google and Google Groups, as examples).
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
The assertion of the Open Source movement has always been that software companies should not charge for software, but that they should make money by "selling support".
Well, it's not support they should be selling, but convenience. Because what is support? The manuals. Access to people who know how to use the product, etc. But if "information is free" then the manuals should be freely copyable and distributable. And you can always go to usenet for access to people who know the product. But paid-for support doesn't get you access to unique information (an oxymoron), it gets you more convenient, quicker, access to the expertise. So in effect, you're paying for convenience. Just like people pay for the convenience (or status?) of having 20 ounces of water in a plastic bottle (rather than having to walk to the nearest drinking fountain for free).
This company needs to realize that they're not selling information. They're selling convenience. If they want to go the "selling information" route, they may as well become closed-source and proprietary.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Well, since you asked:
Finding God in a Dog
I have always been taught, both via institutional learning and private corporation classes, that "mantanance is 80% of cost". All the planning, hardware, software development, etc. is part of the 20% of the money that is for this project. After the product (whether it is a web server, database server, software, or whatever) is completed to the point where it is ready for mainstream production, the other 80% of the funds allocated for said project is used to maintain, tweak, debug (bugs not caught in QA), optimize, etc. the product.
I briefly looked over the link, and it did seem that installation problems also required the fee (but I could have very easily overlooked something). If installation support can only be obtained with a fee, then this is just not good buisiness...for the company or customers. However, if it is *just* for support after installation, this is good business practice for the company. If the customers like program, they will pay to fix it if/when it has an issue, while simultaniously dramatically reducing that %80 cost percentage for the business.
IMHO, it should be free code, and pay for all support, other then installation support, if you need it. It's one of the few ways a company can make any money with open-source.
In case anyone wants to find out more or download WebGUI while the main site is Slashdotted, here is a link to the SF.net development page.
Some projects on SourceForge (OpenCV comes to mind) use Yahoo Groups for their discussions, which is annoying. Yahoo is making its "customers" sign more and more restrictive agreements, they spam, and they put ads in the middle of the forums of others. It's time to move such discussions to SourceForge's own forum system, or to Netnews, rather than using Yahoo, with their "interruption-based advertising".
Certainly you're not allowed to make photocopies of O'Reilly books and hand those out to others, but you aren't prohibited from sharing the information within. The expression is protected, the information is not. If I ask you a perl question, you're allowed to look up the answer in your O'Reilly book and answer me. If you ask me the plot of a movie I've seen, I'm allowed to tell you even if you haven't paid to see the movie.
In this case, the
sounds pretty far out, almost NDA-like.An NDA for information about an "open source" project, is something I haven't heard of before.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The support forum agreement could turn into a moneymaker for the lawyers if it was ever battled out in court. They can protect trade secrets. But how can information about how to make software work be a trade secret when every detail of the software's operation is already published in source form under an open source license? That won't walk. They can copyright their presentation of the information, but they can't prevent you from telling others how to make the software work. If they could, you would bet that, for example, MS would have a similar clause in their license that made the whole Windows for Bozos book industry illegal.
What!? Did somebody else find out that open source isn't exactly a source of profit!?!? Gotta recoupe all that time spent some how. Kinda like "fat free" = "taste free"... Troll? Flame? Truth.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
- You can modify the source to your heart's content
- You can see how it works
- If the company refuses to modify it to your specs, you can do it yourself
- If the company goes bankrupt, you're not SOL
- If you really wanted to, you could fork the project (and provide your own docs).
It's an interesting approach, because if somebody really wanted to they could provide their own documentation, but nobody who's interested enough in the project is likely to do so, because that would pretty much require that you not have already bought access to the company's docs.This may be tricky and interesting, but I don't see it as being any less moral than charging $50 for a piece of closed software, except that in this case, the software itself is both free and open source.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
You could download a binary copy of Blender for free, but if you wanted their manual it was $57 US. I bought the manual (VERY beautifully done, but smelled funny), not because I needed it, but more to support them. Apparently enough downloaders didn't buy the manual. Now, however, Blender is OpenSource. I haven't checked to see what kind of documentation the OpenSource version of Blender supplies.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Consider what the IEEE does with standards like POSIX. Lots of the GNU tools allegedly follow the POSIX standard (eg sort). Want to report a bug? Show how it doesn't follow the standard. Where do you find the standard? Go to the bank and make a loan, then send the money to IEEE. What good is a secret standard?
... the game has shifted from charging for the code (product of knowledge) as the item being purchased to charging for the knowledge itself.
This is exactly what companies like IBM are doing when they push Linux and a lot of the open source agenda, but also intend to make money by selling services based on their knowledge of the products and ways in which they are used.
IMHO, this is a lot more equitable. You are perfectly free to invest your own time and effort and create your own documentation, or pay to use theirs. In any event, it in no way effects the ability to use the code.
Plus, it provides an economic incentive to support open source. Contrast this with the closed source model, where all the cards are held by the creator of the code, which, coupled with the crazy mania to patent everything under the sun, only serves to raise higher and more formidable barriers to competing products.
This allows the source to remain open, creators/implementors to make a living, and permits competing choices without raising barriers to choice.
In my view, asking for payment for providing the information is quite reasonable, considering, to use your analogy, he's giving you the car free.
The problem is that, once you know, you cannot tell anyone else: 'You shall not to share [sic] the information contained herein with any other party.'
You can't tell your neighbour how to open the boot, or your SO come to that. Which is a bit silly really.
- Chris
Considering the vast amount of open source software out there that include NO documentation and for which NO documentation even EXISTS, I wouldn't be so upset.
So they want to charge you for support? They can do it. They already gave you the source which is the important part.
You want premium support and a nicely printed manual? Pay for it. You don't want to pay? Read the source and figure out how it works. It really is that simple and you already do that for a lot of other open source projects, like I said before.
Except that I'm not talking about reprints. I'm talking about describing techniques.
For example: you can add any shortcut to your Start button's left-side menu in WinXP by dragging it to the Start button.
There. I just described a technique for using, in a legal manner not subject to anti-hacking laws, Microsoft's (very proprietary) product.
Have I broken anyone's copyright? Should I expect for someone to sue me?
Let's suppose that this information (I am referring strictly to the tip I provide above, which is a harmless and oft-used user feature of the OS, not a security loophole or something else where there's an obvious good reason to keep the information concealed) is covered under NDA: once I learn it, I can't reveal it to anyone else. I'll grant that the company has the right to NDA this.
Is it reasonable for them to NDA it? Is it in the spirit of building a healthy user community, let alone in the spirit of open-source?
Finding God in a Dog
Proper format would be:
Ask Slashdot: Have you noticed that all Ask Slashdot articles lately have only been bitchy whines about the crappy content on this site and how everyone that reads /. these days is just a tourist? Am I the only person who has noticed it and how do you think we can reverse this growing trend in the community?
You said it's Open Source. If you don't like their policies fork the project.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
isn't so much charging for support per se, or even charging for the documentation ( and one could argue that one could read the source for that), it's the attaching of an NDA to the documentation that irks.
Frankly, I agree.
This is like O'Reilly saying, " You can't divulge any of the information in this book."
I'm sorry, but as my granny used to say, " Fuck that shit!"
Give a man a fish and you feed him for day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Teach him to fish but make him sign an NDA first and, well, you're a shit head.
As it happens I've taught people to fish, for money. I assume some of those people have taught other people to fish, perhaps for money. Well, I *got* my money for what *I did.* They are getting money for what *they* did. The idea that I could forbid them from doing this is ludicrous.
What if a university did this? "Yeah, we'll teach you Java, but don't you dare think that means you can make money by teaching it yourself afterwards."
KFG
No it isn't getting around the GPL. It is making a new product (documentation) and selling that normally. This is similar to many books or training manuals.
You could always write your own documentation for that same open source (or closed source) software.
Not surprisingly RMS had made an essay years ago on why free software needs free documentation.
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-doc.html
How is it reasonable to be "pissed off" that someone won't just flat-out GIVE you something? Especially when it's something they worked hard to acquire? (e.g. knowledge, software, talent, time, whatever)
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
From my own personal experience they (plainblack) are actually a lot more open than many other open source projects. They are much more willing to help and friendly, even to newbies. Whilst other projects can be really bitchy if you ask a question you could have read on page 456 of some unreadable manual.
They do however charge for support. And they do not want to see the answers you get from a closed support page xeroxed to some other page. That pays their bills and allowed for them to code on and make WebGUI full featured.
Apache 2.0 maybe around for some time, but you need mod_perl as well. The combination isn't really stable that long so it is not as if they keep the most common configuration out of the basic documentation. In fact, many sites still operate, for good reasons on apache 1.3.x
---
So are you telling me that if I write my own HOWTO or publish a book on, say, Perl or Sendmail... I can expect legal action from O'Reilly? Oddly enough, O'Reilly doesn't seem to be the only publisher in the Open Source software space.
Because they actually wrote documentation, and it apparently helps people.
As far as I can see, that's the only thing that is going against the open source spirit.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
On the other hand, it does raise the question: what's the best way to get some financial return on the time you invest creating an open source project? I really wish personal satisfaction would pay the rent or even just grocery bills, but it doesn't.
Whining aside, charging for information does seem a bit silly in the open source arena. Charging for time might make more sense... Are there any open source developers out there with 1-900 support lines? Anyone know of any other strategies that are actually bringing in money?
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
everybody (authors, users, community) wins
How exactly do developers benefit? I hardly call moving from a job and paycheck to working for free a "win". I'm inclined to call it a major "loss" actually.
All of the essays in his latest book are freely downloadable.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Fact of the matter is that we live in a world where money is king. If your company doesn't provide a profit, then it's going to eventually evaporate (unless it's run by someone like Bill Gates). Fact of the matter is that it's very difficult to make money with Open Source software. Even Mandrakesoft is having a hard time with a relatively popular distribution of Linux.
These people are attempting to develop a model that provides most of the benefits of open software and (as far as they see) some hope for them to make enough money to be able to support their baby full-time.
Perhaps this model will fail. Perhaps you would complain if the world were handed to you on a silver spoon and you were asked to pay for the spoon.
If you don't like their business model, then you have pretty much two choices:
-
Pay for access to their (closed) documentation
-
Develop your own documentation
-
Write your own code.
- learn how to count
Would you be bitching at these people this venemously if they were providing their program for $50, but not providing the source code? If so, then go ahead and keep bitching, otherwise I would suggest you consider the possibility that your attitude is a little bit hypocritical.This reminds me of a few years ago, the AMS (Student's union) had a barbecue day to make money. When they didn't have veggie-burgers or dogs, I asked them why. It turns out that some radical vegetarians had raised a big stink the previous year about the veggie versions being cooked on the same grill as meat products. Given that the market for veggie foods just wasn't large enough to justify a separate grill, the AMS had decided it would be easier to just not sell veggie burgers at all.
Really left me happy.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Free = Free. Want support? Pay the man. What about mySQL? If you have a problem that's not solvable on a community level, I don't see how you should *expect* someone to spend their time on your support, unless you compensate for it. They could be doing better things, such as, making more software.
I would have to definitely agree with the charging of the fee for support.
That company has made the source freely available to those who would use it. They work on it and improve it, fixing bugs as necessary. But the support itself costs money. If they were just another open source coder, then I'm sure they'd more than happily help you for free and maybe a thanks. But they are a company and they are charging support fees.
This is definitely within their right to do so in both the spirit and letter of open source. Though whether or not it agrees with different peoples' versions and understandings of open source is another matter.
As for documentation, what kind of documentation is being referred to? A help file? A Howto? Or a custom tailored document to help the user?
As for the having people basically sign a NDA to not disclose how they were shown to perform the install, that is something which is beyond the scope of "open source".
The reasoning is that open source covers the accessibility of the source code by the masses in a way which the masses can understand. If the code is beyond the means of the masses to understand, assuming it has not been obfuscated, then they require support to assist them with getting the code/app to work with their system. This help is billable and could very well be restricted information. Not from a security standpoint, but from a commodity standpoint. Ie, it is the model upon which their business is based.
One can think of it as buying software which comes with basic instructions which works for some, but doesn't for others. You can always pay more to obtain support and/or documents to better assist you, but you are not allowed to copy that document since it is copyrighted and is essentially the incentive for people to purchase support.
So I would agree with your assessment with the contractor example.
Some might point out that RedHat/etc are charging for support as well in a similar manner. Though I do not know if they are having people NDA'd.
Take with big whopping grains of salt for IANAL.
Winged Power Photography
There are a number of posts saying essentially, "they gotta make money somehow". Is that a fair statement? Sure! People need to eat!
But apparently, they didn't finish reading the "Ask Slashdot", or they would realize that the author isn't complaining about them charging for support, but that they are charging for support with what amounts to an NDA, saying they can't tell anyone what they learned from the support they purchased.
Personally, I think that's ridiculous; I would never agree to such terms for simple support. However, that is another topic entirely(actually, it IS THE TOPIC AT HAND!).
In short, please understand what the topic is before you go flaming away.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Returns: "not found"
Methinks you _don't_ understand it.
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
It has been widely discussed, for years, that paying for support is completely in tune with the stated and unstated philosophy of the GNU Public License.
End of discussion.
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
I've never seen so many people so horribly confused.
For everyone who is running off at the mouth saying "You greedy open source people, this is how they are supposed to make money, paying for support is fine, stop demanding everying for free, etc", wake up and actually read the article.
Nobody is complaining that they are charging for documentation or support. The problem here is they are making their customers basically sign an NDA that prevents them for sharing any knowledge they gain from the documentation with others. This has nothing to do with copyrights, and it is nothing like photocopying a manual. This is about you promising to never help anyone you know who has the same software. Microsoft does not sue me if I tell you a Windows XP trick I read about in a book by Microsoft Press.
Personally, I don't hold this against the webGUI people. It is their right if they want to do it, but damn, what a crappy business model. That will only provide them with a revenue stream until some code savvy customers write their own documentation from the source code (which from other posts looks like it has already happened)
So really there is nothing to see here folks. Just another company trying yet another flawed way to make money using open source software.
As to the broader topic everyone seems to be bringing up about how this is a fatal flaw in open source (namely that companies cannot figure out how to make money off it), there is no problem. Nobody cares if companies can figure out how to make money off of every tiny little open source project out there. The larger ones have funding from companies that use them (IBM funds Apache and some others) and the rest are written by people in their spare time or as part of their job.
I make money with open source software by using it to solve my company's (well, university's) problems. I also make enhancements to various packages we use and feed them back to the community. Everyone benefits and I still get paid.
If you are a programmer who thinks you should be getting a six figure salary because you can write a little software utility, then cries when the open source community makes a better one for free, tough luck. Either evolve with the times or get left behind. The days when you can whip out a little program and charge for it are done. If it is truely a good program, you can bet someone else will be motivated to reimplement the concept as an open source project. It may not have happened yet (Gimp is not a complete replacement for Photoshop for example) but over time it will.
Finkployd
I think it's a great idea. I see no way for opensource based companies to survive. if they can't bill you for something, they're people are coding for nothing. doesn't do them a lot of good unless people like working for free, and living on the street.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
This may or may not apply to the story but it applies to most of the discussion here.
Its clear that there are a few holes in the GPL and I think it might be time to make changes. The GPL was intended so that developed software could be used by a wide group of people and compaines. Recent laws (such as DMCA) have restriced some of the rights that were implied when the current version of the software was written. One of thouse is the right to reverse engineer the code which accroding to my IP lawyers, is now illegal even if you have source code unless you get premission. Another hole is the NDA type agreements and those are related to some of the hiding behind trade secret laws. The GPL needs to address all of these and it needs to soon before some developer gets nailed. For example if I develop something for KDE and I steal the idea out of Gnome, its quite possible for the author of that part to sue (and win) under current US tradesecret or DMCA law even though Gnome is GPLed and its license was written with the intent of having its bits reused elsewhere.
Let's say you've just bought a device. Say a NBX100 from 3com. Now how do you know if its running GNU software or not? If they hide the copyright message, you won't know will you? At least they left in one small text message that is very gnu tar specifc. A grep GNU on their exe image shows a positive match as does a grep on "You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License". So far attempts to get the source have not been productive but I did go to great lenghts to get explicit permission to reverse engineer the code from the persons whos name is on the copyright because any attempt to look at the binary code could be a DMCA violation under current law because the GPL doesn't grant that permission.
The GPL needs a anti-NDA and a reverse engeering clause added to it at once.
Hell, most open source software does not even have much documentation period....So having to pay for quality docs for free software sounds like just as (or more so) solid of an OS business plan as any of the other I have heard. If all else fails -- you can always look "under the hood" (at the source) to see what makes it tick -- how can it get any better than that?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The only real way to learn about some open source projects, unless you are on the inside, is by buying a $50 book. For instance, Ted Husted's Struts book (struts is a java-based web application framework), recently reviewed here, is the only place to learn about certain of that project's features without spending a week or two in generate and test mode, in constant contact with email groups. Other projects are also this way (e.g., Tomcat, a java-based web application server). Arguably, apache itself has been this way for a while without officially saying so, and sendmail has been this way *officially* for years now.
The point made by sendmail is that they need a way to support development. People who are not willing to develop should pay those who are. I suppose the question is: "where does it stop?" Should the product be unusable without the paid for help. Maybe that's a spot where it would be good to establish some open source standards of minimal usability that is expected without pay.
Oh. So that's why Debian is supposed to be so much cooler than Red Hat.
I'm off to Debian's site to install it for the first time...
So, if you figured out how to do this on your own, how about putting what you know on a web page somewhere? Since you didn't pay their fee, you're not bound to keep the info secret, right?
Then ...
Charge for tutorials, fancier documentation, support and so on. If I'm going to use software seriously I want a paper copy of the documentation, and I'd much prefer a nicely formatted, bound and printed (um, nicely formatted, bound and printed means a well designed book with table of contents, index and other supporting sections, with a good paper and ink and font and all, and with binding that allows me to lie the thing flat, use other books for bookmarks and that still doesnt break quickly) and I'm willing to pay for it. If you want people to pay for html versions or pdf versions, you might want to think carefully about how much. $50 for html and pdf seems a bit much to me.
Charge too for site specific installation and configuration by the developers (or a staff if you're a real company).
Sell consulting services for your product and so on.
And, of course, the big money maker : T-shirts!
But remember - if someone submits code (bug fixes, improvements etc), documentation or much of anything else, this must be included as part of the open source package.
I love the first item on the Features list:
= 352
ISI Certified Open Source Software - Therefore, of high quality and freely distributable.
Because you KNOW software is of high quality if it says Open Source.
Then it goes on even further..
Dynamic URLs for easier marketing. This keeps the URL short rather than being terribly long:
Theirs: mycompany.com/garden/tools/showproduct.asp?prodID
WebGUI*: mycompany.com/product352
Because nothing says "click me!" like product352.
Information based business is no good.
Information can be easily duplicated and distributed with no loss of quality, so baseing your business in information can't be profitable for a long time, and requires continuous investments, which leads to expensive products, which leads to less scale, which leads to even more expensive products... And then we reach MS business model.
The solution is to base your business in knowledge, or services, or even both. Nobody can steal you know-how. Make investments in your employees, they're your biggest patrimony. Make investments on thme and they won't leave your company, don't worry about losing your investment, you won't.
What will happen now? After being /.'ed this product will have a new free documentation project, probably included in TLDP. And now the business based on information won't be profitable anymore...
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
The whole idea behind free software is to share information so everyone benefits.
Funny - I always thought the whole idea was to share source code.
creation science book
That's an excellent use of time - spend your own time redoing stuff someone else did for the sole purpose of giving it away to be able to laugh at people stupid enough to try to charge for support for a product they're already giving the source code away for.
You must place absolutely no value on your own time.
creation science book
We spend years learning to code, starting from "hello world!" to actually developing an application that is desired by many people. We do all this not to make ourselves rich, we do our coding as a series of steps leading to personal enlightenment. We of course know how our code works, and if we release our code at all, we release it as gpl and hope that those who are interested are motivated enough to spend the minimal amount of time to learn how the code works to use it. To those who have not yet figured out how to use the code which we have stuggled so hard to create, I say I am sorry, If we only had a desire to write documentation rather than to code. Of course a solution would be to find a way to combine the talents of coding and the talents of writing documentation in one effort. I would task those of you offer quick condemnation of the coders for doing what they have spent years learning how to do and there lack of writing documentation which meets everyones expectations. I suggest you stand up and fill the gap!! Otherwise I suggest you sit down and read a book or two :)
Thanks
Sure. If I plagiarized entire passages of an O'Reilly book, I should expect some kind of legal threat / action. But if I, say, bought a subscription to their online resources and learned how Perl works then sat down at my fave word processor and hammered out my own instructions on Perl I would hardly expect O'Reilly to say 'boo'.
It seems that this is not the case with this particular group. Not only do they claim copyright over their documentation (which is fine), but they also include some kind of NDA that forbids any further dissemination of the information covered by that documentation. This is where they've attracted criticism.
O'Reilly does not have the same restrictions with their books. And that's why O'Reilly is not being criticized the same way.
Since the original poster, and subsequently many of those responding made a mistake in their interpretation of our membership agreement, we felt it only fair to present the truth.
First, our membership agreement is for the Support Center, which is where our technicians provide answers to specific problems that our customers are experiencing. The poster applied this agreement to WebGUI's manual, Ruling WebGUI, which is a mistake. Ruling WebGUI has its own license which is not much more than a restatement of United States copyright law, saying that you don't have the right to make copies of, or distribute, the book for anything more than your own personal use.
Second, the person who submitted the original story, though making an argument against our NDA, actually has a problem with paying for services of any kind. He made no claims against our NDA when he was posting on our discussions, nor in any emails to us. Instead his claim was that since WebGUI is open source that everything related to WebGUI should be free (as in beer).
Third, we have taken in your responses about our NDA. Many of you are right, as worded it was unfair. We have decided to reword the NDA to better suit the community. While we're certain that it will not satisfy those of you that believe that no profit should be made from information and services, it should alleviate those of you who want to help out your neighbor with your new-found knowledge.
Fourth, the intent of our NDA is to protect ourselves from our competitors. It is not meant to stifle knowledge sharing, but instead to stop those that would try to make a profit by our labor. Indeed there have already been several attempts to make this play by various "companies".
Finally, a comment about the business of open source software. Many people mistakenly believe that open source software means that the software, beyond sharing its source code, is free of charge. There is no OSI approved license that we are aware of that implicitly states this. Instead they speak loudly to freedom of expression and knowlege sharing.
Furthermore, several posters correctly made the observation that open source needs to find its niche in business, and not the other way around. Like it or not we live in a world of capitalism. And in our world of capitalism small businesses drive the economy. If small businesses like Plain Black are not able to survive on an open source model (and I'm not saying that our model is the best or only) then open source is doomed to be a hobbist's affair. Everyone who works at Plain Black strongly believes in open source. If we didn't we wouldn't build our business around it. But at the same time, if profits are unsustainable in the open source world, then the economy of open source will wither and die; and the funding for all but the biggest of projects will die with it.
If Plain Black is really charging for basic documentation, then what they are doing is bait and switch. In their FAQ, they claim it is "absolutely free." They even post their project at freshmeat.net.
Imagine if a company posed as a food charity and advertised "absolutely free" peaches. You go down to their store and they give you a box of canned peaches. You take it home and discover your can opener won't open the cans, so you go back to their store. They say: "you have to buy one of our special can openers. They're $500 and only work for 2 weeks."
That is deceptive bullshit. Bait and switch pure and simple. Not only that, they wasted your time if you can't afford their can opener or don't want to do business with them because they are lying bastards. I don't think the sane people here are saying everyone should be required to give their code away for free. They just want people to be honest about it. Those who have said "give away the program and charge for support" meant things like telephone tech support, on site assistance, and adding custom features. They did not mean putting the code under the GPL then charging money just to find out how to install the thing.
As for the open source model in general, it was never intended to make money. The primary reason for open source is so that those contributing to the project can use it. Those using the program without contributing are just an added benefit. The only for profit model that really works in open source is the one where the company need that software for their business and have employees participating in the project. Open source wasn't intended for pushing political ideals or selling software.
Before someone says my comment about political ideals don't belong in open source, note that the FSF/GNU don't want their crap to be called "open source", they call their "movement" "Free Software." I also think that is deceptive as most normal people use the term "free software" as meaning "no money is asked for copies of this program" not "you may use this program, but we want you to conform to our political ideals."
Hi,
/.er
it is not just WebGUI. There is more free software
that follows the "free source - payed documentation" scheme:
- jBoss is a free application server. However it is
hardly usable without the documentation which is
not free.
There is a free documentation project, but it
is available only for outdated versions.
- Blender is a great piece of free software but
trying to work with it without documentation is
a pure waste of time.
(However, I am not sure whether this is a
business model in this particular case.)
- OpenGL and other libraries are open to use but
require documentation in order to be used.
(Here You have to buy the book.)
- gcc is free. Learning C without a book or
teacher is nearly impossible.
What I want to tell You with this examples is:
- Not everything which is for free to get can
also be used for free.
- It is not a bad thing [TM] to give away the
source and keep back the docs.
However, if You do so, You should make clear
that You have to buy the documentation to
use the product.
- You have no right for free documentation.
(hard, but true)
- Any documentation which is not part of the
free product can be distributed with a separate
license. Therefore, it seems OK to me that
there is a nda for a installation guide.
- If it is really important, someone will figure
out the needed information and distribute it
for free.
However, stating that a product is completely
free to _use_ should include a free and good
documentation for the product.
Providing commercial support is another story...
Greetings,
The way that I see it is that they are giving away the source so that others can see it and are sure that it is secure and reliable.
Learning how to use that source is what they are charging for. Since it {the documentation} is distributed as a separate item, it can have whatever license/restriction that they want for it since they wrote it. SInce it is clearly stated, I have no real problem with that.
--
Time is on my side
1) Write Code
2) Open CVS access to the code
3) Create documentation
4) Charge for documentation, support and house calls
5) PROFIT!
Of course this doesn't come close to the closed source method of making money, but hey, they aren't contributing diddly squat to the community.
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
In that type of instance, sure, I would expect to just tell you what it was ... hell, I would expect to have written it down before I left and possibly filed a bug report with whatever manufacturer/distributor was at fault. ...
...
...
... how often does that really happen?
How about a counter example: To get your web site up and running, I have to write new code that gets it to work on your specific set of service that your software didn't originally support (like, say, running WebGUI on Apache 2).
Would I be expected to give you the rights to that script to use in the future in your work environment? Maybe, depends on if you paid for the time to document and package the script (and no, not everyone does want to pay for that and if they don't, most professional services houses will not give you additional rights beyond the initial install).
Would I be expected to sit by while you package up the code and deliver it to the world, possibly undercutting my business? Doubtful. Sure, I may be the kind sort who does so freely, but I may not. That is -my- decision, not yours. The only way the customer has the right to give away my work like that is to stipulate that ahead of time or if I'm too stupid to stipulate against it at the time of contract.
As for one of the earlier posters who stated that if I used this as a business model I would be out panhandling, I would say you don't have a clue how professional services contractors (big, like Sun/IBM, or small like an individual) do business. This is their bread and butter. In the case of the "fix a computer, tell them how to do it", you're right, but in the "integrate software not specifically compatible with each other" you're way off.
And I agree with Bruce Perens that the group that gives away the documentation for free and provides community support should get the money for providing support. Problem is
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
-- Rod
If you ask me, it's kind of a slender reed for WebGUI to lean their revenue stream on, but their motivations here are understandable, and not really evil. Just think of them as a book publisher and all is well, yes?
Seems reasonable to me.
Here's the software source code/package/whatever. If you can figure out how to install it and make it work, great, it's free.
If you want our help installing it, it's gonna cost you.
What's so wrong about that?