O-STEP In The Limelight

Tony Stanco, whose new eGovOS conference is starting today, has also been pushing O-STEP (Open Source Threshold Escrow Program). It's an interesting looking program for escrowing code, pending money being raised towards it - you can get more details in PPT,OpenOffice, and HTML.

Comments

Who decides when?

[lewko]

Step 1: Write software
Step 2:
Step 3: Err... Guys? Can I have the profit now? Umm... What do you mean the escrow program folded? You had WHO doing the book-keeping? Andersen? AARGH...

(Little known Step 4): Major shooting spree...

Money through open source?

[MoeMoe]

It's interesting to think, something that is developed with the idea of keeping things free can generate and manage monetary and money related issues. How many times have we seen programs like Turbo Tax and Lotus which are used for business be passed up for something cheaper and better yet open source? I give this on my thumbs up.

Keeping the escrow Locked

[Montgomery Burns III]

A very interesting article, but one has to wonder about the keep to go through all of these gyrations... Why not just release under open source? It appears that it will take some time for folkes to figure out: How to ditribute open source while generating revenue.

Re:Keeping the escrow Locked

[gilesjuk]

I can't see many large companies being interestesed. After all how can they protect their patents while giving away the secrets in their source?

Legitimizing Open Source

[Blaine Hilton]

This may help to further mainstream open source efforts. Everyone wants to get paid for their work and this looks like the next logical step in the process. Hopefully the concept is well executed though unlike some other recent ventures.

Re:Legitimizing Open Source

[tcort]

>Everyone wants to get paid for their work
People are already getting paid for open source and free software. It is possible! Companies and non-profits are making money by

• selling the software for a price
• providing a support service
• customizing the software for customers
• selling manuals
• providing training
• selling promo material (t-shirts)

Re:Legitimizing Open Source

[warpSpeed]

Everyone wants to get paid for their work and this looks like the next logical step in the process.

Everyone? I think that is a little broad, not _everyone_ is interested in getting paid for work. There are plenty of volunteers out there. I would agree that many, or the majority of people want to get paid for thier work, but there is a significant number of developers that just like the warm fuzzy of putting out a good product that the public can make use of.

Re:Legitimizing Open Source

[ndogg]

:-o

It should acknowledge the free software movement as a part of our community, and acknowledge Microsoft as its adversary.

Did I read that correctly? That's almost as strange as naked Raelians!

Re:Legitimizing Open Source

[quandrum]

not _everyone_ is interested in getting paid for work.

I think everyone does. It's just some people realize that green pieces of paper aren't the only form of acceptable pay.(Karma anyone?)

Re:Legitimizing Open Source

[warpSpeed]

I think everyone does. It's just some people realize that green pieces of paper aren't the only form of acceptable pay.(Karma anyone?)

Ok, I was just using 'payment' in the strict sence of the word. Most People do derive something out of thier work: cash, kudos, karma, warm-fuzzies, or whatever.

o-step Rebirth

[gurnb]

O-STEP will re-invigorate the software industry and result in more competition by re-balancing the rights between users and producers in a way more appropriate with the incentives framework of the U.S. Constitution, The current intellectual property regime creates vendor lock-ins for critical infrastructure software.

interesting...

[Giant Ape Skeleton]

IMHO, It's always a good thing when an intelligent interface between the Technology, Business, and Government sectors is attempted.

For too long, legislation and regulaton have lagged behind the technological paradigm. This is a step in the right direction.

FYI: RMS (HTH)

[Jodrell]

RMS was asked to speak at the conference but refused. Newsforge just published a statement from him explaining why. You can read it here.

Re:FYI: RMS (HTH)

[Samrobb]

If you read RMS' statement, there's an excellent reply that states:

...you are unwilling to participate in these events unless these events acknowledge the existence of the Free Software Movement. Yet by refusing to speak about the Free Software Movement to them, you further marginalize yourself. You refuse to educate the public about something they may not be aware exists.

I can understand why RMS doesn't want to act in a way that would seem to compromise his ideals. While that's great - and important - he apparently extends his idealism to the point where he's not willing to talk to you unless you start the conversation on his terms. While it might be an ego boost to only argue with people who agree with you, it does get in the way of actually convincing people to accept your point of view in the first place.

Re:FYI: RMS (HTH)

[Hellkitten]

While it might be an ego boost to only argue with people who agree with you, it does get in the way of actually convincing people to accept your point of view in the first place.

Yes, but if you wnt to talk to someone it helps if they actually acknowledge your existence

And I think RMS is looking for his ego boosts elsewhere (GNU/xyz anyone?).

Ransom model

[arvindn]

Is this different from the ransom model?

AFAICT, they use the random model and function as a neutral escrow authority. The ransom model is not mentioned in the article though. Poor choice of name? Like free software/open source, I guess.

Laudable initiative, IMHO.

Release criteria?

[ccady]

Are the sales release criteria made public? What if a company wants to change them? Who is going to enforce this? What if a company wants to remove it, or refuses to gives sales figures?

Until these details are ironed out, this program is useless.

Software won't be as good under this scheme

[Hellkitten]

This way of doing things will lose one of the benefits of going GPL from day one. Since the code will be closed source for a period you can't build on top of already open software (unless lgpl), this means having to reinvent the wheel, which means higher cost.

On the other hand if the software is open source from day one customers will be less inclined to pay, profit suffers and the software won't be made.

Would you like some egg with your chicken?

So suppose we make a more company friendly GPL? (FSF probably won't like it so a lot will have to be created from scratch, but less that for the proposed scheme), Requiering that source be disclosed after a profit threshold is reached won't work since a company could cheat by setting the threshold redicoulously high. What might work is some kind of time-delayed GPL e.g "If you modify this source and make binaries the source must be provided no later that three months later". That way the a free softwrae author can be sure that nothing based on his code will stay closed forever, and companies could benefit from already developed code. Still it would probably depend a lot on the free software community and their willingness to change their lisences, and you can bet you'll see different time limits depending on what the authour of a piece of code thinks is acceptable. But if something like this is implemented I believe both business and the community could benefit. (except for evil monopolies ;) )

Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme

[Hard_Code]

"If you modify this source and make binaries the source must be provided no later that three months later".

Hmm...sounds suspiciously like copyright . So maybe the answer is to fix copyright law so that useful things aren't hoarding WAY after the "incentive" to create them in the first place has gone away.

Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme

[Hellkitten]

sounds suspiciously like copyright . So maybe the answer is to fix copyright law so that useful things aren't hoarding WAY after the "incentive" to create them in the first place has gone away

That wouldn't work quite as you seem to believe. If something is not copyrighted (ie public domain) there is no way to force someone that makes a derivative work to release the source

In fact the idea I outlined above uses copyright to achieve what we want. If I released some code under a lisence like this I own the copyright, I give you the right to create a derived work, on the condition that you release the code after three months with the same lisence. This is basically GPL with a delay that gives a busines a three month head start to make profit. The community would always have acess to the three month old code, and can make additions to that, provided they release the code for any binaries no later than three months later. The company can pick and choose patches (which are derived works and would have to follow the same lisence) and incorporate them in their product, while doing their own development to keep the three month lead.

The advantages I can see are 1: Businesses can take advantage of existing code without as much risk as before. 2: Because of 1 more code is likely to become free. 3: Idealists/obbyists can still release code on day one.

The disadvantages are: 1: It's GPL incompatible, meaning nothing can be based on the wealth of GPL code out there, otoh linking against LGPL code is fine. 2: It'll be hell on source code management though and I seriously doubt CVS will cut it. Perhaps someone could persuade bitmover to release bitmover under a lisence like this :)

Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme

[crosbie]

GPL does not prevent closed development as long as there's no distribution.

Therefore you can take all the GPL code you want, build on it for any period (a month, a decade, whatever), and as long as when you release/distribute it, you release it GPL, then you have still fully complied with the GPL.

All you do, is sell the release of the improvement to a cartel of expectant users.

Naturally, it may be more economic if you engage this cartel in the process of arriving at a fair price. Hence, why The Digital Art Auction may be a better mechanism than simply having the developer set their price.

Once you realise that the cartel needn't be just a few large corporations, but umpteen thousand users, you begin to see that this could be a viable revenue model.

Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme

[Llyr]

Requiering that source be disclosed after a profit threshold is reached won't work since a company could cheat by setting the threshold redicoulously high.

They could -- but the potential customers would know that the threshold had been set ridiculously high, and would be far less likely to buy in. This proposal is effectively a promise, which they could not break due to the escrow, that if enough copies are sold, they will make the source available; this encourages companies and governments to buy it as they will not have to worry about losing access to it later. Though it's based on profit, not number of copies -- it would be interesting to see how they plan to stop companies from hiding the profits of product X (whose source is in escrow) as something else.

The discussion in the article about the company having the ability to keep future improvements closed indicates that this is not a GPL-style OS. But we should judge the proposal on its own merits, not just on its resemblance to our preferred model.

Re:Software won't be as good under this scheme

[IamTheRealMike]

They could -- but the potential customers would know that the threshold had been set ridiculously high, and would be far less likely to buy in.

Really? How many people know that the threshold for TransGaming releasing their Direct3D work is (or was) 20,000 subscribers? How many people know roughly how many subscribers they actually have?

Seems the escrow idea was already tried, and at least in the Wine project it led to a high-tension fork of the code, not really the intended effect.

Abandonware argument

[Dareth]

This sounds so much like the argument that once a software company has made enough money on a version of software that they should/could give it away or open source it so that people who would have never bought it can benefit from it.

The part that gets me is that there has to be a "trusted entity" that ensures that the release occurs once this mysterious threshold is reached.

I think there is a great parallel here in the pharmaceutical industry. After all, we all know that drug companies don't fight for extended patent rights to drugs that improve peoples lives. They are always real nice about making their "threshold" amount then releasing their drug(s) to generic and whole-saler manufacturers so that the majority of the people can benefit.

It is not ALWAYS about money.

Re:Abandonware argument

[Mr. Shiny And New]

You're kidding, right? The pharmeceutical companies are bastards. They hoard and fight over every last patent and chemical formula.

They even patent the same drug multiple times if it does multiple things to your body (usually as side effects)... for example, birth control pills can help reduce acne (this is a side-effect). So a drug company can patent a birth-control pill TWICE, once as the actual invention (birth control) and once as an acne medication (accidental consequence). The birth-control example doesn't happen in the real world, but there are other drugs where this is true. In Ontario (Canada) pharmacists are required by law to sell generic brands first, rather than name-brands (unless the customer asks for a name brand). However, if a drug is patented, they are required to sell the drug made by the patent-owner (of course). So, this leads to the situation where a drug might be patented for one effect but not for another. This means that pharmacists must keep track of which patents apply to which drugs, and must make sure that they don't accidentally give the patient the cheaper version.

And we're not just talking about Viagra here, either. We're talking about anti-biotics, pain-killers, drugs to treat arthritis, diabetes, and other real illnesses.

In fact, drug companies frequently use patents to try to get more money from governments. Just recently the Canadian provincial governments ran into some issues while trying to get a drug to fight anthrax, because the drug was patented. The patent owner wasn't selling the drug at a reasonable cost, so the government had to buy it from someone else. Basically the government had to change the law for this case.

Re:Abandonware argument

[Llyr]

I think there is a great parallel here in the pharmaceutical industry. After all, we all know that drug companies don't fight for extended patent rights to drugs that improve peoples lives. They are always real nice about making their "threshold" amount then releasing their drug(s) to generic and whole-saler manufacturers so that the majority of the people can benefit.

Nice sarcasm, btw. But the parallel is not that good, since for software there is an ability to choose that you don't have with drugs. The source escrow is intended to influence the choice -- so if you need to buy a word processing program, you would be more likely to pick the version whose source is in escrow (with a reasonable threshold). For most drugs there are no or very few alternatives due to the patent process. It's as if the idea of a word processor was patented, and you have no choice about which one to get. Though you never know what will happen, given the US Patent Office...

Re:Abandonware argument

[pmz]

This sounds so much like the argument that once a software company has made enough money on a version of software that they should/could give it away or open source it so that people who would have never bought it can benefit from it.

The software company also needs to have the integrity to disband or adapt when their software reaches maturity. Once a piece of software implements well everything it is required to do, there is no incentive for people to buy new versions. Once this happens, the company has to find new markets to write to, try to impose subscription schemes, or break up saying "thanks for the memories."

After all, we all know that drug companies don't fight for extended patent rights to drugs that improve peoples lives.

I think this is still motivated purely by money. It just happens that the patent expiration lifetime is adequate for the business cycles of drugs. Claritin patent expires...here's new and improved Celebrex!

In other industries, such as software, it can be argued that patents run too long. Or too short, as Disney would like us to believe in the copyright domain.

A similar idea to the Digital Art Auction

[crosbie]

This is a similar idea, but at least allows the market to help arrive at an agreeable valuation: The Digital Art Auction

A good idea, with some problems

[Mr. Shiny And New]

I've thought of this idea before; it seems somewhat reasonable but there are some problems. For example, what if the escrow value is set too high? What if only a few people buy it? What happens to bug-fixes and updates?

I can imagine a few things going wrong in this system where the buyer of the software is harmed. The example in the article about Corel escrowing Word Perfect is a good one: What happens if they set the escrow value at $50M but only sell $40M of software? Then the early adopters lose out, since now they are stuck with a product as proprietary as MS Word, but not as popularly supported. I think that for this reason, many products will not be purchased until they have some serious momentum. This is a catch-22.

Another issue, as another poster mentioned, is that software that begins its life as proprietary can not build upon the free software foundations. The other main problem is that some software can't be open-sourced because it includes other proprietary components that are licensed, not bought. So, for the free-software community there is still an advantage (more free code, even if it's missing bits, is still good), but for the people who bought the software in escrow there is less advantage, since they can't actually use the opened source for their production work.

Re:A good idea, with some problems

[Ed Avis]

What happens if they set the escrow value at $50M but only sell $40M of software? Then the early adopters lose out, since now they are stuck with a product as proprietary as MS Word, but not as popularly supported.

In other words, just the same as if they bought proprietary software that was not escrowed. It certainly doesn't make the software a worse proposition.

Re:A good idea, with some problems

[Mr. Shiny And New]

It makes the software a worse proposition if one of the reasons you bought the software was because you expected it to be released as open-source.

If open source is important to me, and I have the choice between the following:

1. A proprietary program
2. A proprietary program that will be escrowed
3. An open source program that isn't as good as #1 or #2 but would be sufficient

I will choose #2 if I get the source eventually. However, if the source is never released, then I would have been better off with #3.

I'm not saying that the escrow program won't work, I'm just saying that it has some hurdles to overcome before people buy into it.

Re:A good idea, with some problems

[Eccles]

I've thought of this idea before; it seems somewhat reasonable but there are some problems. For example, what if the escrow value is set too high?

One possibility would be to have the escrow money reduce the duration for which exclusive copyright is claimed. For every X thousand dollars given, a year is taken off of the 95 year limit (with no grandfathering for further copyright extensions.) Thus you always get some progress for your money.

Great approach...

[bhsx]

I've been shaking my head trying to figure-out how to accomplish something like this. O-STEP is a taking a well thought-out approach that just MIGHT work. The real problem is getting lobbying money from vendors like IBM to start pushing programs like this. We need an Open Source Lobbying Group (OSLG?). A group dedicated to raising money and pushing legitimate legislation toward balancing the playing field for companies providing Open Source products. In my eyes some of the possible legislation would include tax-exempt status for companies or portions of companies, or some of the non-profit's umbrella of protection. Grant programs are another necessary step, in my opinion. Governments needs to start paying some development costs for software its people or even companies need, and stop lining the pockets of a particular abusive monopoly power in the industry.
So, in short O-STEP is a GOOD-STEP; but more needs to be done in this arena.

On a side note: Did anyone else hear that Disney World is enjoying farmer's tax-exempt status because they have a few cows on the property?

Blender

[Anonymous Coward]

This is basically what blender did and it worked great. The money was raised much faster than anyone expected the code was released and the first GPL version of blender3d just came out.

I think it would be great if more closed source software was made available in this way.

NY Fair Use protesting Tony Stanco today

[Anonymous Coward]

NY Fair Use is protesting Tony Stanco outside the conference for bringing Microsoft into an Open Source advocacy event.

A possibility for Corel WordPerfect?

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Granted, they're not down-and-out just yet, but they are going toe-to-toe with Microsoft Office on the for-profit front, and OpenOffice, too (mindshare / OSS). If they decide to get out of the business altogether, maybe they'd consider a program like this?

Re:while I appreciate the many formats available..

[Anonymous Coward]

This is NOT offtopic, mod-up.

won't work, and it's unnecessary

[g4dget]

People don't release code open source as some kind of embarrassing step-daughter of commercial business models. They release open source either because they need market share for some related idea/product/service, or they simply want community contributions. And why do other people start using and contributing to open source projects? Because of its longevity: it doesn't matter what Linus or Stallman or whoever does, I can be certain that the Linux kernel and the GNU C compiler will be around, and if there are enough people in the same boat as me, I can be pretty certain that they will be maintained. That's the real advantage of open source.

Escrow models break this: I have no guarantee that the source will be released, and I personally won't be able to pay to get it in its entirety. From my point of view as a user and potential contributor, escrowed code is as uncertain as commercial code.

There are enough people who have an incentive to release code open source to keep us all happy. And against open source competition, even escrowed code doesn't stand much of a chance.

Re:o-step Rebirth

[Anonymous Coward]

However, they should have checked first: there already is the GNUStep initiative which is implementing the OpenStep specification. The O-STEP project is a futile duplication of effort by companies that are not behind the ideals of Open Source movement. All they're after is some feel-good support from our community while they're chasing a quick buck. Mark my words.

Existing open source code is not irreplaceable.

[Chemisor]

From my personal experience in looking at various open source code, is that most of it is not reusable. Download bash source code, for instance, and see if you can cut-n-paste some of it into your own shell. Unless you use identical development style, this is nearly impossible. All that code is very tightly bound together, it is all in C, and most of it is rather ugly. If you are bright enough to design some new program, you are bright enough to rewrite the code to make it better. This is not reinventing the wheel, it is reimplementing the wheel. Take the ideas, trash the implementation. Flame me if you want, but I am convinced that it is the only way to make good software based on anything open source.

If escrow not met, release under another license.

[Chemisor]

If the escrow is not met and you no longer wish to develop the program, release the source code to the people who purchased the program under a totally proprietary license allowing internal modification, but not redistribution of source or binaries. This way, if you paid for it, you'll have the source to hack for yourself, but nobody else benefits; after all, they didn't pay for it.

Bullshit. Write software - get paid for software.

[Chemisor]

I am not writing software because I like providing technical support, selling manuals, training people in its use, or doing T-shirt fundraisers. I am not good at those things. I am good at writing software. Are you going to tell Sears that they can only charge you for the installation of a heat pump, not the cost of the unit? Let people be paid for what they do best. If you make them do their best for free and sell you some service they can only do in a more inferior manner, their business will hardly last a week.

Re:If escrow not met, release under another licens

[Mr. Shiny And New]

That is one approach, but that approach is already available without a mandated system. My company always puts its products into escrow for our customers; they demand it. If we stop maintaining the product (to a certain level of maintenance) then they get access to the source (I'm not sure of all the details, but that's the gist). The OSTEP program needs to do more than this to have real value. I think it will be a huge challenge.

Re:Bullshit. Write software - get paid for softwar

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently business skills aren't your thing either.

Re:Bullshit. Write software - get paid for softwar

[IamTheRealMike]

The two aren't mutually exclusive - I know some people who find people for whom an open source product is 95% of what they want, then get hired to make it 100%. That falls under the customisation aspect I'd guess, though "customisation" makes it sound like you'd spend all your time sticking company logos on the software, in reality that's not true.

And if you think about it, getting paid for what people actually *need* as opposed to what you think they'll need is more efficient anyway.

O-Step:: ObsoleteStep

[ElitistWhiner]

O-Step creates concentric time-rings of government protection for established corporate products that warrant no innovation, creativity, invention or discovery rights under current Patent Law.

I can't believe this stuff makes it onto the /. discussion board. Pretty soon /. too will have lost its Open meaning... and the corporations will have succeeded in co-opting the Open movement.

is this worth it to you?

[kraksmoka]

is nextel's wireless plan. i don't know how they do it from the the wi-fi side, just found it yesterday. they have a pc card type 2 wi-modem that runs for 400 bucks or so and 55 bucks a month for unlimited 56k data connection.

i can't decide if its worth the extra expense, since i have dsl at home and can live without the net if i gotta, when i gotta. however, does anyone think that that kind of cost could for that service would be enough for a dsl/phone replacement????

Open source != GPL

[gr8_phk]

They say that after open-sourcing an application, a company may go on to build another version. The new version need not be open or escrowed. This doesn't solve the problem of proprietary software. No one is going to actively develop the open source branch if a company is actively developing a closed one. They also don't mention what open source license is to be used.

leggovos my eggovos!

[Billy Donahue]

What the hell kind of name is that? It's got to be one of the worst acronyms ever. Some sort of tortured compound acronym, I guess. Maybe it's a sort of pig-latin derivative that Tony and his siblings developed, and we just aren't in on the inside joke. "Leggovos my eGOvos!"

I can't figure out what it's supposed to accomplish. If it's a FS/OS advocacy platform and showcase, then why is Microsoft there at all? Tony Stanco and Bruce Perens both seem to be of the opinion that Microsoft will somehow embarrass themselves by showing up and speaking amid all of the real free software companies and developers. This is NOT going to happen. Microsoft is going to do their typical Hollywood pyrotechnics and when everyone's hypnotized they'll start talking about how great .NET works on FreeBSD, or how great Services for Unix(tm) is, or some other embrace-and-extend nonsense. "Pragmatists" who don't know any better are goind to fall for it like they always do, and jobs doing free software integration will be lost thanks to Microsoft's presence at the conference.

O-STEP is another winning acronym for a program of source code escrow? Sounds like one of the most artificial and forced cases of free software backpedalling. Who would actually use this program? Why bother? Either you release it or you don't. When you put a "time-bomb" on open-sourcing software, you're treating open code as something to be avoided. Open code seems most useful in the early stages of product. "Release Early, Release Often", right? right? How useful was Netscape's release? Not as useful as it would have been if project was open from the beginning. Dealing with WordPerfect source code at this point will be similarly bewildering. It's just a stupid idea.

Is Tony Stanco honest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Events have led me to believe that Tony Stanco promotes Tony Stanco, nothing else.

Whoa ... for us or against us?

[skeptic]

From the article:

For eGovOS to win the full support of the free software and open source community, it must take a clear stand for our community. It should acknowledge the free software movement as a part of our community, and acknowledge Microsoft as its adversary.

This is awfully reminiscent of President Bush's standpoint on terrorism. Is such rhetoric helpuful?

problem of diminishing or zero marginal cost

[mr_stiles]

This proposal is an interesting implementation of a very old theory put forth by Noble Prize-winner Ronald Coase. He wrote an article addressing this very problem called 'The Marginal Cost Controversy' back in 1946. It's an interesting read and highly recommended.

An idea stolen from bruce schneider

[xquark]

This idea was stolen from bruce schneider's
"street performer protocol"

The 1st person to implement this in the real world was stephan king,
unfortunately for the open source world this initial experiment failed
miserably. The never ended up releasing the final chapters to the book,
many people who had put in their $1 or $2 never got it back because the
escrow said it would cost more than the money they were getting back to
get the money back to them. Which makes you wonder how on earth was it
possible for people to send in $1 or $2 donations.
Atm i think shamir is the only guy in the world that has proposed a decent
and fair protocol for online companies to be able to handle transactions
with unit prices of about $1 etc....

Arash

sigh

[n_are_q]

This is just another half assed way to try to do what you CAN'T - make money from your software and provide the source openly.

I think what many people don't realise is that software provides a SERVICE, and people pay for that service. When you pay $400 (or whatever) to Microsoft for ms office, you're not paying for the cd it is on, or for the source code, or for the license, you're paying for something that does spell checking, double spaces and prints (and a whole lot of other crap you prolly don't need). Open source is good for everyone, but if a programmer invests his time and ability into making a usefull service (program), he MUST have the option to be rewarded for it. This is how our society works, you do work, society gives food and cars. Even in communism it works like that, you just get less food and no cars.

I LIKE open source, it benefits everyone. But there is no way to have open source and still charge money for the service (program) you provide. Like someone above commented, charging for manuals, tech support and t-shirts is just not the same. That's a shitty compromise. If you want to make money from your software you SHOULD be charging for software, and then maybe also for tech support. If there was a way to do that and still provide the source openly, it would be perfect. But that simply doesn't exist. You're stuck giving your work away completely free (which might be something you like to do.. not most people who like to eat tho), and provide the source openly, OR you don't provide the source. Escrowing the source doesn't really change that. RMS's vision of utopia is STILL not compatible with any economic system out there, you still don't get rewarded for your work.

I have covered this already

[NoCoward]

I have refuted these arguments already. Find out why Open Source does not work here:

The High Priests of the Bazaar

This paper presents a case against the open source movement and explains why the open source model does not work economically for the vast majority of those involved in the production of commercial software. There are several arguments against the OS (open source) model.

Open Source Doesn't Make Economic Sense For Most

The open source organization has presented a few cases that supposedly explain why OS works economically. However, if you examine the cases objectively you will find that the cases are flimsy and non-specific and do not address any specific concerns. They attempt to bolster their case by pointing out a few "successes", among which Caldera and Red Hat are displayed as shining examples.

The real economic question of the OS model is how is money made, and who is making the money. Who is being rewarded financially for the enormous development effort? The open source initiative claims that there are at least four different models that allow someone to reap rewards. Oddly, it is not mentioned that it is not necessarily the people who did the development work that gain financially.

The four primary business cases mentioned by OS proponents are "Selling Support", "Loss Leader", "Widget Frosting" and "Accessorizing."

The first case proposes that money can be made via selling support for the free software product. This is by far the strongest case and is proven to work, for a few small companies. The two companies that are shown as positive examples of this business model are Red Hat and Caldera, who distribute and support the Linux operating system. What is never mentioned is that neither of these two companies has contributed significantly in relative terms to the Linux development process. Its important to note that using this business model, the people that make the money are usually not the ones who have invested in the development process. So much for the strongest case.

The second case is based on the idea that you give away a product as open source so you can make money selling a closed source program. This also can work, but it should be noted that the money is being made off the closed source product and not off of the open source. An example of this model would be Netscape, who gives away the source code of their client browser so the OS community can do development, but keeps their "cash cow" products completely closed. Obviously, this case may only work if you have a software product that lends itself to this sort of "give away the razor and make money on the blades" system. The truth is that the vast majority of software is monolithic. So much for the loss leader case.

The third case, "Widget Frosting", sounds completely practical. The premise that hardware makers produce open source software so that the OS development community will work for free to produce better drivers and interface tools for their hardware products. It sounds great on the surface, especially for the company that produces the hardware: they get free drivers and do not have to pay for expensive developers. The OS community wins by getting presumably stable drivers and tools. What is not mentioned is the reason hardware makers usually don't do this is because they do not want to reveal trade secrets regarding their hardware design. Production of efficient drivers requires an intimate knowledge of the hardware the driver is for. It is almost always the case that it is in the hardware developers' best interest to keep their hardware secrets close to home. This also brings up the question of why isn't hardware "open"? So much for the frosting case.

The final case, "Accessorizing", is similar to the first, but throws in the idea of selling books and complete systems with the open source software, and other accessories as well. It is obvious that selling books qualifies as support, and that it really belongs in the first case. The idea of selling

sarcasm

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kidding, right? The pharmeceutical companies are bastards
You did hear about sarcasm right?

Last Post!

[alpg]

Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique:
an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently
anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as
`Constructive Snottiness.'
-- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style"

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