Young Programmer, Stop Advocating Free Software!

Lansdowne writes "Clemens Vasters, in an open letter to a young developer he met at a software conference, asks him to consider the consequences of writing software for free. "Software is the immediate result and the manifestation of what your learned and what you know. How much is that worth? Nothing? Think again."" While I don't particularly agree with all of the points made here, this is the type of question that needs to be answered to continue to get people involved in Free/Open/Libre/GNU/whatever source/software/code.

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Site slashdot'ed befor it went live

[mpost4]

So here is the text of the letter.

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Dear Aiden,

I think you remember the conversation we had recently at this software conference in Dublin. You came up to me and told me how the stuff I was talking about was mostly useless, because it is closed-source, people need to pay for it and that companies charging for software are evil anyways - especially Microsoft. Unfortunately I don't have your email, but I am sure this will reach you.

First, I would like to thank you for the interesting conversation that developed and to make sure that none of what was said just fades away, I'll tell you here once again what I am thinking about what you do, what you think and - most importantly about your future.

When I was 21 - like you now - I was also at university and was pursing a computer science master degree. Back then, I was very enthusiastic about programming and creating stuff that mattered. And thought that I was the best programmer the field has ever seen and everyone else was mostly worthless. And I did indeed write some programs that mattered and made a difference. The program I spent some 3 years writing in Turbo Pascal from when I was 18 was for my father's business. Because the business he's in requires a lot of bureaucracy, he and my mother spent about 2-3 daily hours on average doing all of this stuff by hand. When I was done with my program and he started using it, that time went from 3 hours to about 15 minutes a day. That was software that absolutely improved the quality of life for the entire family! And his friends and colleagues loved it, too. I didn't sell many licenses at that time (I think I had 3 customers), but each one was worth 1500 German Marks and that was a huge heap of money for me. I mean - I was living at my parent's house, getting a monthly allowance of 120 German Marks and worked as a cable grip for a couple of TV stations every once in a while - maybe 2-3 times a month. And if I ever had 400 Marks per month I could really consider myself massively rich at the time and for my age, because I had very minimal additional expenses. So 4500 Marks on top of that? Fantastic. Where did the money go? I can't really remember where it all went, but I guess "lot of partying" or "Girls, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll" would be a reasonably good explanation. Hey, I was 21 and that's what one is supposed to do at that age, right?

That was in 1990 - let's fast forward to 2004 and you. All software that you and your father could possibly be interested in has already been written. That's probably not true, but it's hard to think of something, right? Ok, the software may not run on your favorite operation system and may cost money, but what you can immediately think of is likely there. So where do you put all your energy? Into this absolutely amazing open-source project you co-coordinate. I mean, really, the stuff that you and your buddies are doing there is truly impressive. There are a couple of things I'd probably do differently in terms of design and architecture, but it works well and that's mostly what matters. And you do make an impact as well. I know that hundreds of people and dozens of companies use your stuff. That's great.

However, I start to wonder where your benefit is. You are - out of principle - not making any money out of this, because it is open-source and you and your buddies insist that it must be absolutely free. So you are putting all of that time and energy into this project for what? Fame? To found a career? Come on.

If someone installs your work from disc 3 of some Linux distro, they couldn't care less who you are. The whole fame thing you are telling me only works amongst geeks. The good looking, intelligent girl over there at the bar that you'd really like to talk to doesn't care much whether you are famous amongst a group of geeks and neither does she even remotely fathom why you'd be famous for that stuff in the first place. I mean - get real here.

So once you get your degree from school, what's the plan?

Right now,

not worth nothing

[stonebeat.org]

read this: Indirect Sale-Value Models and Give Away the Recipe, Open a Restaurant. Eirc Raymond tells you how to make money from OS/Free software.

...and Clemens' reaction

[l0wland]

I thought the site came in pretty quick. If not, read Clemens' reaction to all the opposition.

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Free stuff vs. free stuff

Of course my letter to Aiden is prompting some opposition. It may be worth noting that a very large proportion of the code that I write ends up being public and there's more stuff brewing as we speak. There is little need to educate me about giving. I am an educator. Sharing insight and therefore sharing manifestations of that insight in form of source code is my mission and part of my business. But this is not the business my clients are in and neither is it the business of most of the thousands of developers I am honored to speak for at conferences each year. Their business is about being paid for writing software. If they weren't paid, I wouldn't be paid. My job description is to figure out fundamental stuff and use my natural "understand very complex things thoroughly and rapidly" skill that I was luckily blessed with, so that I can explain those things to them and they can focus on solving customer problems. My free stuff helps my customers and is also playing a marketing role for me an my company. Our free stuff is a calculated investment. We can and do attach a number to it. dasBlog is a freebie for others but represents a significant investment that's worth several tens of thousands of Euros. It's not free, at all.

We support a project that brings us some indirect value. However, we do not in any way force any code republishing requirements upon the folks who'd like to reuse our code (we have a strict "no GPL" policy; our code is BSD licensed). We don't depend on a community of volunteers to turn dasBlog into a dominant blogging tool that we can benefit from by commerically supporting it. We believe that if we wanted to benefit from the software directly, we would have to rearchitect and rebuild it (or at least restrict ourselves to newtelligence contributions) and then sell it as a fully supported commercial product. My personal sense of respect and fairness tells me that I will not and should not exploit the others guys that have contributed to the free version of dasBlog. It's their hobby and their work is their work. I think a company like Red Hat, which is a public company (which did yield a significant "going public benefit" to their founders) and is profiting from the work of countless unpaid volunteers and enthusiasts, is a very clever, but deeply unethical entity.

I do believe in giving and I do believe that there is value for the community at large in sharing insight through source code. But we don't share the view that software is free or should be free. Someone pays for it. We have an investment in software that is free for others to use, MySQL has, HP has, IBM has, Sun has and - believe it or not - even Microsoft has. We do that as part of a well thought out and well understood business strategy.

I understand open source. I do open source. I do so because I am aware of what it can and can not do for a company. I think I have a pretty good understanding on what's going on in this business. If it becomes the norm that the people providing outsourcing, system administration, hardware, and consulting make orders of magnitudes more money than the creative force, the software engineers and architects who are envisioning and building the foundation for this industry, something is stinking. And it stinks a lot already.

Also, if you say that I am confusing "free software" and "open source". I am not. "Open" is the political argumentation line, "free" is the economic argumentation line of the same thing. If this sort of confusion exists for mostly everyone and one of the most often repeated line in OSS arguments is "you don't understand the difference", then that's caused by the simple fact that these terms are simply two angles of looking at the same story. The OSS "eco-system" only functions because both is true.

Matthew, selfish is not the one who wants to get a tangible reward for his work. Selfish is the one who denies that reward.

Here is the text of ...

[mav[LAG]]

...another letter.

Dear Aiden,
I don't know you from a bar of soap but I'd like to encourage you in your efforts developing Free Software. I understand your antipathy towards Microsoft given its track record of mocking, attacking and undermining Free Software but don't waste your energy hating it. It is, as Professor Eben Moglen, counsel for the Free Software Foundation, said the other day, on the wrong side of the software movement. Rather continue to write, improve upon, distribute and enourage others to use Free Software. And don't think you aren't perfectly entitled to charge money for Free Software - I do it for a living and it earns me quite a lot of money.

I'm not going to bore you with all the stupid Pascal stuff I did at your age, neither will I drivel on about making a few bucks from the odd software sale. What I will say is this: make sure you do something that you really enjoy for a living when you finally need to earn a living. Never take a job on the money alone. To spend most of your time doing something you hate just because the paycheck is good is soul-destroying. Using a job as a stepping stone is fine, but make sure you have a goal to do what you want. Don't worry if this process takes ten or fifteen years - you can still have lots of fun along the way while picking up experience. And there's at least one attractive woman out there who will love you for who you are, not how much you earn. You'll find her if you keep looking. Sometimes you'll find that she was there all the time - just that you didn't notice. Good luck.

You sound like you have much enthusiasm for programming. That's great - and one day it might provide you with a steady income. Developing Free Software teaches you all sorts of good habits which will stand you in good stead in the real world: client expectations, deadlines, having to work with obnoxious idiots who are nonetheless brilliant coders, version control and a passion for elegance and cleanliness. Even if it doesn't and you do something else for a living, writing Free Software is a pleasant part-time addiction that can provide many happy hours - I hesitate to say relaxation - occupation for your mind.

Free Software is not a myth or a lie: it is the largest single technical knowledge repository on the planet available to all who want at no charge. None of the code contained therein has been obtained by trickery or extortion. On the contrary, hundreds of thousands of intelligent coders want what you want: to program cool stuff and share it with others. And they have done so. There is no food chain in Free Software. It is perfectly possible for a young University student like yourself to change the world given enough talent, hard work and help from like-minded people (you may have noticed this somewhere before).

Like some other correspondents of yours, I also happen to know a few choice quotes about political systems. But since none of them shed any light whatsoever on the process of or motivation for writing Free Software, I will not waste your time with them.

You will encounter opposition from many quarters. Some of this opposition will be from genuinely concerned but misguided people who want to deny reality, ignorant as they are about the 21st century, the market share of Apache or sendmail, and the difference between bits and atoms. Some will even call you stupid or a bigot. Don't worry. You will be proud one day to tell your grandchildren that you created a program that thousands of people - maybe even millions - used to improve their lives. Right now your skills and enthusiasm are of enormous worth to yourself and many others. Many people will appreciate it when you share and share alike. And that by itself is worth much more than choosing life, a career, or a fscking big television.

Re:PS to letter

[kyz]

I'm not surprised, he gets his pay-cheques thanks to Microsoft:

Clemens Vasters is co-founder and executive team member of newtelligence AG, a developer services company headquartered in Germany. He is a Microsoft Regional Director for Germany. A well-known developer and architect trainer, he is a popular conference speaker, author/co-author of several books, and maintains a widely read and frequently referenced Weblog focused on architectural and development topics at http://staff.newtelligence.com/clemensv.

In 2003 alone Clemens has spoken at over 40 events in 21 countries across Europe, Asia, and the United States, including numerous high profile conferences such as the Microsoft TechEd events in Dallas/USA, Barcelona/Spain and Kuala Lumpur/Malaysia.
The focus of his work is to help customers understand and realize the potential of web services and service oriented architectures, using present and future Microsoft application services platforms, as well as to empower developers to create richer and more robust applications more efficiently.

Given that the "software is mystical, please pay me lots of money for it, you definitely shouldn't be allowed to see the actual code you pay for because that's precious" model is what keeps him in a job, I can see why he's defending it. If companies are only willing to pay for open* solutions, Microsoft have nothing for them. He'll need to re-work all his skills to a new platform vendor, or watch his business fail.

*: open source, not necessarily open licensing.

Making good money with F/OSS

[SgtChaireBourne]

In response to the AC M$ apologist / troll, here are handful of OSS companies. Most offer dual licensing. All make money doing consulting, support and development. You can probably find more with a quick search.

• Apple - Darwin and Safari
• IBM - Linux kernel
• Novell - Netware, NDS, eDirectory
• Trolltech - creators of Qt
• MySQL - major SQL database
• IndexData - networked information retreival
• RedHat
• Sleepycat - dbms
• Google

Note that all of the above did and still do top notch work before, during and after the dot-bomb hysteria.

So if you want to know how to make money, look at the experts.