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Is The Lone Coder Dead?
CyNRG writes "The little guy. The one-person software company. Can it still exist today? That's me. I'm once again, after many years, writing my own commercial software to sell. A few things have changed: the patent feeding frenzy. This is my main concern. My perception is that one must verify that you don't infringe on any patents when developing new cool software, and that the explosion of patents granted by the USPTO has reached epic proportions. If this perception is true, then that makes it almost impossible for the Lone Coder to create something new that doesn't infringe on other patents. The amount of money required to perform the due diligence research seems like it would be greater than the amount of money needed to develop the software, or even the total revenues that the software could ever generate. Please someone tell me I'm wrong!" Is he?
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - The Lone Coder was found dead in front of his home computer this evening. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to programming culture. Truly a geek icon.
Your real goal though is to write something, get it patented and then sell it for millions to the big boys.
That would be the end of innovation in the U.S. and would cause an even greater shift of technology jobs to oversea markets!
Due diligence?
Patent enforcement is the job of the patent holder. You do not need to do "due diligence" unless you are basing your design on someone else's patented product. Or you are attempting to publish your own patent.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Feel better?
Seriously though, the one good thing I can think of about all this ridiculous IP litigation is that it actually can drive a good 'lone coder' to really innovate as opposed to create the same old mouse trap in a different way.
In either case, good luck to you. Make us proud.
Well, I'm not exactly an expert, but it seems to me that he's just over-reacting. The threat of patent infringement to a one-man development team seems to me like it would be miniscule compared to much larger threats like running out of money or being unable to accomplish your goals.
From what I've seen of the software market today, one-man teams still seem to be a way to make money. You just have to find the right market, and avoid overextending yourself - do a good job on the things you can manage, instead of trying to do everything and doing a crappy job of it. I've seen lots of developers succeed by marketing shareware or selling software over the internet (especially as far as indie games go, for example Starscape).
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Take Bittorrent for example. Does anyone know if he actually lives of it or not?
If that kind of success is not enough, I don't know what is.
Coding software to sell is dead, for all the reasons you mentioned.
What's a coder to do?
Code away on an open source project, gove away all your hard work.
THEN...
Offer your services as an implemetation and customization consultant for said open source software for businesses.
Implementations are not fun, but pound for pound, you get serous cash. Especially if you wrote the software to begin with. You can charge the most.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Llamasoft is still just one guy in his house. He has a support crew, but he's really only the one guy, and he's putting out a title for GameCube soon.
So... no. That said, I know lots of other people that have two-three person teams that make a nice bit of cash here and there from coding.
As long as your code is good, it doesn't crash, and my grandma can use it without resorting to profanity, you'll make a nice piece of money.
Not alot, but maybe enough if you hire a good enough marketer.
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
The Economist has a timely opinion piece about the patent problem in their most recent issue.r y_id=3376181"
http://economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?sto
As long as your source is 'closed', you shouldn't have much to worry about. Cause how is anybody supposed to know that you used a patented algorithm in your code unless they reverse engineered it--which is illegal according to the DMCA. Go nuts.
As I understand it, if you run across a 'possible' infringement and decide to go ahead and then some court deems that it is an infringement, then you knowingly have perpetrated the deed, and the penalty is greater than just simply going ahead and writing the code and letting the chips fall where they may. At that point you won't have knowingly infringed.
Oh yes and sell out to the big boys, get that indemnification and let them worry about the suit.
Spiderweb software is a 10-year old gaming company that only has one coder (President Jeff Vogel).
See http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/.
Thomas Warfield, author of Pretty Good Solitaire, Pretty Good Majongg, etc., is also a Lone Coder.
See http://www.asharewarelife.com/.
See generally discussion on "micro-isvs" at http://www.microisv.com/.
-Richard
But just because software has grown so large (and the computing power needed to run simple applications has increased at the same pace). For most applications, it's simply not possible to have a single person write it from start to finish. If they did, the software would be 5 years out of date when they finished.
It's the same as any other mature industry. A single person can't really build a car from scratch either. At least not one that has any hope of competing with the product of a large design team.
I mean I don't like software patents anymore than most people on Slashdot, but your argument doesn't appeal to me.
-Spyky
Well, I've been working on Dada Mail (formely Mojo) since I started college (graduated last summer)
It's basically fed me for the past three years now; I work on it primarily alone - it's also open source, I make money on a "Pro" distribution, selling an advanced downloadable manual, installation and consultation services.
Very incredibly low overhead for me to run the "shop", and it's still somewhat fun to do.
Oh and I graduated in art - no CS (or math, sans an accounting class) background.
Dada Mail - Program, Art Project or Absurdity?
"Carson.. promise you'll never die."
"You know I can't promise that."
"If you did, I'd make love to you right now."
"I promise. I will never die."
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
What about writing open source software on contract? This is how companies like Namesys (ReiserFS) exist. Reiser4 development was paid for by DARPA, SuSE and Lindows.
1. Well, "lone coders" can't afford the legal work of performing patent searches. This is true. But you know what? I think small or even medium-sized corporations probably can't afford it either.
2. Even if you ARE clear of existing patents, what if a big company decides to fight you in court? Again, a small or medium-sized company could never afford to fight this.
3. Then again, it's not always in some big company's interest to shut you down or sue you out of existance. Often they probably just want a chunk of your profits. (and a chunk of zero is still zero, so they don't make money if you fold, either)
What a fucking country.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
It's not easy -- you have to stoop to doing stuff like adding gratuitous links to your Slashdot posts.
This isn't going to be a popular sentiment here, but I'd say that the GPL and P2P generally make it tougher to make a living.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
With lasers on its head!
No, really. If you incorporate (for $800 or so), then the worst that can happen is that your little company is made non-existent.
At least I don't think they'll pierce the corporate veil over a small company. It's simply not worth their time.
Fellowship 9/11
As long as there are freeware compilers and notepads, there will always be the Lone Coder. Despite the patenting and the proliferation of giant projects with thousands of coding slaves behind them, there's always room for individual innovation. Look at all the concepts that people have discovered by themselves... from General Relativity to the modern day convenience of BitTorrent. That will *never* change... at least not until we all become thoughtless automatons.
Obviously the goliaths of the world would never bother to resort to the rediculous slash and burn practices you're talking about...
Why that would be like billion dollars music corporations suing 12 year olds for listening to bootleg music...
What an irrational, ridiculous, and fuitless waste of time and legal process that would be, eh?
-- Genda
A. You should not do patent research (treble damages). Don't feel bad... big companies don't do this research either, for the same reason.
B. As a small operation, you're not the target of infringement lawsuits.
C. If you're doing closed-source software, they probably won't be able to tell you're infringing unless it's some patented video or audio codec implementation.
Keep in mind that you don't go straight from infringement to a lawsuit. The patent holder may well just want you to take a license, which can be negotiated as a royalty paid to them on copies of the software you sell.
If you can't afford a license, or they won't sell you one, you will have to rework your code not to use the patented idea.
The sky isn't falling. There are all manner of different liabilities that can pop up for any business at any time. There is no way to predict it. That's what insurance and indemnification are for.
really, I was told this by lawyers at a very very very large networking company I once worked for. DO NOT INVESTIGATE if you are using someone else's IP. if you investigate, then you are (ironically) setting yourself up. if, otoh, you blindly develop and then, later on, it comes to your attention that you did something 'wrong', its easier to get out of that than the other way around.
what's the phrase, 'its better to ask forgiveness for an act than to ask permission, beforehand'.
IANAL, but this is almost exactly what the big corp lawyers told us, when we gathered at a group meeting and were asking about how to go about developing code that doesn't infringe.
no, temper this with the fact that they have a team of lawyers which is bigger than your whole company. so I'm not sure their advice still sticks. ymmv..
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
In a later news release of the Preliminary Autopsy Results:
1. He had Type II diabetes from the consumption of Mountain Dew/Code Red.
2. He has extremity palsy from the intake of Jolt Cola.
3. He was having Grand Mal epileptic seizures from the MSG in his local Chinese takeout.
4. He had become reclusive with the shock of finding out that real, live women DIDN'T have staples in their navels.
5. He hands had become claws due to the carpal tunnel and tendonitis from his non-ergonomic keyboard.
HOWEVER, the proximate cause of death was...
6. He attempted to read the entire set of Don Knuth's TAOCP (The Art of Computer Programming) AND "Regular Expressions in PERL" in the same evening and HIS HEAD EXPLODED!!!
LATE BREAKING NEWS:
In a joint press announcment, Microsoft, Sun, Apple and SCO announced that they were SURE that the Lone Coder's work infringed on their IP, and they would be seeking redress beyond the grave, from the appropriate authorities, saying "If ANYONE thinks that merely by DYING they can escape the reach of our lawyers enforcing our intellectual property rights, they will find out just how far we will go to make sure that every line of ever written has the protection it deserves!"
He is survived by his parents, who will be paying off his student loans from MIT for the rest of their natural lives, and his high school sweetheart, who, unknown to the Lone Coder, due to lack of consortium, became a lesbian several years ago and moved to North Beach.
Richard Stallman has annouced that he's quite sure the Lone Coder's work was pretty much something that he had written in LISP on a napkin, one lunch 30 years ago at the Lampoon, but he was kinda buzzed and "...wasn't sure what i did with the *&)&*(&)( napkin...!"
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Not to be the wet blanket of this party, but...
A) Large companies, who hate small developers with an awe-inspiring passion, have patented everything under the sun, so even if your project is successful, you're going to get the shaft sooner or later;
B) If your project IS successful, someone's going to come along and yank it right out from under you. Maybe you'll be sued for patent infringement and sign your stuff over in the settlement, or maybe Microsoft will integrate a competing product with Windows, making you irrelevant, or maybe a college kid just as smart as you will come out with competing freeware -- you'll get hosed one way or the other;
C) Anyone who IS interested in your product is going to download it off a pirate site anyway. Think I'm kidding? I can't tell you how many times I've heard some doofus consultant laugh "But I never pay for software! Windows is free, man." I tell them that I religiously pay for everything, that it's a matter of professional courtesy -- and they almost cough up their livers laughing at me. THIS IS THE MARKET YOU'RE IN. You can't make money in it.
Given these basic facts, what should a programmer do? Here's MY position; I see two possibilities, which you can blend a bit if you like:
Possibility Number 1: You write open-source software, you GPL all your stuff, and you sign over the copyrights to the FSF, who have many, many lawyers. You might not make any money doing this, but you get to use your software without restrictions, forever. Also (tasty) you get to seriously annoy the suits who'd like to make money off your stuff. It's no longer possible for someone to take it from you.
Possibility Number 2: the hacker model: you keep all your cool stuff to yourself, and you trade it with your close friends for their cool stuff. You guys are now the only people with this cool stuff. It's like the force; you are different and have secret abilities that the herd isn't aware of. It's fun and interesting. You meet other groups of people with their own cool stuff and trade; thus you become the Ham Radio operators of the programming world.
The lone developer isn't going anywhere. He's just going back to the garage and hacker groups he came from.
Perhaps -- just perhaps -- this is a Good Thing.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Sheesh, kids these days :-)
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I have a software company with two other guys. Each one of us is in a different project. I'm handling a project all by myself, writing custom software for a client, and I get to do some small projects from time to time too.
We use open source where we can and contribute back where we can. I'm starting an open source project, writing (yet another) CMS, this one with technologies I'm familiar and feel comfortable with. We plan to use this on some projects with a small web design company, so they can sell a dynamic web site and later we can get to support it (directly or through them, it's all good).
I like to think that the future of software development will be something like mechanics are now (at least here in Mexico). You can take your new or fancy car to the dealer for small repairs and maintenance, but almost everybody takes their car to some small shop run by a couple of guys who know their stuff. They get their clients mostly by word-of-mouth recommendations. Some mechanics try to rip you off, you don't go back, but if you like their work, you'll recommending them to people you know.
So I think there will always be big software companies, making big projects and writing huge complex applications, like SAP and such. Big corporations can make business with this big developers. But many companies will go to the smaller development companies that use open source and run a small shop, to cut costs without sacrificing quality and having more direct contact with the people who are going to write their software.
So maybe the lone coders will not make big big bucks like before, but we can still make a living and enjoy our work.
Go hug some trees.
He is wrong though.
step one Incorporate.
step two pay yourself a salary
step three you are safe.
Incorporating is to protect you from bullshit, it costs less then 100 dollors.
MS set the president that companies are not guilty for the infringemeant of their users.
There are additional taxes though, the corporations income and your income.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Come to Europe! Things aren't that bad overhere. Yet...
The new IP-laws will lake just a little longer to pass, now that 10 new countries joined the EU. They need to negotiate and vote over it again.
Privacy is terrorism.
Just a few days ago Slashdot posted a link to the saga of mp3 player Audion, by a small 2-man development shop. In the end, the program died, but the developers' story is really very inspiring.
Thrill to their tale of almost being bought out by AOL in 1999. Weep at their account of being told offf by Steve jobs at Macworld, as he developed a new program (itunes) that would eventually devour our heroes.
And yet, in the end, the developers' attitude and story inspired the heck out of me. Yes, one guy, working alone, with the right idea, at the right time, can make it big.
Don't blame big government for your fears. Just come up with something brilliant and take the plunge. And see what happens.
LoneCoder does indeed appear dead. LongCoder started posting to slashdot in early 2000. His 7 short comments receiving a score of 1 each caused him to take a 4 year break from posting to slashdot.
/. moderators, LoneCoder took his own life.
A carefully worded post praising Suse Linux netted him a score of 4 he briefly basked in his own reflected glory. Unfortunately his very successs was also his downfall. Unable to handle the thought of another 1 point post after gaining acceptance for the first time through
On his computer were found many text files containing various drafts of "In Soviet Russia", "Imagine a Beaowulf", and other unposted commemts along with his predictions on their possible scores.
He leaves behind No Friends, No Foes, No Freaks, and No Fans, and no forwarding email.
Remember his final words: SuSE rules!!
It's even worse: recipes cannot be copyrighted! Instructions are not able to copyrighted, and that includes recipes. If there's extra text around it that is not really the recipe, that descriptive text might be able to be copyrighted. But the instructions to make food a specific way? That cannot be copyrighted.
The same is true of games. You can copyright a certain presentation of, say, Monopoly. But you can't copyright the rules that describe how to play the game Monopoly. (Trademark, of course, may forbid you from using the name 'Monopoly' if you choose to sell your version of the rules. But neither trademark nor copyright can stop you from selling your version of the Monopoly rules under a different name.)
You can read this at the copyright office web site.
So, no, I never did understand how computer code could be copyrighted.
In general, things cannot be copyrighted unless copyright-ability has been specifically extended to that kind of thing. The natural state of things is assumed not to be able to be copyrighted. So, you can't copyright a cheesecake, or a chair, or a scarf, unless Congress specifically says that you can.
I rant further about this at http://www.hoboes.com/Mimsy/?ART=9.
Jerry
If you ar a lone coder and you are not worth at least 100 million dollars, no one will sue you. The legal costs of a patent suit would cost more than they could get from you. I am reminded of the old saying: "You can not get blood from a turnip"
Jamey Kirby
Setting up shop on Sealand can mean a lot of thing - physically, virtually, or legally.
... let me ask the gurus here --- Is there any way for people like us - lone coders - to be offered any protection from the fascist law firms out there ?
Physically, I doubt that Sealand can hold many a lone-coder, for they are just the size of a football field, in the middle of nowhere.
Virtually, maybe I can get my domain / website to be hosted there, and no one has the legal right to confiscate my server. But this still doesn't offer enough protection.
So we go to the third option - Legal
Unless Sealand is a internationally recognized sovereign country, anything registered there, whether be corporate entity or not, will NOT be recognized anywhere else.
The money made by corporation registered on Sealand - if they offer that - will be deemed "black money" in the rest of the world, and legal agencies from the Tax Department to FBI will harrass you whenever you transfer money out of your Sealand account into your local account.
So
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
MS set the president
Ahah! So this explains how Dubya got back in.
Did he inhale?
Watch out! I incorporated in Nevada for something like $160, because i was told that was the way to go. Then the Nevada Department of Taxation told me that they charge $250 a year, + $25 per employee, after I had been incorporated for a year (it's paid in arrears so I couldn't back out). Plus they inform you after you're in your second year, so you now owe $500 + $50 per employee. Plus things get a little more complicated than that. Remember to consult a lawyer before doing anything -- particularly something you heard on slashdot!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I several occasions I have written code and posted it opensource, binary, BASIC (way back when) or just used it at an ISP or something, then find someone filed a patent based on seeing my Code!.
,
First Byte inc. Filed a Patent on playing PWM Audio on the PC internal Speaker, I assume after disassembling my binary (written in Assembly) that I had posted on Compuserve(the copy a bug I had in that code into there patent). They then started suing everyone who had also dissembled my code and started using it in there products. Finally I become an expert witness for Activision and had to sign an affidavit stating that I had prior art to help get the First Byte patent overturned! And a few companes liscenced the code official from me. http://www.dnull.com/zebraresearch/ (code is posted)
The same is true for much of the code I have done. Some of the first audio and video(in and out), on Apple II, CoCo , PC , C64, Lisa, Mac.
Multimedia over BBS's , Multi-tone audio out of 1bit output (1983)(AKA, polyphonic ringtones),
LCD oscilloscope (1986),
Streaming audio over IP now called VOIP , portable compressed music player (1987),
TCP/IP over Spread Spectrum RF and Laser(1988),
Streaming Video over IP Lan in (1989),
Streaming video across Sun Microsystem global IP WAN, TCP/IP over Laser (1991),
Internet Banking web site(for Wells Fargo 1992)
Livecam (1994),
Content Distribution Networks , fault tolerant web server, Single threaded web server and web server with compressed log files output(1995)
Error Correction over IP, CCTV DVR, Streaming audio over JAVA(1996),
Parallel processor Video Compression and HDTV streaming over the Internet (1999).
Silent computers and water cooled blades(2000),
There was even a company that threated to sue me after stealing my code outright! They just changed the authorship names. Fortunatly I had left hidden in the code in the server if you gave it the right URL from a browser it reported my name as the author. I never managed to stop them from selling there version of the product though.
Can't talk about the newer stuff since I have started to file patents So I don't get prevented from using my own stuff.
My biggest problem is how do I protect myself.
Seems like whenever I try to publish something, someone else borrows it, (or at least the concept) and puts it out farther and faster then I can and takes the credit for it. I know I just plan suck a PR and getting the word out , but still.
I at least want to be able to prove original authorship and invention for the ideas and concepts. And it seems anything less then filing patents one each one has been ineffective.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Customers are more willing to pay for something when it is clear to them that it's costing the supplier something to supply it. Downloading software looks "free" because it only happens once, but if it's clear that an ongoing service is required, that's easier to justify paying for.
That said, with today's hosting and communication costs, services can be pretty darn cheap to provide: even factoring in the need for reserve capacity to handle unpredictable demands, the gross profit margin can be huge.
This model fits as well with GPL software as with proprietary, and it scales much better than the "support services" model. To provide support, you have to have actual people doing work, but to expand an automated service, you just need more hardware.
YMMV: This is not a trivial model to set up: it just can't work for many types of applications. If the cost is too high, or if it's not clear why the service is an essential and valuable component of the offering, customers will resent it. If the service is essential, but unreliable or overloaded, customers won't much like that, either. And so forth. From a technical and cost perspective, however, it's highly practical.