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Interclue and What Going Proprietary Can Do
Linux.com (which shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) has an interesting look at what going proprietary can mean for your overall effectiveness. Using Firefox extension "Interclue" as the object lesson, the piece looks at both the engineering and social difficulties surrounding the project. "Even more significantly, the efforts to commercialize only detract from the software itself. The basic idea behind Interclue would make for a handy Web utility, but seems too slight to build a business around. The effort to do so only leads to complications that do nothing to enhance the basic utility, and to pleas for donations that can only annoy. The result is that, if your position on free software doesn't lead you to avoid Interclue, the efforts to monetize it almost certainly will."
are doubleplusbad.
After all, OS_X is the merging of proprietary and open source as well.
I think this current example presented the way it has is a bit propagandistic.
Both OSS and Proprietary have their virtues and vices, and it's a question of the project manager's competence whether or not a project brings out more of the former or the latter.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
What's with the incoherent summary? Nowhere in the summary did this even mention what "Interclue" was supposed to do, and why we should care about attempts to "monetize" it (lame corporate speak when applied outside the finance world).
Editors must be sleepwalking through the end of '08.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
If the a lack of a Creative Commons license for linux.com content doesn't lead you to avoid the website, their efforts to indoctrinate you certainly will...
Software history tends to repeat itself. I remember back in the 1980s, when software distributed on floppy disks often had copy protection. Legitimate users voted with their feet, because it was too much of a nuisance -- e.g., you couldn't back up your software. Software houses eventually got the message and stopped doing it. Now, a generation later, we seem to be going through the same silliness again, except that now they call it DRM.
Similar deal with these little proprietary pieces of crapware. Back in the 90s, there was a period when the internet had gained quite a bit of mindshare, but OSS hadn't. During that time, you'd get people posting lots of trivial little pieces of software on the web, with various schemes intended to extract some small amount of money from the customer: nagware, adware, shareware, crippleware, ... That whole scene was a total dead end. In most cases, programmers found that the amount of revenue they got was essentially zero; this was the users indicating that although the software was somewhat useful to them, it wasn't useful enough to pay money for. Then OSS started getting popular, and most clueful users started to realize that it was a better way to go. Now we have some new software platforms -- firefox+xul, browser+ajax, and the iPhone -- and everyone seems to need to learn the same lesson all over again. At some point, the users who didn't go through this in the 90s are going to realize some of the same things. They're going to realize that spending $5 or $10 on lots of little pieces of software will eventually add up to real money. They're going to realize that it's a hassle to have to keep track of all the software, registration numbers, etc. They're going to realize that it's no fun to have to go back and reproduce this whole set of proprietary apps every time they buy new hardware.
Find free books.
You know what makes a good proprietary conversion of an open source or free product? Succeeding.
There is no certain way to succeed in *anything*.
There are always going to be thousands of failures for every success in the software world, and thousands of moderate or short term successes for every 'killer app' class of success.
I don't want to hear about also rans being analysed to prove a point that was arrived at before the article was even begun.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Does it really surprise anyone that Linux.com would be against any project going closed source? That would be kind of like being surprised the Westboro Baptist Church put out a statement denouncing homosexuality.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The basic idea behind Interclue would make for a handy Web utility, but seems too slight to build a business around.
To rephrase: If your product isn't valuable enough for people to spend money on, it will be hard to make money selling it. The rest of the article is a fairly well-written review of an obscure add-on, with very little insight about open vs. proprietary software.
/...
Slashdot does have a tendency to spin everything into a "TEH FOSS IZ TEH ONLE SULUZION!!!11!!" direction, and to either distort stories, or select cherry picked stories.
The truth is, to which I agree with the OP on this, that every single idea isn't something to build a business around. Kind of like web browsers- it's perfectly acceptable to me, and millions of other computer users throughout the world, that anyone making an OS would view that as a feature to be bundled. And yet... teh FOSSies still can't forgive MS for competing with their beloved Netscape, no matter how horrible that browser (and company) was in reality.
However... there actually ARE ideas which are not only economically viable, but will thrive as a commercial enterprise. Would you REALLY trust a FOSS tax program? I wouldn't. Would you trust a FOSS app which converts documents to PDF? Sure!
Both software models have their place. The sad fact is, there are zealots on both sides who are more interested in commercial vs. free than in using the right tool for the right job. It's always seemed to me that the FOSSie outcry over commerical software was really just their justification for MS hatred, rather than opposition to commerical software- that's why Slashdot grants Apple their "most favored monopoly" status, despite the fact that Apple is not just a commerical product company... but is so with brutally impunity.
Many businesses are accustomed to signing site-wide or per-seat licensing fees for software. Many of the PHBs in these businesses are somewhat put off by free software because they feel kind of weird about simply downloading and using software. For this reason, free software that wants to "go proprietary" should instead do this: keep the free license but add a second license that can, at a user's option, apply simultaneously to the same software. This second license would be the most prohibitive thing you've ever heard of and would require licensing fees in the stratosphere. In return, the customer gets the right to use the software throughout their site and would have also have the right to receive setup assistance, training, and other technical support. Essentially, the price would cover this support, since the software is essentially free, but it would make these PHBs feel warm and fuzzy inside from having to sign an expensive and very official looking licensing contract. They (or anybody else for that matter) could always simply download the same exact software from the Internet and use it free of charge, though it would not come with the warm fuzzy feeling or with the technical support.
His latest MO is to promote a piece of proprietary software in a piece mistitled to sound critical.
But despite the title, this piece appears to be nothing more than an Interclue press release. Note that while it does casually mention that it's proprietaryness carries some vague baggage, most of the article just describes all the add-in's features in a positive light, and re-emphasizes it's usefulness.
The only thing I can't find is where he promotes Mono.
If you think Newspeak is next generation then you must be at least 90. I'll get off your lawn now.