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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."
Your Newspeak is ungood. "bad" is ungroupthink. Use "doubleplusungood".
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
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!!
Angel capital is money invested in a business to provide equity capital, not debt which must be repaid regardless of the success of the business. More often than not angel investments are combination of funds and the business expertise of the investor(s). Angel investment transactions are made with the expectation of a very large financial return to the investor per dollar invested if the business succeeds. Angel investments are also made with the expectation of psychological rewards for the investors. These are obtained from their personal contributions to the growth of the business, time and business expertise. The investment decision is thus both financial and personal. Risk and reward take a more complex form than in almost any other financial transaction. It is risk and rewards.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
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.
/...
Does anybody really write applications using XUL?
Miro is one.
Breakfast served all day!
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.
This is actually true. I have a Linux site and a Windows site and the Windows site is filled with a couple of cheap apps that I wrote and the Linux site is all GPL free stuff. I've found that the Linux site actually makes me more money off of advertising revenues and I can leverage that as some experience on my resume for more work. Now in between contracts, what I'm going to do is refocus my Linux site and my Windows site into a single site that gives out a bunch of free stuff, and then, if I do want to charge for something, it won't be some crappy utility that noone registers anyway. Small utilities are advertising, in their own right.
This is my sig.
...and songbird is the other.
Windows isn't a cheap utility. It's an operating system that has any number of components that a developer could leverage and use. Yeah, Windows isn't free as in beer or in open, but, the developer generally doesn't pay the cost of the libraries that get bundled with it, consumers do.
So, in essence, Windows is a tax on consumers for developers to get nearly free stuff to write for. This model makes it impossible for third party library providers to actually succeed unless they deliver some niche that Windows won't do. Like, GUI kits for Windows are stagnant largely because there's no way developers will pay for a library when MS will tax Windows users for the same library for free, and consumers already being taxed, won't want to eat the tax of a competing library.
This is good and bad. It means that Windows has a single set of widgets to write for, in USER and COMMON. But, it also means that end users do not have the benefits of multiple GUI toolkits that you get in Linux, which manages to stay in the game because really, Microsoft doesn't want to spend too much money making widgets when that only collects the tax... only enough to stay ahead of Linux, and so, GUIs stagnate overall.
Therefor, Windows does have a lot of value. You pay a modest tax to make it possible for shareware developers and corporate customers to use a lot of fancy controls that are just a step ahead enough of Linux and Mac to make it difficult for users to switch, but never really far enough ahead to make you really stand up and cheer at the edge of your seat, saying, "wow, Windows is really great."
I mean, come now, would it really be that difficult for Microsoft to go crazy and add a bunch of cool widgets to Windows that were easy to program in C?
This is my sig.
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.
If you think Newspeak is next generation then you must be at least 90. I'll get off your lawn now.
...and songbird is the other.
And CeltX and chatzilla and NVU and Cyclone3...
Oh, and I'll give you 1/2 point because my syntax is incorrect. The correct phrasing should have been:
Your Newspeak is ungood. "bad" is ungroupthinkful. Use "doubleplusungood".
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Your idea would make Embrace, Extend, Extinguish easy. Open source projects need users in order to be able to function. These users can report bugs and request features, this is required for a project to advance. Once a company makes a proprietary version of the project and begins adding features, most users will use that instead.
It's true, requiring the software and its derivatives to remain open reduces commercial involvement, but its the only way to prevent companies from simply taking the community's work, adding features (without sharing them) and distributing the program without source.
Besides, open source developers don't usually want to see another company selling a version of their program without contributing to the community.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
There is actually no scenarios where proprietary software is better for it's user. NONE. It's only good for the one who produced that code to hold on the know-how. And you cannot create know how out of nothing, you are always gonna ALWAYS stand on someone's shoulders, be it the creater of binary code or the author of some common algorithm, thousands of whom did their work to archieve this level of science. The users of proprietary software are mostly 1: forced to upgrade at some point 2: left in the rain 3: will be pushed and milked as much as they can. What is wrong with expecting a source of a programm when I BUY one. If I am the knowledgeble one I can fix the problems or quirks I don't like, if I am not, someone else will, or I can pay someone to do it. Why should I depend on someone if I don't have to. I just don't see the logical proof that shows me that proprietary software is better model. Sure, alot of proprietary software is better, because people are ignorant and pour money into it. But why should I omit the source when I can have it. It is so typical of humans to take the short turn gain today and a disaster tomorrow over better long turn strategy. I mean look around - oil, global warming, pollution, in the end it'l bite us in the ass, but no, we still want a quick one today and leaving our children to deal with the shit tomorrow, pretending nothing is wrong. I don't want to sound like a hipocret, I don't always adhere to the principle above, but at least I am aware of it and try to choose the right direction if possible and not pretend that nothing is wrong and advocate the illogical.