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Should Enterprise IT Give Back To Open Source?
snydeq writes "InfoWorld reports on the fight over open source 'leeches' — companies that use open source technology but don't give back to the open source community. While some view such organizations as a tragedy of the commons, others view the notion of 'freeloaders' as a relic of open source's Wild West era, when coding was a higher calling and free software a religion. To be sure, increased adoption by mainstream enterprises has played a hand in changing the terms of this debate. Yet, as the biggest consumer of open source software, enterprise IT still gives almost nothing back to the community, critics contend, calling into question the long-term effect corporate culture will have on the evolution of open source — and the long-term effect open source will have on rewiring companies toward collaboration."
But many companies are too small to make a signifigant contribution. Are we suggesting making contributions manditory in order to get free software? Doing this would simply destroy the OSS movement completely.
Microsoft requires contributions... of money. Small companies that cant help develop OSS would simply be forced back to the traditional pay-for software.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
The Free Open Source Software community, that builds free, open source software, is complaining that they are not, in one way or another, being another compensated for their free software?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
This is exactly what the little voice in the head of everyone who firmly believes in the GPL says: everyone who uses open source software must give back, because it was free. I think people should shut that voice up. Now.
The problem of freeloaders is approached here with sticks. Although that approach may work fine for some software or other licensed stuff, they work horribly if the customer has a choice. Instead, try the carrots approach. Make users fall in love with your project, so they actually want to give back to the software. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make the heartless, money-driven enterprise IT fall in love with a bunch of code, but it would obviously be a more durable solution than punishing everyone (what about other users?) who doesn't give back.
It all gives the statement "this is free software" such a hypocritical ring to it, and that's probably the last thing you want if you're building a community. If your software is free, then everything you do with it must be a free choice, regardless of the context you're using it in.
tl;dr Forcing people to contribute to free software is (oxy)moronic.
The idea that users should give back to the community is absurd. If the "community" was at all concerned about receiving some kind of recompense, surely they would have charged the users for the software.
But Free Software is about freedom. Not only the freedom to give your source code away, but the freedom to modify and adapt software as needed. There is no concept of a user returning source code to the community except as a contributor (which, again, is a freely undertaken venture). The only time someone is required to "give back" to the community is when they seek to propagate their changes. Since the idea is to make sure everyone is able to use and modify the software as they need, it is necessary to require the new source changes.
So if I don't steal your car, but only borrow it for a day and return it washed and waxed with the gas tank full, what is the point of claiming damages? That is sheer greed. It is the antithesis of what the Free Software Movement is all about.
It's not in their requirements to give something back to the OS-community.
If you don't like people using your code, then don't release it under a licence that allows people to use it without giving back.
If you don't like people using stuff that your "community" created, what gives you the right to say how other people should let their code be used?
What harm is done if they don't give back to the community? Failing to do so does no harm to the resource. It doesn't benefit it either but neither does using a closed source solution.
Vendors who contribute heavily to open source projects do so in large part because their products are used with open source software. To use IBM as an example, some portion of every dollar spent on IBM hardware goes towards furthering open source development. The ultimate corporate consumers do therefore contribute, albeit not directly. Whether or not they should be making more direct or more substantive contributions may still be up for debate, but it seems clear - to me at least - that IBM's model would not exist if these companies were not using Linux.
Corporations pay for those hefty service contracts.
In my office we use an open source wiki and we pay thousands of US dollars a year for support/maintenance contracts.
There's probably not much code contribution as most IT people don't have a software development background. Those who do have the skills lack the time.
There should be no compulsion to contribute, as the freedom to choose to contribute or not *must* be one of the fundamental freedoms in Open Source.
Think of their usage as advertising...
The Eclipse community should create peer pressure to prevent the freeloaders and parasites from getting away without punishment
How the hell can anyone consider "punishment" for people who use open-source software? If you make your code open-source then I thought the whole point was that anyone and everyone was free to use it within the constraints of the licence. Show me where it says "Thou shalt giveth back to the open-source community or faceth my wrath".
This mentality is outrageous and damaging to the very principles of open-source software.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
If you have to give back, then it's not "free software". A similar thing was seen in the whole "Linux" vs. "GNU/Linux" debate. If it's really "free", then why the demands for something in return? Why the demands for credit? Why the complaints about freeloaders? Freeloading is always the result of giving something away for free.
Free software developers lose exactly nothing when someone uses their software.
Free software gains ubiquity when someone uses their software. Which translates into things like vendor support (drivers, etc.), the advantages of greater adoption for certain technologies (Metcalf's law type stuff), etc. etc.
...I once quite a job over this exact problem. Managers at my old company constantly claimed "cost savings and ROI" by using these "new software tools" but didn't dare mention they were FOSS tools for fear of ridicule by the "CTO and CIO" folks who get their "tech news" from trade rags. Then, once I wrote a neat tool for file synchronization over several Linux boxen I asked to open it up because I needed help and also because I knew others in the community would benefit; and yes I was saving the company money. They said "No." and I said, "OK, I'm out." They offered more money and I said "I'm still out." Granted most folks on Slashdot will think I'm an idiot and not "American" or a "Capitalist" for doing such a thing but I sincerely believe folks need to start doing what I did in order to get it through the management brain that "without our code, you have no cost advantage over the competition." Now, unleash the /. ridicule hounds...
Open source software isn't about receiving, it is about giving.
This story shows a fundamental lack of understanding about what open source is about.
If companies, IT departments or not, should give back, then why shouldn't users at home?
Where do you draw the line?
Are people trying to say that Open Source Software shouldn't be free for commercial use?
Seems to me like someone or some people in the Open Source movement are either greedy or getting greedy. Money is not what Open Source Software is about.
Maybe the above is naive and altruistic because companies will exploit Open Source Software, but really, who cares?
In the end, if they don't give back then they're only making life more difficult for themselves because they will need to continue to maintain any private changes/patches themselves. There are significant cost savings to giving private changes back because you no longer have to maintain them yourself. Smart companies will realise this. Dumb ones won't. And so let the crumbs fall where they may... we should not care who gives back, if they give back or how or what. It's not important to us.
This is where the whole "money" thing came in. This reminds me of the south park episode where the kids are talking to first year college students.
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Blood sucking parasite!
I work for a large company that uses Open Source Software as its backbone. I have been pushing for us to put some money into some of the projects that we use, or to recontribute some of the patches we've made. In both cases, I am met with the stubborn answer "that is our intellectual property". Trying to argue that the spirit of Open Source to recontribute to improve products, and that we've built our company upon that spirit and so we should contribute falls on deaf ears. We've now gotten big enough that the senior management and lawyers are more concerned with our IP than with supporting the community that supported us when we were starting. It's bad enough that I'm not even allowed to post code snippets/example bind or ntp configs etc on to various mailing lists I may be on because they also belong to "us".
There is a strong push at the technical level to recontribute, to fund a couple of the projects that we use heavily, but ultimately it's the higher ups and the legal folks that say no way.
I expect things like that are the reason enterprises are leeches, and I expect there is a large contingent of technical workers who disagree with the decision. I know I do.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
If corporations are leeches, not giving back, then corporate culture will have no effect on open source. In fact, open source will be in a position to effect corporate culture.
I think the comments above me have adequately covered what an asinine concept it is to be pissed off that someone would have the audacity to take you up on your offer of using their free software, for free.
I think some of this relates to the attitude of some developers that "business" is a bad thing, and therefore if businesses are using your open source software, they are somehow screwing you over.
Glad to see most people here understand that to be ridiculous.
Life needs more saving throws.
I was under the impression that software released under the GPL was free for anybody to use, if you respect the terms in GPL. I do not remember having read anything about contributions to the community in GPL. Therefore, a company that uses GPL:d software is under no obligation to make contributions to the community. However, should they choose to do so, I am sure the community would appreciate it.
While many companies might use GPL:d software without making (monetary) contributions to the community, I think there is something else they contribute: user base. While this is hard to measure and value in money, it is proof that GPL:d software works well enough to interest companies. And eventually word will get around: free software works, and it works well!
Further, any company using GPL:d software is likely to not use a proprietary software for the same function provided by GPL:d software. Seen from this perspective, they are contributing to the demise of proprietary software companies (or at least not contributing to their survival). With enough companies using GPL:d software instead of proprietary software, the producers of proprietary software will have to adapt to the new environment or cease operations.
I use GPL:d software as an example, replace with whatever F/LOSS licence you prefer.
Not sure if this is done currently, but why not offer membership for businesses and individuals in some sort of open source foundation? Then the IT enterprises can pay some sort of nominal fee and at least give money back to a foundation that can then donate to worthy projects. And it would be tax-deductible as a business or trade membership. In return for membership, the org could offer a few basic services like a trade journal, consulting classifieds and/or matching consultants with enterprises who are looking for a particular solution.
Bill Gates called and wants his moral high ground back.
Seriously, if you feel some sense of entitlement because you write software that other people use, a proprietary model is a more effective way to get what you deserve. Though note, what you actually deserve and what you think you deserve may not be the same thing...
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
If you have large enterprise users not contributing back then they should just be treated like lepers, end of story.
Fair!?! WHO'S THE FUCKING NIHILIST HERE! What are you, a bunch of fucking crybabies?
(I know...the open source community != Nihilists, but I couldn't resist the chance to use this otherwise applicable Big Lebowski quote)
-Turkey
What, so now another condition for using Open Source software is that you should be contribruting to it?
If I use Open Office for my company, this means I should be contributing to its codesource? What if my company is an accountant agency? Should I feel morally obliged to hire programmers to do my share?
I think it's quite funny how first the open source movement seems to complaint how everybody is using proprietary software instead of the open source variants, which are (in some cases) perfectly able to do the job.
But now that some companies are alowly picking up some open source software, they get bashed for not contributing.
If you're working on open source software and you got a problem with companies actually using it without contributing, I'm sure there is a license that will let you AND open your source up to other people, AND be able to say that companies can't commercially use it.
Or... just make your source closed...
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
The point of GPL is, it gives you absolute control of how you use the software. If someone is just using some free tools, they owe absolutely nothing. The cost comes in when you make some changes or patches. The terms of GPL are clear: if you build something on the original code, you must contribute your work. (Free software is like free speech, not free beer. Being free doesn't mean there is no cost)
By 'legitimising' the software, by using it. Just as IBM got people used to the idea of using PCs in a business environment, so big organisations, by using Linux and Oo, are saying that it's "OK" to use this stuff. As more and more businesses use FOSS, pressure will increase on hardware and software companies to improve support - in fact, this trend is well underway...I'm really looking forward to the time when I can go to the local store and pickup a laptop or whatever and it's got Linux pre-installed, I get home/to the client's site, plug it in and all my peripherals 'just work', I can install and run my old windows legacy apps 'out of the box' etc.
We're pretty close already...(those of you that have not tried - for example - Ubuntu lately, try again. I just installed on a brand-new laptop that came with Vista as standard and everything worked pretty well, including traditional problem areas such as video, wifi and bluetooth. Impressive.)
... enterprise IT still gives almost nothing back to the community ...
Even by just using OSS, enterprises increase the presumption of legitimacy and value of OSS in our culture.
Perhaps just as importantly, corporations and government agencies are getting a stake in having OSS software not hurt by the exercise of software patents. This gives those companies and agencies an incentive to work against patent abuse. Like what happened to members of Congress when the Blackberry patent issue came to a head.
So all things considered, I'd say they're contributing something at least as valuable as code.
Here we go with this crap again...
Listen folks - there are NO open source leeches. It is WRONG to put open source out for ALL to use and then start calling people names because they're using the software EXACTLY AS YOU ALLOWED THEM TO DO.
If you want people to give back what they add THEN PUT IT IN THE LICENSE. Of course, that will limit the appeal of your software, but such is life.
InfoWorld reports on the fight over open source 'leeches' -- companies that use open source technology but don't give back to the open source community.
That's bullshit. The fact that the FOSS software in question is being used in the first place is a good thing. By being a user, you find bugs. In an enterprise environment, those bugs are usually reported back to either the distribution or the upstream project itself in hopes of getting it fixed in a patch later on. All of this "your a freeloader unless you contribute code or money" mentality needs to go. It could be worse, you could be the leader of an open source project that nobody even wants to use...
..oh wait, Scotty was in Engineering, not IT.
If you ask ten thousand people on the street to describe "the word 'free' as it applies to software", and you exclude anyone who uses a computer more than two hours a day, I would believe just about zero would describe it the same way as the FOSS movement.
How is it that terms with previous definitions and connotations have their meaning appropriated in such a way that people outside of the group doesn't recognise the content any more?
I've been a member of the open source community for 15 years (back before we call it open source of course). My position is that they are required to comply with the licencing, nothing more nothing less. Yes it would be nice if they did more but I don't think it is appropriate for us to complain that they didn't do more than we asked of them.
Altruists who go looking for reward, recognition and contributions aren't very good altruists. If you expect rewards and recognition -- sell your product. If you expect contributions, pay for them.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Many organizations use open source, but actively have policies that prevent giving code back. Systems to prevent this may backfire, because if an organization *had* to give back, they might just think it's safer to go with closed source. True or not, many lawyers prefer a draconian closed source license that has been paid for over an open license that hasn't. The closed source license is perceived to have been more tested by the courts. Since closed licenses are all different, while GPL, Apache, BSD, and CC are published, well researched, and not overreaching, I don't know why they would reach that conclusion. Some companies have exclusive contracts that have only been seen by a handful of attorneys, while the major open source license have been seen and debated by the World.
Most companies have an overinflated view of the value of their contributions, (although they only paid their programmers industry standard wages) so they put up internal barriers that make it difficult or impossible to give back.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I have a small GPL project that's fairly popular in certain circles, but I didn't write it to be popular. I wrote it because it met a need that my company had. Whether no people or a million use it, we'll get the same financial compensation: zero. But again, that's not why we released it! We have gotten back bug reports and enhancement requests that prompted me to make changes we never would have thought of on our own, and those changes have been useful to us. Isn't that compensation enough? It is for me and my boss.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
In the past ten years I have been working in multiple companies that have had businesses based on open source software. Very often these businesses not only used open source software, but also substantially modified it in order to adjust it to the needs of the enterprise, to make it scale or simply to fix bugs in code that otherwise has been rarely exercised.
In effect, this created a fork of the software, internally inside the enterprise.
These changes can be maintained inside the company, binding company ressources, or they can be put back upstream. Code can be part of what differentiates you from other companies, or it can be code that does stuff you do which others do as well - then it is infrastructure code to you. All infrastructure code inside your company you should share as open source quickly and reliably, because that not only improves the code but also shares your cost with others.
Very often companies do not do that - instead they are maintaining their fork of code internally, failing to integrate changes from the outside into their own fork, and binding valueable development ressources inside the enterprise in reproducing changes from the outside indepently. The reason for that is usually that there is an intellectual property regime which requires clearance of code before it can leave the company, but insufficient staffing for the actual clearance process.
As the enterprise slowly accumulates and integrates more and more open source projects to maintain their business they are slowly dragged down if they do not manage the process of giving changes back upstream properly.
If someone helps you with some problem, you should help them if they need it in the future.
But they don't *have* to.
Same here.
Most open source licenses say that as long as you don't modify the source, you don't have to contribute.
As long as companies are obeying the license agreement, then why complain?
I would say that as long as they obey the terms of the license agreement (and whether or not they contribute themselves) then this is a win for open source software.
Because that's the form you're taking "enterprise should contribute back" as.
Does this mean that IBM MUST NOT contribute to Free Software? Red Hat MUST NOT contribute?
I used to work at a company that used open source almost everywhere. We were pretty zealous about it, looking back now. At the core of the data structure, we were using Postgresql and had a scheme of mastermaster replication between two data centers. We developed a way to handle this. After some soul searching, and a realistic analysis, the owners came to the conclusion that the software didn't really help our direct competitors, and would be safer/better out in the open. So, we open sourced it: http://www.bucardo.org/ Here is the press release from the company: Backcountry finally gives something back
davejenkins.com |
I call bullshit on this article.
I have written Open Source code, I have worked with and been friends with dozens of Open Source hackers, I even organized a Linux install-fest once. I have never heard one single Open Source hacker whisper the slightest hint of a complaint about the free rider problem. When you get into developing Open Source, it is almost certainly after having spent a lot of time with proprietary software, and having spent some time wondering, "How does this Open Source thing work?" If you've pondered that problem for more than eleven seconds, you've asked yourself the "what about free riders" question. If you've done that, you must've reached the only conclusion: Open Source is Open Source.
Are there some people out there who regret making their code Open Source at all? Sure, but they aren't representative of this community. They're people who don't grasp why Open Source is worth the rather obvious cost.
Are there corporations that have bought Open Source subsidiaries and regretted it? Sure, and I'll bet they try to convince the employees of the subsidiary that the free rider problem is a problem. But the complainers aren't part of the Open Source community.
The free rider problem is a natural and accepted part of Open Source development, that anyone serious about Open Source completely accepts. Not a single person I know in the community has every complained, and this article is a crock.
Who does this article identify as those complaining about the fact that Open Source is Open Source?
Matt Asay, vice president of business development at Alfresco, said in a post earlier this year.
Are you kidding me? On what planet does a vice president of business development get to talk about what contributors to Open Source think? Unless he's spending a lot of time filing bug reports, he's not a contributor and he can stick his opinion up his ass. Has he ever even posted a comment on Slashdot? I bet not. No offense to business guys, who are important parts of the US and global economy, and do many important things that I cannot. But you are not Open Source contributors, and not part of the community, even if you insist that the community does not exist.
Suppose I said, "CEOs are frustrated that their technology divisions are not contributing more to Open Source." Would you write an article in CEO Magazine about how CEOs are frustrated that their technology divisions are not contributing more to Open Source? No? Of course not. Because I'm no more a representative of CEO's than Asay is a representative of Open Source contributors.
Dave Rosenberg, co-founder and former CEO of MuleSource, and now part of the founding team of RiverMuse
CEO guy decided he doesn't like the way Open Source works? Bye. Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
Michael Scharf, a member of the Eclipse Foundation's architecture council
OK, that's one.
So this article picked two business weenies to flesh out their claims that the community is pissed off about Open Source software being Open Source software, based on a single actual technologist's gasbag blog post.
Nothing to see here. Move on.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The moment Microsoft or any other software giant has their filthy mitts inside of open source code, they're going to start pushing for ways to get $$$ out of the deal. I wouldn't be surprised to see a company like Microsoft starting a lawsuit, demanding a portion of an open source foundation's revenue (after all, they are making money off of service contracts supporting software Microsoft helped write.) Besides, what a better way to stave off a potential threat from Linux servers than to take it over legally?
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
So the money that the companies pay to RedHat and/or Novell isn't enough? Voting with their dollars is a pretty powerful vote.
Isn't that the point where charity becomes communism?
I suppose we need to decide what we are as a community? The autors of free works or the traders of non-free works; an open community, or a community only of those who contribute.
Many Enterprises Already Contribute and employ OS developers, but for the biggest this needs to extend for those not directly in the IT business. Fortune 100 companies could make a larger contribution and still get FOSS essentially FREE.
More importantly large companies should try to make a contribution to the eco-system in which they live by exerting pressure and making monetary contribution to help remove the enterprise linux killers,
MS Exchange, calendar
Flash
ODF
MS apps on the desktop
AP
I really don't see the point in this. Do you not have faith in GPL? When a company sinks in millions of dollars and builds an entire business model around an open source project, they have economic incentive to participate in development (whether they realised it or not). With their dollars at stake, they are the best people to figure out what enhancement / fixes are needed. If they have their own "private" features/fixes", every time a new release comes out, they run into compatibility issues. Once they go down that road, it is not that far fetch to start contributing the project and have what they want be part of the main branch of development. They might also just sit around and wait for the "community" to do their work, but with money on the line, they have to start adding or making changes to the software.
Even if you don't agree with me, writing angry letters or complaining is really not going get you any where. If you really want to police this, close source your code or your project.
Every once in a while somebody open sources something to gain visibility and once they're known they complain about having to give it away for nothing. That is greedy, you wouldn't probably have sold anything if it weren't free and Free, being a small operation... Make a business plan before releasing anything or have peace with no financial returns.
calling into question the long-term effect corporate culture will have on the evolution of open source
This is a different thing altogether, corporations ARE greedy and don't have morals, which is a bad thing. And in general it is more poignant as a function of how big the corporation is - or how anonymous the decision makers are, same thing.
On top of that most such corporations have a strategic horizon of 3 months, when the next reports are published for the stock markets. How do you think the banks and car manufacturers got in the mess they're in?
I'm all for a free market, but with the responsibility of each player i that market... If you or I would pull such a stunt for an amount of a few thousand ($|â), jail would be our destination; CEO's frequently are rewarded for failure... That's far more of a problem than one OSS project feeling indignant for missed revenue.
If those few developers wanted enterprises to give back, they should have put that in the license. Otherwise, stop complaining about enterprises using the product according to it's license.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Before I got laid off, err, "participated in a workforce reduction" from Accenture, I pushed, multiple times, to have people who are 'benched' to use their downtime to contribute back to the Open Source projects that Accenture and their clients use (Hibernate is a fantastic example). Despite having a great points as to why this was a good idea and some good backing from both peers and my so-called "higher ups," no one was ready to approve this kind of use of bench time. I guess real experience and good corporate karma are no substitute for SkillSoft training.
Granted I'm being very cynical, but there has to be a reason why this doesn't make good business sense even for people who are basically getting paid to do next to nothing (benched folk). Can anyone provide insight as to why?
This is most definitely NOT a "tragedy of the commons" scenario. Open Source and Free software are available for unlimited duplication and have no inherent scarcity, unlike the allegorical commons. The fact that they benefit from more widespread usage due to feedback and bugfixing further turns this stupidly misused comparison on its head.
If you keep your code secret "just because you can" then your cost of owning is higher than if you gave back the improvements.
With closed source you can't make any improvements, so the TCO needs to include the cost of changing your processes.
NOTE: Why is this being ranted about now, what with the semi-open MS licenses (or Sun or MySQL, ...) that say that you MUST give the code to Microsoft (or Sun or MySQL, ...)
How many billions of dollars is IBM, among other companies, flushing down the drain into open source?
Guess that doesn't count.
But there's a collection plate.
You don't HAVE to pay, but you should. If you don't the museum may have to close.
But does that mean the museum isn't free?
No.
I give back. I support, test, evangelize, promote, install, use, help others use FOSS.
I use FOSS because it is FREE (Libre AND Gratis). Because of Linux (and other FOSS), I've helped change the minds of many people to the benefits of FOSS.
Just recently, My Father-in-law had to reset his laptop (unfortunately XP) and had to re-install Adobe CS Suite. Well Adobe said he had too many installs already, and to call in. He called in, and they said "We don't support that version any longer".
We all know to expect this behavior, but this was completely the last straw for my FIL, and he told the support person he will never use Adobe ever again.
After I put in a Linux Server for him (Document Backup), and he saw how well it worked, he asked if Linux would work on his laptop. :-D
So, we take Linux to one person at a time. We all work towards this.
And while it may not look like we are making much progress, we are. I can recall back in the early days of Linux, how much of a "joke" it was. Well, slowly and surely it is starting to make real impact into the world.
That impact is not because of corporate support for FOSS, it is because FOSS is being worked into corporate, just like when PC's started to sneak into corporate 35 years ago.
One day, corporate is going to wake up and realize that FOSS is in the workplace, because the tools they have provided are not sufficient.
Then ... you win.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If I use Linux over a pay OS I think I do give to the community. I don't have to develop source for it. I can use it, post a few questions now and then on message boards about why this or that isn't working, or asking questions. The free search engines pick up my questions, and eventually someone else benefits because I asked a question that someone found an answer for. I buy certain products from companies that require licenses, that run on Linux. I happen to know that many of those companies actually do contribute to open source. If I use their products and open standards, then my products are more compatible with open standards, even if they are my own. If its offered free, it should be free...
That's always been the point of open source.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Interesting how often the morals of single persons doesn't apply anymore when said persons work together in a company. If you are given a gift, or borrow something from a friend, don't you give something back in some form? You don't have to but you do it. Then it should be the same thing for a company. Amazingly simple.
But then again, If you don't have any moral problems with illegally downloading movies, music and games then you will probably apply the same (lack of) morals to this situation.
And working in a company that benefits greatly from open source, my morals demand that we pay back, and we do. Both with money and code. Anything else would be really uncomfortable for me.
Nothing is free, as the user has now staked their business in some form on the success and continuation of the open-source project and source code unless/until they decide to invest elsewhere in alternate solutions.
Slightly off topic, but I remember once when I developing a game, I was contacted by someone who was interested in extending it and adding in some new and exciting features. At first I thought he was just in the process of tweaking the game so that it could be more easily ported to things such as the PSP, Nintendo DS, etc. I wrote back and advised him as best I could remember, as to why I had done X, Y, and Z.
Then, one day, he wrote me a very angry email, demanding to know where I had put the source code for my PNGs, JPGs, GIMP plugins, KDE and Kate editions, and what I had done with my kernel sources. After some more emails, he informed me that I should be storing all the artwork for my game in GIMP's native layer format so that anyone else could use it. He said that I was breaching the GPL by not doing so, since he could not effectively re-use the art. He also insisted on my turning over any alterations to popular programs that I had made.
Probably the most bizarre part was the bit about the GPL itself - When my game is first run, the GPL notice is shown. I wrote in my game that the notice should not be removed. He disagreed - Since the GPL gave him the right to change and modify the code, that meant that he also had the right to remove the GPL notice.
There are times when I wonder if open source's worst enemies are its users...
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
I use a ton of free and open source software. I try to 'give back' by creating themes, plugins, and submitting bug reports and suggestions. I recently decided that I would give a donation to my favourites at the end of each year. This is just my decision though- each person needs to make their own choice. If it was mandatory, I wouldn't feel as good about it.
"We should recontribute so that someone else can make IMPROVEMENTS on our modifications that we can then use without having to pay for it." You need to communicate to them that there are people out there who...will make other changes that you would not have thought of, but that you can benefit from.
They may be out there.
That doesn't mean they aren't working for your competitors and keeping their changes in house.
Sometimes the ball just lies there dead.
You can't promise your boss that opening the code will yield a timely - and significant - return.
The "tragedy of the commons" does not apply. There is no scarce resource here. The cost to a Free Software developer of one more IT shop installing his software is zero. Since a small fraction do contribute, each additional installation produces, on average, a net positive contribution. There are no "leeches". Everyone is welcome to use the software whether they can contribute or not. The more the merrier.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I'm not smart enough to make any direct contributions, but I do have a linuxfund.org credit card, so every time I use my credit card for my consulting business, instead of getting points or money back a contribution is made to open source development. I get lots of comments about the Tux picture on the card whenever I use it. Check it out a http://www.linuxfund.org./
...I just came for the free beer.
"We cannae even do that in the 23rd century!" -- Scotty, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
What is the problem? First people whined because open source was not used by many, and now people whine because it is used by many. It's never good, is it?
-- Cheers!
I wish I knew the following from day one on entering the business world:
Most decisions are made out of fear. Unless you are the boss/owner, you don't want to make any decision with negative consequences.
I think in this scenario management doesn't see any upside. I'm not fully articulating this. They may not want to be complete leeches, but they aren't incentivized to care.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The simple answer is, "Yes," enterprise should give back to the open source community. That said, ethics often take a back seat to the free market economy. Corporate responsibility is oft preached but rarely, if ever, practiced.
This is directed at all of you middle level managers out there. Yes you.
I worked on one of the large open source projects for over 5 years. I saw the day in, day out grind of the project. Now I'm a middle level manager in the IT world and I'm seeing things from the other side. It's one thing if you use a small, free utility a few times a week. It's quite another if you're running your business on it. Now, lots of people here are saying "blah blah, it's free, it's ok to not contribute." I say BS. All take and no give just makes you a jerk. If each of us just helps a little bit, we only make things even better.
There are a TON of things you can do that don't involve donating code, it just requires you get off your lazy butt and do something.
So, if you're a mid-level manager and you say "I can't" donate to open source projects, then you're just being lazy.
----- obSig
Yes, corporate IT should give back to open source. When they make fixes or enhancements they should, out of self-interest, contribute those back to the main-line codebase so they won't have to worry about maintaining them as future changes are made.
But they shouldn't be forced to contribute back. If they're using it in-house and not distributing modified code, they should be free to take on the maintenance headaches if they want to. If they complain and want things done to make life easier for them the correct answer should be "Personal problems are the third door down on the left, have a nice day.", though. The only exception is where they're modifying free code (ie. code under a GPL-type license) and redistributing binaries created from the modified code, in which case they should be required to comply with the license and make their modifications available in source form. If they're redistributing modified verisons of code that's under a BSD-style license, well, the license doesn't require them to disclose the source and they shouldn't be forced to do anything more than comply with the license terms. I personally may disagree with the choice of license, but the code's author apparently thought the license he chose was appropriate and it's his code and his decision, not mine.
I'm the Community Manager for Zenoss, an open source enterprise network monitoring application. We have thousands of installations and even more users, and we see a lot of the same participation percentages seen by Linux and Wikipedia. There's a great article call Participation Inequality, pointing out that about 90% of users are never heard from again and 10% participate in forums, mailing lists and other indirect ways. We see similar numbers ourselves, and we get really great contributions from hundreds of users from enterprise IT staffs. Extensions, patches, testing and documentation are all provided by our community, you just have to work with them to lower the barriers to entry.
We're basically an Apache/Tomcat shop and we run many other open source products. We've been trying for years to get the management to allow us to contribute our Apache changes back into the codebase rather than run the fork that we are, and it's all been for naught until a couple of weeks ago (after nearly 10 years of using open source). An edict from on high came down that we should be contributing back to the community, so we're looking into doing that soon, as well as publishing our internally written tools for others to use. All of us admins are quite happy at this development.
Personally, after basing my career on others work and using it for free, I'm happy that I'll finally be contributing instead of just using, but I don't have a problem with someone never offering up a bit of code for their own. Using an opensource product is, in and of itself, contribution to the product, imho.
Linus and the FSF should put the Linux kernel and related programs under the Affero GPL v3 license, and force the big ones (ie: Google) to give back a good share of the wealth they made thanks to open sourced programs.
What's in a sig?
Why does an open source developer write software? Riches? Fame? To get laid?
The best open source software out there is created by people who need to solve problems they themselves have. There is no "should". Nobody "should" do anything. Put your code out there for the love of it or go home.
Imagination is more important than knowledge -Einstien
"Free as in Speech" vs "Free as in Beer" aspect. Its still one of the hardest things for people to grasp, which is sad since a lot of the fools having problems with it are from the US which is nicknamed "Land of the Free" for crying out loud.
An American's understanding of "Free Speech" is anchored in secure, open and fearless political debate.
In the work of the artist and writer.
But there is a strong underlying sense of property even here.
Ownership. Possession - and Profit.
America remains in many ways an elementally capitalist society - and from long experience quite cynical.
An American thinks in terms of the deal. The bargain.
He always counts the cost."
When he sees a sign that promises "Free Beer!" he translates it instantly into a sign that reads "Free Bunnies! Free Kittens!"
He knows when beer is on the table it comes at the price of a four-hour speech.
You would likely go a lot further by looking to the state of your own house, before condemning anyone else.
People who are paranoid about the amount that others reciprocate, can not, IMHO, honestly claim to be part of the proverbial "gift culture."
Said gift culture (and genuine adherents of it) is not concerned with whether or not reciprocation happens.
The giving doesn't rightfully occur with expectance of reciprocity. It doesn't rightfully occur with any preconception about or prejudice concerning end use. If you need to stop and ask yourself why you're doing something for someone else at all, you've already ruined the effect, and you're already doing it for the wrong reasons. Genuine compassion and altruism have no motive, ulterior or otherwise.
It isn't done because you expect to get something back. It's done, if for any conscious reason at all, because said degree of altruism is a part of your own identity. It needs to be done to maintain your own consciousness, your own empathy, your own identity, your own sanity.
I am, have always been, and will always be utterly convinced of the true moral superiority of the BSD license, and this is just one more reason why I remain in continual opposition to, and defiance of, Richard Stallman. Fear and paranoia about reciprocity, associated with open source, takes something which is, and has been, uniquely beautiful within overall human history, and unusually, genuinely noble for us as a species, and makes it something mean-spirited and ugly.
Larry Wall was right. That which is freely given, can only be freely given; it cannot be taken.
you're oversimplifying, which is why these arguments go off the tracks so often.
Lots of people write software for personal use (even if it's just a patch submitted), and then decide to release the source. These are people who made a product and don't want to lose their rights or controlling stake. It's available, you can use it, but don't go about claiming it's yours. If you fix something let me know.
Other people see a need for software and write it, with the intent that others will use it. These are the altruists, but they are far more rare. Most of them still want to be recognized for what they did. They would be happy with patches, but mostly want to produce software.
Still others don't really care about their contribution. If I wrote a web server, it would be in the vein of "yet another web server" and I wouldn't feel particularly like getting credit for it. If I wrote something particularly innovative, I certainly would want credit and adoration. Reverse engineering a proprietary format, I'd want some recognition if someone used my documentation to make the next killer app, because it represents lots of hours of work which aren't contained within the source - the source is just the result of lots of testing and research.
If I made a popular web server like Apache, I would expect people to test, file bug reports, give feedback, request features - and if these were lacking I'd figure either it's either perfect and complete or unused. Feedback of any sort lets you know people use your product. If I were writing my own web server to do something specialized, based on Apache, I wouldn't feel much like contributing changes back, nor would I feel that Apache could make use of my customizations. Maybe a few of its users would be interested, but I wouldn't submit patches upstream - just make my source available for those people looking for similar customizations.
There are piles of different use cases, and reasons for hacking on some source or another, and many different reasons for producing and making the source available. so you can't just paint it black and white and say everyone giving away source code should feel the same. There are piles of different OSI-approved licenses just because you can't put everything into a single bucket, or 5 buckets, or 10.
Different motivations, different purposes, different people. that's why open source thrives, and it's also why it's so fragmented with forks coming and going all the time and multiple distros. you can't give one rule which applies to everyone.
Just had to troll this one...
Nothing is free. Nothing. If your giving something away for free then its YOUR TIME.
Well, then we observe these massive open source projects. And one wonders where the H did all the money come to pay for that? This is more than a few individuals with spare time. The labor and time is intense.
Maybe its this: large companies getting a tax break for giving away software for the general good. Government pays.
Better yet, the government subsiding the universities to give software away. Students, profs, etc. -- paid by the government!
Or better yet, government and large companies give software away to destroy the little guy. But you pay in your taxes anyways -- your forced to pay indirectly.
In a way, open source a short position on freelance software developers. At some point they are going to have to cover. And now they are in control.
As the credit collapse gets worse and the economy tightens, I expect to hear the complaining increase. The electricity bill must be paid.
If so, then I WANT that job. I can script it up so I redo the changes 24/7 and get MUCHO OVERTIME!!!
Ok.. I agree with most of what people are saying here about free to use and change therefore feel free to contribute/not contribute
My concern is - what if a company takes code from various GPL projects, hacks it together with some their own code, releases a binary only tying you to a service for the software.
Isn't this why the GPL is there in the first place ? its not about those who use it freely, its about those who take it and hide its face in order to profit.
Its not the bulk of FOSS software that suffers from this, but I believe it does go on. I wonder what people here think of this story.
If I had mod points, you'd get one.
This is how it is in the real world.
others view the notion of 'freeloaders' as a relic of open source's Wild West era, when coding was a higher calling and free software a religion
I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but the way you paint it, "Open Source" is the whiny, shallow little brother of Free Software.
Maybe just using Open Source software gets your rocks off, and that's fine with me, but the primary reasons that I use and hack on Free Software is that *gasp* I believe in the idea. I make enough money at my job that I could go down and buy a tricked out machine, put Windows Super Awesome Spy Edition on it, load it up with Adobe Creative Juggernaut and even sprinkle some Maya on top. Sure. But I don't find that interesting or desirable.
If one of my friends comes to me and says "Hey, how can I do ____ on my computer?", then I like to (1) Find Free Software for them to do the job, and (2) Tell them a bit about how to do the job and/or what the computer is doing. I'm an engineer. I like to know how things work, and I like to teach other people how things work. It's empowering.
If I could wave my hands and make things happen, then I'd have a really tasty lunch in front of me right now. More importantly, I'd give everyone hardware and software that they could use and modify; I'd make sure everyone had access to tools that they could extend to do things that I haven't even dreamed up yet. That's what I like about Free Software. That's why I do what I do.
Are there companies out there reaping the benefits of Free and Open Source Software and not contributing code and money back to the community? Yes -- it's a simple fact. But I don't think that people should get too worked up about it when companies are abiding by the terms of the license. The reason we have GPLv3 and AGPLv3 is that those Free Software licenses are more precise in describing to companies how they may use the software and are more protective of developers and users of the code. One common concern, that of people using code as a hosted service and not contributing code back to the community, is now trivial to avoid by simply using the AGPL.
In the end it's all about education. If more companies (read: more management at companies) understand the benefits of Free and Open Source Software and are properly educated about how they can contribute to the community without sinking themselves financially, then I think this problem will resolve itself.
coding is life
You gave it away for free, now stop whining that no one's paying for it!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
People need to ask the question, what is the business driver for an enterprise to spend money on OpenSource? The argument will be, enterprise will likely be a consumer only of the product, because there is no value to the business in spending money on enhancing any OpenSource project because its likely not a competency of said company. Restated; why should a big energy company invest in mysql's development? They're a consumer, not a producer of said technology. Now... if said big company needs to fix some glitch in an OpenSource project; well; they're obliged by license to contribute. But very few big companies have the internal expertise to do that [because again, they're probably not in that business.]
So its really a battle for mindshare and credibility. If you have an enterprise using OpenSource, it justifies its existence, and the spin off consulting to actual OpenSource champions/contributors is where the money is.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Beer?
Speech?
WHAAA I'M TAKING MY BALL AND RUNNING HOME?
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. That's because I'm YELLING.
There are 50 people on the worksite. One of those people often brings donuts, candy, or some such snack to share with workmates. Let's say this person does so once a week. Two other people bring such things less often - let's say twice a month. Another 10 people bring snacks occasionally - let's say once a month on average.
This is "open source" kinda. People giving to people, because they enjoy doing so, and they benefit from the camaraderie, and perhaps they enjoy some invisible "perks", such as the boss allows them time off when they ask.
So - the OTHER 37 people - should they be required to "give something back"?
Ehh, I feel like maybe they should, to "the best of their ability". One of them is a single mom, with three kids. SHE CAN'T AFFORD to repay her coworkers in kind. She MIGHT find the money to bring some home-baked goodies once in awhile, but the kids are more likely to snatch the goodies while they're hot, and they never make it to work.
How about the junior people, who may or may not have the responsibility of our single mom, but just don't make as much money? Do they "owe" their coworkers? Maybe, but just maybe some of them ARE repaying in a manner that just isn't recognized. Ask a favor of the doofus looking mail clerk, and he never says "no" or makes excuses - despite the fact that the favor is way outside his job description and responsibility.
Yeah, there are probably a couple greedy SOB's who routinely scarf down the free goodies, and never do anything to repay their coworkers. And, everybody probably knows who they are. But, what do you do about them? You can ostracize them - to a point. They'll still be your coworkers, you have to get along with them.
Best solution is probably to ignore their antisocial behaviour. It doesn't REALLY detract from anyone else's life, does it?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Having used Linux and a great deal of open source software that goes with it on the Desktop since 1998 I'm not sure I'd be happy to see more contributions from "Enterprise IT" and whatever companies fall under that umbrella. As buisiness usage of Linux has grown it seems like it has eclipsed other usage in developer's priorities.
While it now runs great on a large expensive mainframe performing huge database functions it seems like it is less efficient running ordinary Desktop apps on ordinary Desktop hardware. Unfortunately, I don't get the impression that Desktop users even have a chance to counterbalance this with their own contributions. Remember the CK patchset?
Likewise, in some ways I believe that the ease of use has gone down. Remember Supermount?
As more large coorporations with deep pockets get involved I am afraid all that is gained is louder, squeekier wheels who aren't squeeking for the things which benefit the rest of us.
A company is ONLY obligated in accordance to the GPL or whatever other OSL they agreed to.
A company, hacker or hobbyist, I personally don't give a damn. They should make the source available, they should make all modifications available. They should not charge any more than distribution costs for that portion of software, they have to reflect all past contributors and other claims of participation whether it is explicit copy right, or bragging rights.
Just because they are a company, we should not stoop to their level of participation of currency exchange. We are in the business of exchanging ideas, I could care less about the currency they desire. Currency is only about accounting monetary transactions. That's what businesses strive for, and their products re usually not for the better good, not because the pharmecutical companies actually care about people and what to help them... no, they just want something that people will "buy". We aren't in that business.
If Microsoft wants to use Eclipse... then that's a plus for Eclipse. If I worked on Eclipse or submitted a patch, that's more pride and appreciation for me; regardless how I feel about Microsoft.
What the media is trying to do, is associate our work with actual monetary cost, the same crap they reference in their world. They want to do this, because the next step is to justify cost schemes and cost based justification for ignoble actions (such as, copyright infringment, or invalidation of past GPLs for a new GPL that cators to business financial interests and control).
DO NOT DEMAND CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ANYONE! THAT IS NOT OUR MODEL, THAT IS NOT HOW WE GOT SO ADVANCED AS A SOURCE FOR QUALITY SOFTWARE! 'FREELOADERS' TO US ARE BUG TESTORS, IT'S NOT A NEGATIVE LABEL, IT DOESN'T TRANSLATE IN THE OSS COMMUNITY!
Contributing back to Open Source doesn't always mean "in code". In fact, most of the open-source coding I've done were of the local customizations variety -- nothing that you'd really want to release anyhow :)
But "contributing back" can simply mean that when you hang out on various mailing lists for packages you use, you help out once and awhile. Have hints on performance tuning? Post a wiki page. Deploy some infrastructure you're proud of? Give a talk on it at a conference.
Many of these sorts of things don't fall under what most companies deem their "competitive advantage" -- and not to mention they get you contacts that can help you out of a bind when YOU need it, and are great recruiting tools...
That's exactly the opinion a free software developer should have, IMHO.
I will say, though, that people discounting the value in devoting some time to becoming part of a "community" of software users are missing out on what's really the best type of support there is for a product.
I've encountered this even with costly commercial products we use where I work. For example, our document management software has a multi-thousand dollar per year "support contract", yet every time I've called in with issues - they weren't really able to resolve them for me. I wound up losing data on 2 different occasions, and ultimately, their only answer was to "create a new database container, and copy over all the salvageable data from the corrupt database, and then delete the damaged one". I could have done THAT without paying anyone for assistance! By contrast, a former employee of theirs created a small blog and discussion forum he invited developers and users to share, and I've already gotten 2 really helpful responses to questions about the product on there.
Parent is one of the few things worth reading on this silly thread.
A copyright license that requires the performance of work is not free. It's not libre and it's not gratis. It's you making somebody do something in exchange for the use of your copyright. There is no distinction in this context between requiring the exchange of money and requiring the exchange of work.
FOSS will never penetrate a business that derives competitive advantage from software development unless somebody outside the business destroys that competitive advantage with a superior FOSS product. A corollary of this applies to businesses who mistakenly think that they derive a competitive advantage from software development.
FOSS is like the Blob, though (most of the time). When the blob gets big enough, it destroys the salability of the for-profit software software it encompasses. You can't expect people to quit making money (or to quit thinking that they are making money) from private software until they are swallowed by the blob.
1. company A uses (as in download, improve, release source) GPL software
2. company B steals it (as in download, improve, sell binary)
3. first company sues second company
4. profit
no ???
After a few iterations, it will be fine.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Open Source would work great if it weren't for those damned users.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
That said, things are changing, though slowly. We have started an internal open source endeavor to start people thinking about sharing (the company notoriously reinvents the wheel all over the place). Hopefully later people will understand that and understand what it can do for a big company and then start contributing to public projects.
So while I think things will improve, my point is that large enterprise companies have many obstacles to overcome to allow their developers to contribute to open source and unless you have people who really push it, many developers manage to leap over a few hurdles only to be tired down by all of them.
He has to GPL the result.
The odd thing I find in your story was that what you thought was the most bizarre was the least bizarre. The earlier bits were by far the most bizarre. So bizarre I think you made that shit up.
So you put out a bit of code thats close to what I need. You say it is freely given with a few conditions. I need something similar, so I clean it up, make it usable for my needs and fix some bugs. And, now you say you want to take my work?
Who is the leach? As long as I comply with your conditions, I have no moral reason to give my work away.
Don't tell me how to give gifts. You second-handers need buy your own copies of Ayn Rand.
Governments, Militaries, Private/Public foundations/schools are large consumers of OSS products.
It would be smart of them to pay an annual help-desk code-dev assistance subscription fee to Linux, GNU, Redhat, Ubuntu, Apache, GIMP, Snort, OpenOffice....
If you have a convergence project, bringing many OSS products and code-complexity together, then the "Open Source" developers are the very best source to have available... as you go from scratch to web-services....
I mean OSS (Free!) code is great; However, avoidable project/product failure or problematic costly lifecycle is not acceptable, because the best support is available, but first you pay for support services.
Some projects can cost $17M with short lifecycle proprietary applications, and one-of-a-kind data/content format-hooks. Maybe trying to do the same with OSS support services for $7M will achieve long lifecyle ROI/value and assure ownership of your data/content. Two ways to go and either can be a big waste of money, both can be a success, but (I think) only OSS will deliver affordable lifecycle ROI and let me retain usable no/low format-conversion-cost data/content.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
And THAT my friends, is the difference between free software and open source. Canonical l33Ch0rZ
Open Source should STFU and get busy designing a decent desktop interface or unified graphics API for Linux and stop wasting time bitching who is or is not contributing to "free" software.....or start charging for it.
Trust me, you don't. What's the point in open-sourcing a bunch of custom code hacked together and rewritten 100 times for the benefit of 5-10 people in a specific organization?
Are we suggesting making contributions manditory in order to get free software?
Read again the GPL. It's *already* mandatory.
For any modification that you make on GPL code that you distribute, it is mandatory that you contribute. Either send a patch upstream, or publish the modified source locally or sent them along the distributed code.
That's the main point of flamewar between BSD and GPL.
So to take again the article's example :
- Cisco's product in the Linksys line rely on Linux (GPL lisence).
If Cisco doesn't publish the modification they made on the Linux fitted into the Linksys, they aren't just unfair leeches because they don't contribute.
They are *violating* the GPL's requirement and have to either comply, or abandon distribution of Linux.
Thankfully, Cisco happens to publish the source code of opensource parts of Linksys' fimware.
But other don't. Hence websites such as GPL Violations.
The article's second example :
- Amazong relying on Eclipse (EPL lisence, a weaker copyleft license)
Well, um... sorry guys. But that's the whole point of strong vs weak copyleft license (GPL vs BSD, or in this case GPL vs. EPL).
Every user of GPL software is allowed to do pretty much what he/she wants, as long as he/she transmits the *same* freedom to the next user in the distribution chain.
Every user of BSD software is allowed to do pretty much what he/she wants. End of story, no conditions attached.
If they are unhappy with the situation, they should have tought about it before and they should have moved to a strong copyleft license like in the first place.
For the rest :
The article didn't mention, but there are also some whine boys complaining about some companies deploying GPL software and not doing much.
Well, that's life, that's how the GPL works. Nobody is required to pay the developers, otherwise it wouldn't be free software. And probably the software wouldn't be as popular if it wasn't freely accessible and customizable in the first place.
Don't despair, though :
On the other hand, such "free loading" companies will some day some custom job done. And then
- either they will pay the original developers for the new features they need. (and thus the developer will get something)
- or they will develop the new feature in-house, and by GPL's magic *will* be required to contribute or publish this modifications, if they want to distribute the new modified version.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Any tech company should give back to some "community" only if it doesn't dilute the value of my investment returns.
Welcome to Business 101.
A public company exists solely to make a profit for its shareholders.
+++OK ATH
Any one who just uses it is fine, as long as they dont trouble the developers. But if they have some fixes/improvements in-house but dont give it back, its very bad.
There needs to be more of this. Businesses who all want the same feature to be added to some open source software need to get together and share the expense. A million times cheaper than closed source software, it simply requires communication.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
Let's be honest here, if open source products weren't free - enterprises would have no interest in them. If cost/resources were involved, enterprises would just buy a commercial product with all the support that comes with it. If anything - open source community is getting a great userbase, with brand recognition and bug reporting that comes with it when their products get noticed and picked up by enterprise IT. Force them to pay, and you will end up with a handfull of home users trying out your products when they're bored, resulting in them just taking up space on the web until they die off due to the lack of interest. If anything - enterprise users are keeping opens source projects alive, take a look at Nagios for example...
Bow before me, for I am root.
Of course.Is this not the purpose of Open Source? Living and sharing the dream.