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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
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.
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.
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.
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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...
Agreed. The OSI during the late 1990s went out of their way to try and make Open Source palatable to businesses, and did so in large part by trying to water down the "share and share alike" ethic of the Free Software movement. These are the people like Eric S Raymond and his ilk who went around urging companies to take in Open Source software. They sold it with the whole Cathedral and Bazaar thing, where these giant companies could leverage the productive power of a large group of developers without having to pay for a large group of developers. They intentionally glossed over and marginalized the FSF's idea that consumers of Free Software should contribute to and redistribute the code, and created a split between the "Free Software" and "Open Source" concepts. They "approved" a significant number of software licenses that were technically Open Source, but were entirely against the basic idea Free Software was built on. In return for all this kowtowing to corporations and putting their concerns above the basic ethos of Free Software, they were rewarded with board positions at high flying dot-com companies, and millions of now-worthless shares of inflated dot-com stock.
Now we complain that these corporations are taking advantage of Open Source software in exactly the way the OSI told them they could? Sure, some of them played lip service to "contributing back to the community," and some of them even do. But none of them will ever contribute back as much as they get, because the entire reason they went with Open Source in the first place was so they could get all the development work without having to pay for it.
This is what you get when you take a movement based on an ideal and pervert it to try and take "market share" for a free product. You get more people using the product, but you lose the ideal in the process.
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.
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.