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Why Making Money From Free Software Matters
Glyn Moody sends in what could be a watershed article, if the recording and movie industries are paying attention. "People have been making money from free software ever since Richard Stallman started selling GNU Emacs on tapes for $150 a pop. That's been good for hackers, who have often managed to make a living from their coding by working for one of the startups based around free software. And as companies like Red Hat and Google have grown in size and profitability, so have the credibility and clout of free software. But there is another reason why the success of these new kinds of businesses is so crucial: in many respects they offer a glimpse of coming shifts in other industries that need to grapple with the conundrum of how to make money from goods that are freely available. In particular, they offer the music and film industries an example of an alternative to fighting people's natural instinct to share digital abundance, by making money from new scarcities."
You can't really equate software and music/movies. Music and Movies are consumable products. You get it, you consume it. Maybe you watch it or listen to it more than once, but it's the rare consumer that uses the media as the means to an end.
Software is typically a means to an end. You don't install Linux just to have Linux. You install it because you want to do something with it. Same with web browsers, office suites, and just about any other software. The exception would be games which are meant to be consumed similarly to movies and music. But on the whole, most software is meant to help you create something else. Whether it be a resume, a presentation, a spreadsheet, even more software, the software exists as a tool, not a thing to be enjoyed in and of itself.
That's why it doesn't make sense to compare the music/movie industry to the general free software industry. The media industry is involved in making consumables, and that means they provide a finished product to the customer. The software industry provides tools which have ample room for customization and service work. The two industries start from different premises, so that's why software can be free whereas media cannot.
If you want to compare the industries, it makes sense to compare the media industry to the niche game software industry. But here you'll find very similar actions. Anti-piracy is the norm. Expensive packaged software (or downloadable paid software) and expensive CDs/DVDs are analogous. Even the antagonistic attitude between the customers and the producers is similar. It's just inherent in any industry that needs to protect its IP because that is precisely what it is selling.
I agree with you. This is off topic, but I wonder if there is evolutionary value in resisting change? Maybe to make sure that which is new stands a rigorous test to ensure it has a rightful place in history? Or perhaps to challenge our already set ways and give strength to existing process?
Google, here I come...
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I'll never understand the cognitive dissonance that makes people say 'software should be free' but at the same time 'I should get paid to work on that free software for you'.
And as companies like Red Hat and Google have grown in size and profitability, so have the credibility and clout of free software. ...
Erm, Red Hat and SuSE, or Red Hat and Canonical Inc, or even Red Hat and Geeknet Inc., yes. But Red Hat and Google of all things? Google does not provide or support or grow from providing Open Source software any more than e.g. Microsoft does. They run a close-source search engine, a closed-source mail hosting service and sell ads for a living.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Oh, definitely. Two main things:
Assuming that you are the incumbent(whether The top dog, or just one of the people for whom the status quo is working quite well, thanks), every day you successfully delay change is another day of profit rather than loss, and risk rather than security. There may be a point where you cut your own throat by resisting change(either the cost of resistance simply becomes too high, and consumes all your profits, or your resistance actively precludes your taking advantage of certain options in the changed future); but until you reach that point, a rearguard action is totally rational, even if it is inevitably doomed on the medium to long timescale. The degree to which rearguard actions are logical is increased if you have access to overt or covert subsidies. In the media case, they've been very effective in lobbying for copyright infringement, and its tools, to be ever more criminalized and, once criminalized, made a greater law enforcement priority. Fighting change is always cost effective when you are using somebody else's money...
Second is that change is only really inevitable in hindsight. Many changes have been successfully fought, even though their proponents were convinced of their inevitability. Incumbents who don't fight change don't remain incumbents for as long as incumbents who do; because almost any change, unless it is truly structurally unsound, can push you over unless you push back; but only a relative few changes are irresistible(and, even in those cases, see point 1).
On the minus side, I would be rather more surprised to see a net positive value in change resistance("net positive" in the "overall value across a society" sense from econ). Incumbents, by virtue of being incumbents, so very often have access to other people's money with which to fight change. Therefore, it is logical to suspect that(because of that effective subsidy) a greater-than-socially-optimal amount of change-resistance is generated. Further, all but the most dramatic innovations have a period of manifest inferiority to existing, well-polished, methods. During this period, they can be smothered in the cradle at comparatively low cost.
Google has made a ton of money *from* free software.
That's right FOSS developers, all the work you released for free was used to make billions for a couple of guys. And they of course took all that money they made off of the back of the FOSS community and ....kept it.
And they're paying back to the FOSS community by adding some minor code and ....well really nothing.
So, the lesson I get from Google is exploit the free software and the free labor of others, make a billion, and keep it all to myself.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
the differences you cite aren't really differences. everything is a means to an end, including music and movies: pleasure. "You install it because you want to do something with it" applies to linux. it also applies to "iron man" and beyonce
put it this way: a hammer is not a screwdriver. but in terms of how they are acquired: bought in a store or ripped off from woodshop class, they are the same
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Except that the older generation is managing to codify many of their ideals in Federal and International law. We really don't have time to wait for them to die off.
Even if an artist subscribes to the free->fame startup model, eventually the steps to monetization involve controlling the distribution of copies.
Counterexample: The Grateful Dead. They not only allowed the distribution of copies, they actively encouraged it.
I am officially gone from
evolutionary value in resisting change?
Oh, definitely. Two main things: (blah, blah)
No, it's way simpler: changing to a new state is risky. Evolution has taught to minimize risk and avoid it. Let someone else be brave, I'll stay here in my hole.
Currently hooked on AMP
You started with the wrong foot.
"Open source advocates" are guys who think that open source is good from a technological standpoint.
They don't envision the future, they code. You don't want to extract an ideology from programmers talking about programming.
You should read some free software material. Free software _is_ about freedom, and about the balance between users and programmers. _Some_ of the ideas inherent to free software can be applied to the whole of society. The "balance" between the different actors is similar in software and in music.
Here's the thing. Software is easy to see, because free software is almost as old as proprietary software. Both had a similar start from a cultural standpoint. That's why it's easier to understand. On the other hand, we have had proprietary music all our lives, and almosta all business models are anchored to that. It's hard to see a world without copyrights in music. That doesn't make it a bad world, it just makes it unusual.
This is what _I_ think: 300 years ago, copyright arised as an bargain, an incentive for authors to publish. Publishing was hard and expensive, and required upfront investments. Right now, we don't need that. We would have the same amount of cultural production without copyright, so the public is getting nothing from copyright, and its costs are getting higher and higher.
I don't care if some music company wants to restrict distribution of songs they publish, let them do that, but I think it's nonsense that I have to pay for it. And it's nonsense that my internet connection is threatened by their whims. I think the only solution would be to go back to the bargain table, and get a better deal. With copyright, the public is losing a lot, and getting nothing in exchange.
(Of course, authors do have some inalienable rights that should be protected, like authorship, to prevent plagiarism and stuff, but a monopoly on distribution is not an inalienable right, it's just the result of a bargain)