Open Source Advocates' Attitudes Toward Profit

jfruh writes "Marten Mickos, ex-head of MySQL, was discussing his new open source cloud initiative with the New York Times when he mentioned in passing that 'Some people in open source think it is immoral to make a profit. I don't.' This has set off some predictable hand-wringing within the movement. While some community members are ideologically opposed to profit-making, that attitude isn't held by a majority, or even a plurality."

Comments

Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[khasim]

In a large enough group, there are always "some people" (more than 1 person) who believes X.

Whether X is that they've been kidnapped by aliens or whatever. In a big enough group there will be "some people" who believe it.

So knock it off! If you cannot point to them, shut your mouth.

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[recoiledsnake]

Stallman is some person now?

The problem comes from Stallman's idea that all software should be FOSS and money should be made from support(Stallman isn't opposed to selling the software, but having a buildable source will allow any user to post the software for any cost or free). So the money to be made is squeezed into only support. Take RedHat. The community immediately took the sources and made CentOS which is used in many small businesses instead of paying for Red Hat.

Maybe some companies and developers can live on giving support, but for the vast majority of software developers, thats not possible when anyone out there can take your code and build their own. Apply this model to the Android or Apple app stores and there would disaster with the software clones. Already games are being cloned without the source code available and this is a huge problem. Forcing the apps to be open source will lead of chaos and there will be no incentive to create big games like Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and Infinity Blade(cost a million or more develop). What should they do? Sell support for Angry Birds?

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[tlhIngan]

Stallman is some person now?

The problem comes from Stallman's idea that all software should be FOSS and money should be made from support(Stallman isn't opposed to selling the software, but having a buildable source will allow any user to post the software for any cost or free). So the money to be made is squeezed into only support. Take RedHat. The community immediately took the sources and made CentOS which is used in many small businesses instead of paying for Red Hat.

Maybe some companies and developers can live on giving support, but for the vast majority of software developers, thats not possible when anyone out there can take your code and build their own. Apply this model to the Android or Apple app stores and there would disaster with the software clones. Already games are being cloned without the source code available and this is a huge problem. Forcing the apps to be open source will lead of chaos and there will be no incentive to create big games like Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and Infinity Blade(cost a million or more develop). What should they do? Sell support for Angry Birds?

Problem is, "sell support" doesn't go very far when the "buyers" are cheapskates.

Stallman's model works fine back in the day when computer operators were revered people, but falls down flat these days when 90%+ of computers are used to accomplish some task, and those knowledgable enough to fix/understand computers are tiny minority. The majority want computers that work, but they also don't want to pay for it.

If you don't believe me, tell your family member to go to Geek Squad to get their computer fixed. They'll balk at the $40/hour charges, and see no reason why you can't spend the 20 hours it takes to fix up their computer.

And if you're trying to do computer support, be prepared to have your clients spend hours dickering over every hour you charge. You billed 10 hours, they'll ding it down to 9 and waste 4 hours of your time doing so.

And no, it doesn't matter what profession the client is - lawyers will dicker just as hard (or harder) over that hour that they charge $200/hr for.

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[Vanders]

Take RedHat. The community immediately took the sources and made CentOS which is used in many small businesses instead of paying for Red Hat.

Well hang on a minute. Yes, let's take RedHat as an example. CentOS and it's cousins like Scientific Linux may well exist, but RedHat are still turning $1b a year in income. RedHat add enough value to their products that apparently there are plenty of people out there who are very happy to pay them rather than use the free alternatives.

If anything I'd argue that the likes of CentOS actually help RedHat. If a company starts on CentOS they may well decide later to "trade up" to RedHat to get access to the benefits of RHEL (perceived or real).

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[HiThere]

One datapoint. I despise Microsoft, but it's mainly due to their EULA. And when Apple changed their EULA to copy terms from those MS had used, I extended my disdain to them.

I don't disapprove of their making a profit, but I purely despise their attempts to control me.

I don't believe that mine is a minority opinion. And when people write Micro$oft, I interpret that as meaning that Microsoft is eager to shaft people if it earns them more money, not an inherent disdain for profits. But I could be wrong about that, in any particular case. (I don't recall ever seeing the term "$un" before.)

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[jellomizer]

Unfortunately the RMS method of making money means there is a economical motive to make software that is complex and hard to use. The simple and easy to use software is often reserved for closed source applications as there is a motive to make easy to use software so they can get paid for the software license, and not deal with the trouble of support.

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[ozmanjusri]

"Bill Gates is an evil profiteer!"

1. He is.
2. Profiteering is not the same as making a (fair) profit.

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[trevelyon]

I found an easy way to deal with this. I call it the first one's free approach. The first time a family member or friend needs a reinstall of windows I do it free. The second time they move to Linux or go to best buy. It's pretty simple and right now 75% are on Linux. Linux is also considerably easier to upgrade (the home dir is left intact during upgrades unlike on Windows). My support has gone down to about 2 hours per user per year which I am willing to do. The bulk of support for most users is spyware/adware/viruses. If I can cut that out completely then support really becomes manageable. Now I get more bad router/firewall issues than PC support. To solve this I've moved most of them to a standardized wrt54g w/ 8GB flash and 16GB ram running DD-WRT. If something goes bad I just flash a new router and replace it (which has happened once across the 20+ deployed over several years). Don't even need to go on-site, they come pick it up.. Compared to almost any commercial router this support is very low.

As for clients that argue over the bill, I've never had that happen. Of course I have a policy that I will usually (there may be extenuating circumstances where I wouldn't) refund their last invoice if they are unhappy with the understanding that I will not work with them again. I have had never has a client take me up on that yer nor have they argued over the bill. Maybe it's because I work on server and networking or maybe it's because they usually save a considerable amount after an initial outlay but I suspect it mostly has to do with setting expectations before you start the work. The market really is not as bad as you make it out to be. It is, however, flooded with a ton of MS raised desktop support people who believe in the reinstall, rinse, repeat approach rather than actually troubleshooting the real issue. These people can run up extraordinary bills with little to show for the work.

The desktop arena may be a bit more challenging but if framed right even that is manageable. For example relay the actual cost of using IE and Outlook to the clients this will set expectations for how often machines will need to be re-imaged to get rid of spyware, viruses which you WILL get. Best of luck to you, I do feel your pain only now it's a lot less for me due to moving my responsibilities to FLOSS. I now get to raise my shoulders right off when people as for vista or win 7 support since I've never used either. Mind you Ubuntu and the whole Gnome 3 fiasco is a major PIA for me right now so there are still some problems but most of the work formulating a resolution is also shared across my client base so it's not a total loss.

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well hang on a minute. Yes, let's take RedHat as an example. CentOS and it's cousins like Scientific Linux may well exist, but RedHat are still turning $1b a year in income.

Cherry picked numbers that mean nothing, are cherry-picked and meaningless. They bring in $1b in revenue, they make ~$90m in profits, and that's been dropping steadily. With CentOS and its cousins offering the free option, and Oracle's OUL's primary purpose being to bleed Red hat dry on undercutting their support, it's hurting them, and it's hurting them bad, to the point that they have to charge the relatively ludicrous rates they do. a RHEL contract will cost you more per CPU than OUL will per system, plus RH has this douchy clause in their contract that you have to pay for unbranded installs too (unbranded means Oracle and CentOS-branded).

If anything I'd argue that the likes of CentOS actually help RedHat. If a company starts on CentOS they may well decide later to "trade up" to RedHat to get access to the benefits of RHEL (perceived or real).

And you'd be wrong, of course. The "trade up" would be to Oracle, since it costs less and is backed by a powerhouse in the industry (3rd biggest software company, 3rd or 4th biggest server vendor, and one of only two companies who'll provide with an entire stack, top to bottom (IBM being the other)), rather than one that is struggling to stay alive.

In CentOS was helping RHEL, you wouldnt have the unbranded installation clause in the support contract, you also wouldn;t have the clause that terminates your support contract, should you make available GPL-licensed patches for use elsewhere (say, OUL or CentOS). The only way CentOS helps Red Hat is in situations where smaller companies who're reluctant to pay for support, but can't afford a full out IT staff to support and maintain their systems, they get bit in the ass by CentOS, except that the numbers would indicate that more of those instances are heading to Oracle instead.

Then of course there all those integrated solutions, Avaya for example bundles CentOS (and Solaris) in almost everything. They don't have to pay RH, and they're fine sinking the support cost themselves since they're making a killing selling their support anyway, so why would they?

I know Red hat is a slashdot darling and are invincible and powered by pixie dust and IDDQD goodness, but the reality is they have nowhere near the rigor they're believed to have by the community.

Re:Always love the "some people" bullshit.

[hairyfeet]

Actually its quite simple, although I get called every filthy name in the book for daring to point out what SHOULD be simple common sense. You see while the GPL works in SOME cases it does NOT work in ALL cases and in fact can be counterproductive in those cases. Case in point why you will never have a real world class desktop.

Its simple, look for yourself how many companies have already died trying to bring that to you, gOS, Linspire, Novell, Xandros, Mandriva is on life support and soon Canonical will joining them, why? Because the ONLY way to make money with the GPL is by using the support model just as the company in TFA does but this model DOES NOT WORK in desktops. Consumers don't buy support contracts and if you try to write in the cost of support into the OS you've just raised your price above and beyond the competition, which has a hell of a lot more hardware and software support. this is because the OEMs can balance and even make a profit with some SKUs by putting trialware onto the systems. This is why Sony charges you $50 to have a trialware free system, because you are cutting into their profits by removing it. Since so few people will pay for software with Linux trialware is not an option for the most part and is certainly not gonna bring in enough to allow a GPL desktop company to stay afloat, much less spend the $50-$100 million required to bring Linux up to the same level of ease of use and stability as OSX and Win 7. You have to pay for regression testing and tons of docs and help files to be rewritten (or written in the first place as it still amazes me how many only give you CLI use flags or a "to be done" placeholder) along with QA and probably either a complete rewrite of the driver model or for a team to backport to keep from breaking drivers with the frankly insane speed the kernel keeps changing.

So like it or not if you want a Linux desktop that can compete with OSX and Windows you really need a new license, one that will allow a company like Canonical to make money fixing bugs and making the system better instead of trying ever more crazy schemes like Ubuntu TV and Unity phones trying to keep the lights on. Something along the lines of "You can look, you can modify for personal use, but if you distribute you have to pay" so that these companies can actually stay afloat. Because I have a feeling after Mandriva and Canonical go tits up that's it, you aimply won't get another company to blow tens of millions on something that will never make a dime, in fact Novell didn't even break even until 2010!

And before you say "Well the community will do it!" I'm afraid that's a lie because of the "busted shitter" problem. You see everyone wants to be the artist, everyone wants to create new things, nobody wants to be the guy that cleans and fixes the busted shitters which is why they just don't get fixed. look at any GPL OS bug tracker and see how many bugs over 2 years are there, and then realize that don't count all the ones where the devs decided they just don't give a shit and put "will not fix" and threw it in the trash. To fix the above problems you are gonna need skilled developers to dedicate YEARS of their lives to fixing them, nobody is gonna do that, at least not in great enough numbers to matter. This is one of the reasons why communism failed, as it got so bad that they had to order soldiers to do "potato duty" simply to get the lousy jobs done. The above jobs are boring, thankless, time sucking, and overall about as fun as fixing a turd filled shitter overflowing into the floor. Would you go fix that kind of mess in a stranger's house for nothing? of course not, its simply human nature.

So the sooner the community accepts either they have to change their current model as GPL doesn't work in this use case or simply gives up on the desktop frankly the happier everyone will be. TINSTAAFL folks and while RMS may be truly happy squatting at MIT and not owning anything more than the clothe

Profit vs. revenue vs. working for free

[MrEricSir]

It seems there's really three different situations we're talking about here, not two as the summary suggests:

• For-profit: the goal is to make money
• Non-profit: the goal is to have a steady revenue stream, but only to break even.
• Working for free: no money ever enters the equation.

The majority of major open source projects are one of the top two options, but I'd venture to guess the majority of open source projects in general are the later.

In any case, I wouldn't want to confuse the last two options in the list as they each have a different place in the open source ecosystem.

Re:Profit vs. revenue vs. working for free

[larry bagina]

Why do people work for "free"? Unless they're forced to do it, they're getting something out of it -- recognition, personal satisfaction, utility, resume padding, to get laid at LUGs, etc. Hell, even if there's a gun at head, you're still getting something out of (i.e., not being killed).

Is it better if someone fixes a bug (for free) in gnumeric because it helps him keep track of all his rape victims vs someone who fixes a bug (for money) in gnumeric because he's being paid to do so?

Mother Theresa Principle

[theshowmecanuck]

My brother calls this the Mother Theresa Principle. No matter how much of a saint you are, someone will hate your guts.

Re:Mother Theresa Principle

[Anonymous Coward]

Might be a bad example, Mother Theresa was a strong opponent of women's rights. Lots of people, particularly women, had good reason to dislike her.

Re:Mother Theresa Principle

[Penguinisto]

Thanks for providing a perfect example of his point. ;)

Re:Mother Theresa Principle

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Mother Theresa [...] a saint

NOT!

Re:Mother Theresa Principle

[Forty Two Tenfold]

any of a number of things the lady started bringing to the poorest of the poor when no-one else would

Like what? Hoarding gifts and financial aid? Sick, delusional fascination with suffering misconstrued as care ("I think it is very good when people suffer. To me, that is like the kiss of Jesus.")? Go fuck yourself and take your catholic "saints" with you.

Re:Mother Theresa Principle

[zonky]

She also thought it was ok for Rich, famous people to divorce, but not the poor.

Horrible, Horrible human being.

there's a difference

[Anonymous Coward]

between making a profit for profit's sake and simply making a living.

public companies who answer to shareholders first and foremost tend to do the former (and aggressively so), while small businesses and mom and pop operations are usually happy with the latter.

Well, there's always one...

[serviscope_minor]

There's always some nutcase out on the fringe.

RMS himself is entirely happy with making a profit on software---the FSF used to sel lthe GNU tools on tape to raise funds.

One root of the "problem"

[willoughby]

A big part of the dispute is that some folks aren't happy with saying, "I don't sell my software for profit, I contribute it to the community." but instead insist on adding, "And I think that's what you should do, also."

FOSS and (business) models

[martenmickos]

All,

This is a great discussion! I am glad to be back on /.

As often with press, I was not quoted verbatim. I stated my observation that in the world of free and open source software (FOSS), you find some people (some very few people, to be precise) who are judgmental about how other people perceive or act on open source. So when you have a certain governance model, business model, or development model, there will typically be some people who will loudly rule it out as wrong or improper or something. But I didn't say that I have anything against that, and I don't.

It's one of the strengths of the FOSS world. Differences in view are aired publicly, and many times (although not always) a higher level of understanding, or a new thinking will emerge.

We need to keep these discussions going, because as the world moves into the cloud, those same principles of openness that were developed for software code will have to somehow be applied on APIs and on data too.

Marten

GNU

[hackus]

FSF GNU, it is clear. Charging for software is completely A OK as long as the person gets the freedom to change the software without restrictions. There are some, but they do not conflict with the basic tenant.

Unlike the Paytards I would call them, that believe in licensing software only, no where does the GNU or FSF manifesto declare paying for software is bad.

I am surprised how many MBA people I talk to can't get it. No wonder these people can't handle regular calc and have to take "business" math.

GNU Linux is bought and _sold_ everywhere.

Also, given that a lot of FSF / GNU people have jobs at major corps such as RedHat, I am not sure where the documentation is to support the claim Free Software people insist on non payment of all software.

Thank God too, as I make my entire living building GNU systems and would starve if that was the case.

Stallman has never said that, and the Paytards always bring that up and make the guy out as some sort of commie from the Stalinist days or even Red China.

-Hack

Re:The bait and switch

[motokochan]

Growl is still open source, you can find it over at https://code.google.com/p/growl/ and build the source code using the instructions at http://growl.info/documentation/developer/growl-source-install.php. The source tracks the official releases from the developers and is still BSD licensed.

If you don't want to build from source, they do offer a pre-built binary for free, or maybe you can convince a developer friend to build it for you.

Either way, there is no bait-and-switch. The source has always been free. They just decided recently to start charging for the process of building and verifying binaries.

Re:linus actually said on NPR one time

[Darinbob]

He was born and raised in Finland, which was not a "socialist" country. It was mostly Social Democrats for a long time which are not at all the same thing as "socialist".