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'Open Source Creators: Red Hat Got $34 Billion and You Got $0. Here's Why.' (tidelift.com)
Donald Fischer, who served as a product manager for Red Hat Enterprise Linux during its creation and early years of growth, writes: Red Hat saw, earlier than most, that the ascendance of open source made the need to pay for code go away, but the need for support and maintenance grew larger than ever. Thus Red Hat was never in the business of selling software, rather it was in the business of addressing the practical challenges that have always come along for the ride with software. [...] As an open source developer, you created that software. You can keep your package secure, legally documented, and maintained; who could possibly do it better? So why does Red Hat make the fat profits, and not you? Unfortunately, doing business with large companies requires a lot of bureaucratic toil. That's doubly true for organizations that require security, legal, and operational standards for every product they bring in the door. Working with these organizations requires a sales and marketing team, a customer support organization, a finance back-office, and lots of other "business stuff" in addition to technology. Red Hat has had that stuff, but you haven't.
And just like you don't have time to sell to large companies, they don't have time to buy from you alongside a thousand other open source creators, one at a time. Sure, big companies know how to install and use your software. (And good news! They already do.) But they can't afford to put each of 1100 npm packages through a procurement process that costs $20k per iteration. Red Hat solved this problem for one corner of open source by collecting 2,000+ open source projects together, adding assurances on top, and selling it as one subscription product. That worked for them, to the tune of billions. But did you get paid for your contributions?
And just like you don't have time to sell to large companies, they don't have time to buy from you alongside a thousand other open source creators, one at a time. Sure, big companies know how to install and use your software. (And good news! They already do.) But they can't afford to put each of 1100 npm packages through a procurement process that costs $20k per iteration. Red Hat solved this problem for one corner of open source by collecting 2,000+ open source projects together, adding assurances on top, and selling it as one subscription product. That worked for them, to the tune of billions. But did you get paid for your contributions?
I have been using their software since the mid-90s with version 3. I have never paid them anything. I bought a third party book on it once, they may have gotten some revenue from that.
Red hat has hired and payed a huge number of people to develop and contribute to open source code. They've made massive contributions to Linux and are a key part of why it has become what it is today. Fedora/RHEL/CentOS may not be your favorite flavor but the simple fact is that in order to compete against them your favorite flavor adopted things made by them and had to compete with their usability. There are dozens of things in your home right now which are better because of Red Hat's contribution, not to mention all the things you use online.
I'm not rich because of Red Hat but I have gotten paid. Sadly I was a broke teenager when their IPO happened and the people I strongly advised to get in on it didn't listen.
Yeah. Turns out that when you make your software freely available, you do not get paid for it. If you're not OK with that, don't put it under an open source license. This is a feature of open source, not a bug.
>However it does seem like it would really be a great gesture of goodwill, to give some large amount of money (say $10k) to the top 100 RedHat contributors, however they felt like defining it...
Seeing as how they employ a bunch of full-time open source developers, I'd wager that a good chunk of the top hundred contributors probably already work for them.
That's not "shady". That's explicitly allowed by the GPL, and noted fairly often in discussions about the GPL's use. If you don't like it, pick a different license for your stuff.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Seems a bit shady though that you put your stuff out for free that someone else can pick it up, package it and sell it on.
They don't sell it, they sell support contracts for it. This is literally how money can be made from Open Source. Because the support for Red Hat has been so effective and reliable, the Red Hat distribution is worth billions. Anyone can reproduce all the aspects of their distribution for free, but a brand isn't the same thing as an assembly of parts.
The freedom of other people to make money with software you write -- provided they figure out how -- has always been part of the deal.
Thee free software economy is still capitalism, it's just capitalism where you're paid for what you do for a specific customer. The proprietary software market is one where investors in effect attempt to collect fees for a naturally unlimited resource created, almost always, by other people.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yeah. Turns out that when you make your software freely available, you do not get paid for it. If you're not OK with that, don't put it under an open source license. This is a feature of open source, not a bug.
Seems a bit shady though that you put your stuff out for free that someone else can pick it up, package it and sell it on.
Only as shady as, say, putting a sofa out on the curb for trash and having someone pick it up, clean it up and sell it. You gave it away; someone else is profiting from that.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I got and get paid by using their contributions to the kernel, among other things. Open Source is a barter economy.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
You clicked on it, didn't you ?
Seems a bit shady though that you put your stuff out for free that someone else can pick it up, package it and sell it on.
Open source is like science (it was more or less modelled after it). We publish scientific discoveries openly because that's the best way to advance common knowledge. But then we let engineers and salespeople make and sell products out of them. I'm OK with that, because it's a lot of work to develop/sell/maintain/support a product even if you get the science for free.
If scientific discoveries were copyrightable in the way of music and movies, we'd probably be paying the Faraday family estate for each gadget that uses electricity. You can imagine it's not a great way to advance either the science or the engineering.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
You confuse speech and beer.
Red Hat is the best example that free speech does not mean free beer.
Asking money is neither a feature, nor a bug of open source. I know I have paid for open source. I know the company I work for has paid for open source. I know Red Hat customers have paid for open source.
There is nothing wrong with paying for it. There is also nothing wrong with handing it out for free.
Open Source is not about money. It is about the source that needs to be available. Open, as it were.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Seems a bit shady though that you put your stuff out for free that someone else can pick it up, package it and sell it on.
I am not a huge GPL supporter, but there are a couple things I'd like to point out.
- The stuff that's been packaged and sold by "someone else" can also, in turn, be repackaged and sold... or given away. The free CentOS distribution exists entirely because Red Hat Exists.
- Red Hat isn't just a middleman selling other people's work. Red Hat's employees work on - and contribute to - hundreds of different software packages. Red Hat is consistently one of the largest (and often THE largest) contributors of code to the Linux kernel, year after year.
#DeleteChrome
However it does seem like it would really be a great gesture of goodwill, to give some large amount of money (say $10k) to the top 100 RedHat contributors, however they felt like defining it...
The top 100 Red Hat contributors may very well already be on Red Hat's payroll - being paid to work on the software they're contributing to.
I used to really be into building my own RPMs, tweaking existing ones, etc. It was quite a learning experience in many ways... one of which was to note just how often the names of Red Hat employees appear in the changelogs for many, many different software packages.
#DeleteChrome
There is another aspect people are ignoring. Linux has been corporate controlled and developed for years. A lot of work has been subsidized, and therefore directed, by various corporations. Linux is long past the point where it is primarily a "hobbyist" and "volunteer" effort.
The Linux foundation reports that 75% of kernel development is done by corporate sponsored developers. Who tops the list of these corporate sponsors? Red Hat.
https://www.computerweekly.com...
As I recall the plan for Free Software was to make money off of the support not the development, so things seem to be working according to the plan. ;-)
And there's another obvious point. If Linux were not free, it would not exist - let alone have any value. IBM has its own, perfectly good, proprietary unix platform. But they want to sell Linux - because people want to use Linux. And people want to use Linux because its free, which made other people want to use it. If the open source contributors to Linux had intended to eventually be compensated for their code, Linux would not exist. So you can't come along once Red Hat has become a viable business and say "I wrote some of the software - where's my payout?".
Red Hat's payout is for having become one of the main go-to companies for Linux support - and consistency as a platform over time. And now that many Linux users are migrating to Amazon's cloud, Red Hat's business is likely to shrink. But IBM's cloud business has nowhere to go but up - unless it fails. But it's a $36 billion bet they feel they have to make.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...