Maybe some of those nice cracker boys who are bombarding the Iraqi X.25 network could spare a few moments to bust up Indonesia? A non-government-sponsered "Go fsck yourself" type of an attack? Hmmm.....
I think you're missing part of the point. I don't think I know the whole answer, but here's a part of it, as I understand it anyway.
Basically, an appreciably sized company will have a budget for software. One way for you to get paid for your work while you're working on OSS is for making modifications to the OSS that your employer needs. These changes then get used by the employer, but also get returned into the code base for future use and expansion. By that view, the argument of "How do I make money on it?" breaks down pretty quickly. Your employer receives benefits from your coding because he gets the new features he needs. By making a project open source, your employer also receives the benefits of other programmers at other companies doing the same things.
Basically, the "How do I make money on it?" really only applies if you're working for a company (or you're an independent) that's writing closed-source software. You're not going to get rich off of it, but then again, how many programmers really ever do get rich (As a percentage).
That's the whole point behind the "Free Software is like Free Speech not Free Beer". The software is available, and you can do what you want to with it, but it may cost you money to add new features/fix bugs. It's not going to cause TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for software to go away, but it will reduce it. We (programmers) tend to make our living on what corporations spend on TCO. I mean, it's a cost, right? That money's got to go somewhere. Usually it goes into a combination of salary expenses for the people deploying and supporting the software, and into licensing costs. The way to convince a large company to start using open source is to convince the PHB's that the salary (or consulting) expense that they'll take on for a programmer to make the changes they want and integrate new versions of code will offset the licensing costs (assuming the support and deployment costs remain constant, which may not be true).
Like I said at the beginning, I don't think this is the whole answer, but I hope it's a correct part of the answer. Comments?
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Nifty prank, Rob, but we can all tell it's you because things are misspelled. :)
Just like the Katz column posted earlier on the "demise" of slashdot's probably neither his nor yours: There are no spelling problems.
Nifty prank, Rob, but we can all tell it's you because things are misspelled. :)
Just like the Katz column posted earlier on the "demise" of UF's probably neither his nor yours: There are no spelling problems.
It would have been better with a picture of an exotic fish on the front or something.
I've never heard of any technical person (or hell, even a famous athlete) that handles inteviews as well as Linus.
Maybe some of those nice cracker boys who are bombarding the Iraqi X.25 network could spare a few moments to bust up Indonesia? A non-government-sponsered "Go fsck yourself" type of an attack? Hmmm.....
Just a thought.
I think you're missing part of the point. I don't think I know the whole answer, but here's a part of it, as I understand it anyway.
Basically, an appreciably sized company will have a budget for software. One way for you to get paid for your work while you're working on OSS is for making modifications to the OSS that your employer needs. These changes then get used by the employer, but also get returned into the code base for future use and expansion. By that view, the argument of "How do I make money on it?" breaks down pretty quickly. Your employer receives benefits from your coding because he gets the new features he needs. By making a project open source, your employer also receives the benefits of other programmers at other companies doing the same things.
Basically, the "How do I make money on it?" really only applies if you're working for a company (or you're an independent) that's writing closed-source software. You're not going to get rich off of it, but then again, how many programmers really ever do get rich (As a percentage).
That's the whole point behind the "Free Software is like Free Speech not Free Beer". The software is available, and you can do what you want to with it, but it may cost you money to add new features/fix bugs. It's not going to cause TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for software to go away, but it will reduce it. We (programmers) tend to make our living on what corporations spend on TCO. I mean, it's a cost, right? That money's got to go somewhere. Usually it goes into a combination of salary expenses for the people deploying and supporting the software, and into licensing costs. The way to convince a large company to start using open source is to convince the PHB's that the salary (or consulting) expense that they'll take on for a programmer to make the changes they want and integrate new versions of code will offset the licensing costs (assuming the support and deployment costs remain constant, which may not be true).
Like I said at the beginning, I don't think this is the whole answer, but I hope it's a correct part of the answer. Comments?