Sure guns are needed in the instance of a revolution against the government when it fails the people, but that is a last resort after democracy has failed.
Oh, so sorry. We took away your guns while you were still living in a democracy. Now that we're a totalitarian regime, do you think we're so stupid as to give them back to you?
There's a difference between phones (and most other forms of communication) and email. Email is broadcast. Every communication send via email on this side of the gateway reaches my NIC. For my old DSL provider, that was the 252 other people using the same DSLAM as I. I haven't checked yet with my new provider simply because I'm not interested. And it's not just email, it's everything going out over your NIC. That's why we need wider usage of encryption.
Then we're in agreement. Sorrry for the confusion. I keep hearing these rumours on Slashdot that there are people making big bucks giving their software away.
Why is it that you can't use free software for your day job?
Oh, but we do! We just don't create it.
But I think you missed my whole point. I KNOW that people are creating free software, because I'm one of them. But that doesn't mean there's a whole lot of money in it. As a programmer, I would much rather be programming than waiting on tables. I just don't see a lot of monetary opportunity in free software.
Without that golden parachute they're not going to take any risks at all. The price of a CEO includes the perks not just the nominal salary.
I know one perfect example, but I'll withhold the name of the company and CEO. I was working for this company. It wasn't doing very well. In fact, it was doing terrible and had filed Chapter 13. None of us knew if we were even coming in to work the next week. But the company hired a CEO that had turned around two other chapter 13 companies, both of which are doing very well today. But he failed with our company. We lasted only another year. Was he worth what he was paid? What he worth his golden parachute? The cynical will say no, but if he had managed to turn the company around, he would have been worth ten times what he got.
Perhaps the way to think of CEO salaries is not in terms of a wage, but in terms of an investment.
Re:Writer believes everyone is rich?
on
The Almighty Buck
·
· Score: 1
County, not country. Get a dictionary if you don't know the difference.
Anyway, to answer the specific question, there are several widely believed theories...
In theory anything is possible. I don't care what I can do tomorrow in theory, I want to know what I can do today in reality to make a living by writing Open Source Software.
Why are all the people I know who actively contribute to open source projects so darn wealthy?
Who?!? I happen to know ONE Open Source programmer who makes a living with Open Source, and he's far from wealthy. I know twenty others who make a living doing something other than Open Source development during the week so they can do what they want on the weekend. Maybe you run around in different circles than I do.
Let me paraphrase the original poster: Open Source is great for weekend coders, but there's no way to generate sufficient revenue by writing Open Source Software to feed the wife and kids. Sure, a few people here and there are doing it, but they're the exceptions.
I love Free Software. I write Free Software. But I'm not so stupid as to quit my day job to start writing Free Software full time. Maybe if I win the lottery I might, but until then I still need a revenue stream that will get me to the weekend so I can write the stuff I really want to.
I see five potential ways of making a living by writing Open Source Software:
1) Distribute the software. Redhat, SuSE, Cheapbytes, LinuxMall, etc. You're not selling the software, you're selling the convenience of having the software prepackaged on a CD. I expect this way will get harder and harder as broadband becomes more ubiquitous. Another big problem is that most developers of this software will never get a dime. That's because the distributors use the software written by thousands but only hire a few dozen.
2) Beg. Ask for donations. Write articles saying "send me your money and together we'll prove that you can make a living selling software." This is where most of the FSF money comes from, with a little coming from number (1) and (4). Big problem with this one is that you start to feel like PBS after a while.
3) Make Open Source your loss leader. Your real revenue comes from hardware, support, proprietary add-ons, flipflops with the company logo, etc. This is part of the Redhat and SuSE revenue streams. It's how Trolltech pays its employees. For some kinds of software it works and it works very well. But the problem is finding out what to sell instead of the software. Not all software is suited to be a loss leader for hardware. Not all software requires support. And of course, selling proprietary add-ons is detrimental to the whole concept of making money with Open Source.
4) Consult. Don't sell the software, the addons or the support. Sell your services. Again, this works for some kinds of software, but not for others. Any consultant that's been around a while can tell you the drawbacks to this one.
5) Sell the software. I don't know anyone making a living by doing this. Not one. If you think anyone is, you're probably think of one of the other four categories. But this is the category all the pundits are looking at. Commercial Open Source Software is theoretically possible, but in reality it is fictitious.
So what software doesn't fit any of the above models? That's easy. End user applications. Try making any money by selling support for your first-person shooter. Try selling CDs for a word processor that twenty different distributions have available on their ftp sites. And frankly, users are going to be much better off with a checkbook program that doesn't need support than one that does.
Amen. I've seen the bosses job, and you couldn't pay me to take it! Well, you could pay me, but it would have to be one ofthose outrageous wages:-)
I read a good economics article on the subject one (Landsberg IIRC) that analyzed why CEO's got paid so much. One thing mentioned really caught me attention. CEOs don't just run companies. They take risks. Big risks. They know that if they do something risky they're going to get replaced. You pay a CEO too little and they'll play it safe. But if you pay them enough, then they will take those sometimes necessary risks.
Re:Writer believes everyone is rich?
on
The Almighty Buck
·
· Score: 2
You could probably fit every truly poor American in a medium size high school gymnasium. Everyone else who claims to be poor, or is officially pronounced poor, are wealthy in comparison to the poor in other countries. The county I grew up once had the highest unemployment rate of the nation. Yet the poorest of the poor there had automobiles, refrigerators, and televisions. They had shoes on their feet, clothes on their backs, and food on the table. In fact, they only people I can remember as being truly poor were a few illegal immigrants, but even they had enough money that they could eat well while still sending half the money back home to their wife and kids.
If you don't think all Americans are rich, go spend a week in Tijuana.
linux (uncapitalized) is a kernel. Linux (capitalized) is the common name for an operating system that generally comes with XFree86. Some linuces (the plural) don't come with XFree86, but the vast majority of them do.
Please note that I am not claiming that XFree86 is a part of the Linux operating system. It is not. But it is a common adjunct to that operating system. Ditto for the GNU tools. They aren't the operating system either.
Try Josephus, "The Jewish Wars". For a brief discussion of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, from a non-religious perspective, see Proving the historic Jesus.
Although Redhat has stated it won't allow an automatic license for BSD developers, they will gladly use code under BSD and related licenses. Never underestimate the perfidity of a confirmed hypocrite.
I think it would be awesome if every nation on earth had ABMs! I would definitely feel much safer.
On the other hand, I have to keep installing bigger locks on my door, because the thieves keep building bigger picks. Definitely an upset of power there.
The trouble with "freedomware" is that it implies that it gives the user freedom. To the GNU zealot, this is of course what it's about. But try to the average user on the street that they are really slaves of proprietary software, and they'll look for the nut tree you fell off of.
The real problem with "libreware", "freedomware", etc., is that those terms are ideologically loaded. That may not bother you much, but most people out there will have a different ideology. Not everyone who believes in democracy is a Democrat, and not everyone who believes that software should be unrestricted follows the GNU party line.
There are 23 definitions of "free" in my English dictionary. Only two of them relate to monetary cost. Therefore, without even knowing French, I surmise that "libre" has 21 meanings.
The term "libre software" is loaded with political ideology while being only trivially clarified. In short, it's a completely useless term unless you want to identify yourself as a GNU zealot.
A far more accurate term, with only minimal political baggage, is "Open Source".
I'm not a Buddhist scholar, but I do know a bit about the Bible and the New Testament. Can you cite where Jesus states that the accumulation of wealth is detrimental to moral life? I don't mean the obsessive pursuit of wealth, or the placing of wealth at the top of your priorities, or anything like that. Just the accumulation of wealth itself.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure guns are needed in the instance of a revolution against the government when it fails the people, but that is a last resort after democracy has failed.
Oh, so sorry. We took away your guns while you were still living in a democracy. Now that we're a totalitarian regime, do you think we're so stupid as to give them back to you?
There's a difference between phones (and most other forms of communication) and email. Email is broadcast. Every communication send via email on this side of the gateway reaches my NIC. For my old DSL provider, that was the 252 other people using the same DSLAM as I. I haven't checked yet with my new provider simply because I'm not interested. And it's not just email, it's everything going out over your NIC. That's why we need wider usage of encryption.
Then we're in agreement. Sorrry for the confusion. I keep hearing these rumours on Slashdot that there are people making big bucks giving their software away.
Why is it that you can't use free software for your day job?
Oh, but we do! We just don't create it.
But I think you missed my whole point. I KNOW that people are creating free software, because I'm one of them. But that doesn't mean there's a whole lot of money in it. As a programmer, I would much rather be programming than waiting on tables. I just don't see a lot of monetary opportunity in free software.
Without that golden parachute they're not going to take any risks at all. The price of a CEO includes the perks not just the nominal salary.
I know one perfect example, but I'll withhold the name of the company and CEO. I was working for this company. It wasn't doing very well. In fact, it was doing terrible and had filed Chapter 13. None of us knew if we were even coming in to work the next week. But the company hired a CEO that had turned around two other chapter 13 companies, both of which are doing very well today. But he failed with our company. We lasted only another year. Was he worth what he was paid? What he worth his golden parachute? The cynical will say no, but if he had managed to turn the company around, he would have been worth ten times what he got.
Perhaps the way to think of CEO salaries is not in terms of a wage, but in terms of an investment.
County, not country. Get a dictionary if you don't know the difference.
Anyway, to answer the specific question, there are several widely believed theories...
In theory anything is possible. I don't care what I can do tomorrow in theory, I want to know what I can do today in reality to make a living by writing Open Source Software.
Why are all the people I know who actively contribute to open source projects so darn wealthy?
Who?!? I happen to know ONE Open Source programmer who makes a living with Open Source, and he's far from wealthy. I know twenty others who make a living doing something other than Open Source development during the week so they can do what they want on the weekend. Maybe you run around in different circles than I do.
(Does anyone else feel that government should also provide free beer? ;)
If it's anything at all like their free cheese, I don't want any of it!
Let me paraphrase the original poster: Open Source is great for weekend coders, but there's no way to generate sufficient revenue by writing Open Source Software to feed the wife and kids. Sure, a few people here and there are doing it, but they're the exceptions.
I love Free Software. I write Free Software. But I'm not so stupid as to quit my day job to start writing Free Software full time. Maybe if I win the lottery I might, but until then I still need a revenue stream that will get me to the weekend so I can write the stuff I really want to.
I see five potential ways of making a living by writing Open Source Software:
1) Distribute the software. Redhat, SuSE, Cheapbytes, LinuxMall, etc. You're not selling the software, you're selling the convenience of having the software prepackaged on a CD. I expect this way will get harder and harder as broadband becomes more ubiquitous. Another big problem is that most developers of this software will never get a dime. That's because the distributors use the software written by thousands but only hire a few dozen.
2) Beg. Ask for donations. Write articles saying "send me your money and together we'll prove that you can make a living selling software." This is where most of the FSF money comes from, with a little coming from number (1) and (4). Big problem with this one is that you start to feel like PBS after a while.
3) Make Open Source your loss leader. Your real revenue comes from hardware, support, proprietary add-ons, flipflops with the company logo, etc. This is part of the Redhat and SuSE revenue streams. It's how Trolltech pays its employees. For some kinds of software it works and it works very well. But the problem is finding out what to sell instead of the software. Not all software is suited to be a loss leader for hardware. Not all software requires support. And of course, selling proprietary add-ons is detrimental to the whole concept of making money with Open Source.
4) Consult. Don't sell the software, the addons or the support. Sell your services. Again, this works for some kinds of software, but not for others. Any consultant that's been around a while can tell you the drawbacks to this one.
5) Sell the software. I don't know anyone making a living by doing this. Not one. If you think anyone is, you're probably think of one of the other four categories. But this is the category all the pundits are looking at. Commercial Open Source Software is theoretically possible, but in reality it is fictitious.
So what software doesn't fit any of the above models? That's easy. End user applications. Try making any money by selling support for your first-person shooter. Try selling CDs for a word processor that twenty different distributions have available on their ftp sites. And frankly, users are going to be much better off with a checkbook program that doesn't need support than one that does.
Amen. I've seen the bosses job, and you couldn't pay me to take it! Well, you could pay me, but it would have to be one ofthose outrageous wages :-)
I read a good economics article on the subject one (Landsberg IIRC) that analyzed why CEO's got paid so much. One thing mentioned really caught me attention. CEOs don't just run companies. They take risks. Big risks. They know that if they do something risky they're going to get replaced. You pay a CEO too little and they'll play it safe. But if you pay them enough, then they will take those sometimes necessary risks.
You could probably fit every truly poor American in a medium size high school gymnasium. Everyone else who claims to be poor, or is officially pronounced poor, are wealthy in comparison to the poor in other countries. The county I grew up once had the highest unemployment rate of the nation. Yet the poorest of the poor there had automobiles, refrigerators, and televisions. They had shoes on their feet, clothes on their backs, and food on the table. In fact, they only people I can remember as being truly poor were a few illegal immigrants, but even they had enough money that they could eat well while still sending half the money back home to their wife and kids.
If you don't think all Americans are rich, go spend a week in Tijuana.
linux (uncapitalized) is a kernel. Linux (capitalized) is the common name for an operating system that generally comes with XFree86. Some linuces (the plural) don't come with XFree86, but the vast majority of them do.
Please note that I am not claiming that XFree86 is a part of the Linux operating system. It is not. But it is a common adjunct to that operating system. Ditto for the GNU tools. They aren't the operating system either.
The common GUI component of Linux has a clipboard. What makes this any different from the common GUI component of DOS or NT?
Try Josephus, "The Jewish Wars". For a brief discussion of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, from a non-religious perspective, see Proving the historic Jesus.
Maybe they DONT want to supplant IE. Maybe they just want to build a good browser. Ever thought of that?
Yeah, but it's still easier for the admin to secure the machine if he doesn't have to start with swiss cheese.
Although Redhat has stated it won't allow an automatic license for BSD developers, they will gladly use code under BSD and related licenses. Never underestimate the perfidity of a confirmed hypocrite.
So you're saying that Bill Gates is a Mozilla developer?
I think it would be awesome if every nation on earth had ABMs! I would definitely feel much safer.
On the other hand, I have to keep installing bigger locks on my door, because the thieves keep building bigger picks. Definitely an upset of power there.
A term that has no meaning to the average person is better than a term that implies the wrong meaning to the average person.
"This is free software"
"Oh, like Internet Explorer"
or
"This is Open Source Software"
"What's that?"
"Let me explain..."
The trouble with "freedomware" is that it implies that it gives the user freedom. To the GNU zealot, this is of course what it's about. But try to the average user on the street that they are really slaves of proprietary software, and they'll look for the nut tree you fell off of.
The real problem with "libreware", "freedomware", etc., is that those terms are ideologically loaded. That may not bother you much, but most people out there will have a different ideology. Not everyone who believes in democracy is a Democrat, and not everyone who believes that software should be unrestricted follows the GNU party line.
There are 23 definitions of "free" in my English dictionary. Only two of them relate to monetary cost. Therefore, without even knowing French, I surmise that "libre" has 21 meanings.
The term "libre software" is loaded with political ideology while being only trivially clarified. In short, it's a completely useless term unless you want to identify yourself as a GNU zealot.
A far more accurate term, with only minimal political baggage, is "Open Source".
I'm not a Buddhist scholar, but I do know a bit about the Bible and the New Testament. Can you cite where Jesus states that the accumulation of wealth is detrimental to moral life? I don't mean the obsessive pursuit of wealth, or the placing of wealth at the top of your priorities, or anything like that. Just the accumulation of wealth itself.