I think so many people go with Open Source and free software because of how hard it is to sell software which you made on your own time. For example, say Joe Teenaged Geek makes a cute new system tray applet for Windows, one that is so amazingly useful that they can't believe everyone else doesn't already use it. They decide to slap a $30 price tag on it, because simmilar products are already available from commercial suppliers, albeit with much less speed and features. They have three options for marketing it:
1. Try to sell it to a pre-existing large software house. If he tries, 99% of the time he will fail, being a spare-time coder without any particular credentials. If he *does* get through to them, they slap on a bunch of restrictive licensing for the user, or change the developer's code to the point where they can claim ownership of it themselves. They could even duplicate his efforts if it is a fairly simple piece of work.
2. He can try and get the applet bundled along with some new piece of hardware on one of those CDs that Walnut Creek or some other shareware marketing company puts out, but then he would have competition with many other like-minded youngsters. These people would probably lose valuable filesystem real-estate to big companies who are willing to pay more per kilobyte than the independant producers. Mr. Geek would also have to come up with a registered company to do business through, and a whole lot more paper hassle. If he has school or work to go to, this might be more sweat capital than he is willing to invest.
3. Try and release it on his own through one of the many software download sites. Then he has to try and get his work recognized to the point where it is worth going around and downloading and installing, and he will need some sort of technical support for Joe Average User who can't understand InstallShield or the custom installer he set up for himself which seemed to work ok on his own machine. In the end, he might even get a bad review from the sites he posts on, and nobody will want to buy or even download it.
On the other hand, Joe Teenaged Geek could try releasing the code for his app and a few binary versions on his web site, toting the virtues of using it, providing a message board for people to make suggestions on how to fix it, and even sending him compliments or job offers based on the quality of his code. There are many people who go this route, and it is always a handy way to show off your skillz as a developer.
In other cases, you can give stuff away for free what most people wouldn't consider buying for shareware. Chatterbots, for example, are neat little programs, and a lot of people like to see how they work on the inside, as well as write scripts for their built-in backend. Shareware versions only rarely come with source code, so people will tend to gravitate towards the free and open source ones that everyone has heard about. Jason Hutchens, who won the Loebner Prize a number of times, posts the binary and source forms of his various bots on the web, helping to educate other developers and earning respect and peer review.
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I think so many people go with Open Source and free software because of how hard it is to sell software which you made on your own time. For example, say Joe Teenaged Geek makes a cute new system tray applet for Windows, one that is so amazingly useful that they can't believe everyone else doesn't already use it. They decide to slap a $30 price tag on it, because simmilar products are already available from commercial suppliers, albeit with much less speed and features. They have three options for marketing it:
1. Try to sell it to a pre-existing large software house. If he tries, 99% of the time he will fail, being a spare-time coder without any particular credentials. If he *does* get through to them, they slap on a bunch of restrictive licensing for the user, or change the developer's code to the point where they can claim ownership of it themselves. They could even duplicate his efforts if it is a fairly simple piece of work.
2. He can try and get the applet bundled along with some new piece of hardware on one of those CDs that Walnut Creek or some other shareware marketing company puts out, but then he would have competition with many other like-minded youngsters. These people would probably lose valuable filesystem real-estate to big companies who are willing to pay more per kilobyte than the independant producers. Mr. Geek would also have to come up with a registered company to do business through, and a whole lot more paper hassle. If he has school or work to go to, this might be more sweat capital than he is willing to invest.
3. Try and release it on his own through one of the many software download sites. Then he has to try and get his work recognized to the point where it is worth going around and downloading and installing, and he will need some sort of technical support for Joe Average User who can't understand InstallShield or the custom installer he set up for himself which seemed to work ok on his own machine. In the end, he might even get a bad review from the sites he posts on, and nobody will want to buy or even download it.
On the other hand, Joe Teenaged Geek could try releasing the code for his app and a few binary versions on his web site, toting the virtues of using it, providing a message board for people to make suggestions on how to fix it, and even sending him compliments or job offers based on the quality of his code. There are many people who go this route, and it is always a handy way to show off your skillz as a developer.
In other cases, you can give stuff away for free what most people wouldn't consider buying for shareware. Chatterbots, for example, are neat little programs, and a lot of people like to see how they work on the inside, as well as write scripts for their built-in backend. Shareware versions only rarely come with source code, so people will tend to gravitate towards the free and open source ones that everyone has heard about. Jason Hutchens, who won the Loebner Prize a number of times, posts the binary and source forms of his various bots on the web, helping to educate other developers and earning respect and peer review.