Clemens Vasters wrote a very
insightful letter addressed to a young open-source enthusiast:
Do you want to have a car, a house and a family when you are 30? Do you love
being a software engineer at the same time? If so, you literally need to get a
life. Forget the dream about stuff being free and stop advocating it. It
#1 by Derek on March 2, 2004 - 3:22 pm
I agree with your points.
Out of curiousity, what license models would you recommend to that open-source enthusiast?
#2 by kdonald on March 2, 2004 - 3:41 pm
There is value in a software developer, who is faced with providing solutions, leveraging open source technologies that directly enable him or her to deliver those solution faster and cheaper. What makes money is the solution, not the technology.
#3 by Norman Richards on March 2, 2004 - 4:03 pm
It didn’t quite reach SCO levels, but that was probably about the worst, illogical attack on free software I’ve read in a long time. The writer comes off as insecure. It’s like he is afraid he himself won’t be able to pay his mortgage because of some kid writing free software.
Maybe there is context we are missing, but I didn’t get any of his points. Free software isn’t the same as never get paid and live in your parents house until you are 40.
#4 by Dan Countryman on March 2, 2004 - 4:09 pm
I would have to disagree with you on “At any rate, liking a certain software just because it’s open source is not only dumb, “it’s idiocy and bigotry”.” Liking a software project because it is open source is like the same as liking a local plumber who shows you how he did his work so you can fix it next time, instead of just fixing it. In theory, open source software is about a community of sharing. What’s wrong with prefering to use software that endorses that sharing behavior instead of a closed environment where you can take what they have or leave it.
#5 by Franck on March 2, 2004 - 4:20 pm
Cedric,
You can release a project code in both open source and commercial license.
Trolltech is doing similar with its Qt library.
So this is not a problem.
#6 by Nick Minutello on March 2, 2004 - 4:56 pm
|
|What’s wrong with prefering to use software that
|endorses that sharing behavior instead of a
|closed environment where you can take what they
|have or leave it
|
What is wrong with it is when this gets in the way of actually doing something useful with it. To use a slightly controversial (but hypothetical) example:
Its no good me using JBoss (just because its free, open source etc), if I have to spend the equivalent or greater amount of money learning how to get it to work, than I would spend on an Orion or Weblogic license.
End of the day, the bit of the company that earns an income is after value for money. And when looking at value for money, you have to look at the bigger picture (license cost is usually a small part of the picture). If commercial software delivers better value for money than OSS, then its stupid, nay negligent, not use it.
-Nick
#7 by Julius on March 2, 2004 - 11:44 pm
If so, drop all the Apache stuff out of weblogic then.
Why not? Because it makes for a cheaper weblogic, doing an xml parser is not of much strategical value.
And while you are at it get the XmlBeans of the apache website.
Open source makes sense sometimes, because even in the most competitive market conditions, working together can be a good idea. And in other occasion, it can be fun. It is a great way to learn new things, and not to be closed inside the company context you are working in, you can now and then look outside the box and see how it is done by other people. I absolutely love foss, and all of the dumb idiots who make it what it is.
I am done with this weblog, at first I thought it was about discussing ideas, but after a few months you get to notice it’s just about ranting and complaining.
#8 by Dan Weinreb on March 3, 2004 - 12:51 am
Vasters’s analysis is rather oversimplified. It’s possible to write free software on the side while you also have a “day job” (which could be software development or something unrelated to computers). You might get a company to subsidize you to create free software (which appears to be one way several major successful free software projects actually get done). And maybe you’ve earned or inherited enough money, or maybe you live frugally and won a MacArthur grant; the possibilities are many.
#9 by Kief on March 3, 2004 - 5:07 am
Vaster’s and Cedric’s argument is a limited one, based on the case of a programmer looking to create and distribute a bit of software as a product. In other words, that distributing the software is the programmer’s end goal. In this case, the choice is whether to distribute it as open source or a commercial product, and the argument for getting paid for your work makes sense.
But I would bet that the majority of serious open source coders work on software that enables some other stream of revenue that pays their salary. How many Apache and Tomcat coders work at an ISP, for example?
Personally, I work at a “solutions” company, where we bid to build projects for corporate clients. If a client is going to pay me $200k to build a project, I sometimes give $50k+ to Cedric’s company to use Weblogic, but if I don’t need what’s in Weblogic I will use Tomcat or JBoss. Even if I have to spend some time adding or improving functionality to Tomcat, it’s still potentially more profit to me.
So the choice isn’t always do I sell my software or distribute it free. For people like me, the choice is do I spend 3 months writing an in-house product for one customer because existing commercial software isn’t flexible enough for their requirements, or do I spend 3 weeks tweaking an open source product?
Even if I do build the in-house product, it may make more sense to release it as open source. We’re not a product company, so we don’t have the resources or infrastructure to develop, test, support and market a software product. By releasing it as open source, I can gain numerous developers and contributors who will widen and strengthen the capabilities of the product, and increase it’s standing in the industry so it will be easier to pitch to clients as a way to solve their problems without shelling out another $25k every time we want to add a CPU to their server.
I’m over 30, have a wife and plans for a family, and earn a good salary. Open source is good business for me.
#10 by Anonymous on March 3, 2004 - 10:31 am
“Personally, I work at a “solutions” company”
Yeah, open source/free software is great for “solutions” companies right now but there are also “products” companies. If every commerical software product has a equivalent free version, then there is no longer a software industry and what remains is basically just consulting outfits. Whether this is good or bad in the long term (for humanity) is hard to say. But since I am in the products industry, it is bad for me and I would not like to see this happen.
Products companies try to maximize product quality while solutions companies try to maximize billable hours. Of course both types has the same goal of solving the customer’s problems but I think products companies inherently build or at least try to build better software due to their profit model.
#11 by Jon Tirsen on March 4, 2004 - 1:55 am
It might be hard to understand for some people: It’s not all about the money.
Some people collect stamps, some do salsa courses, cooking, reading, diving, running and so on. I do open-source. It’s a great hobby, it’s fun, it’s cheap, you get to meet great people and it does wonders to your career.
As a consultant you only rarely go on really great projects writing exactly the type of software you want to write. With open source I can do just that.
#12 by Neil Ellis on March 4, 2004 - 9:15 am
>> As a consultant you only rarely go on really great projects writing exactly the type of software you want to write. With open source I can do just that.
Well said.
Anyway, who says it is about one against the other. These artificial divisions are there just so we can have arguments. We look after ourselves and our families if we can do that writing OSS great – if you only want to write commercial license software – great – if you want to write OSS in your spare time – great. What does it matter.
OSS has added some spice and color to a drab, drab world of bogus marketing claims and dumbed-down advertising.
That drab-drab world pays my bills however.
I use weblogic, it’s fine, I use intellij (and personally paid for my own license) it’s pretty good. I use Xerces, Xalan, Apache and a myriad of other open-source tools, they’re fine too.
Open-source software has not yet and is moderately unlikely to ever put BEA out of business, BEA is unlikely to put open source software out of ‘business’. Open-source developers use commercial products, BEA ship open source software.
We can all stand on our soap boxes and fling muck at each other it’s a waste of time.
Ah-ha so now I’m ranting about not ranting … time for a cup of tea.
My we do love controversy don’t we 🙂
#13 by Joshua Scholar on February 15, 2005 - 1:17 pm
I’m wieghing my license options right now on a personal project.
It’s a sound editor, but one feature is that you can write plug-ins in C++ and it invokes G++ to make a dll and links it.
Anyway, if I want the install to include full GNU open sourced software then my license has to be GNU compatible – and I’m not convinced that this will stop me from selling my program as shareware/guiltware.
Sure other people COULD decide to sell it, but realistically that’s not likely to happen, and customers could decide to use it without paying, but they could decide that even if it wasn’t open sourced.
#14 by Serge on September 20, 2005 - 6:33 am
Just about another idea about why people open sources: The Phoenix
You work on a ‘cool’ peace of software when you company decide to drop the project.
For sure you are paid for what you’ve done but how is your mind now?
Open source it, if it’s possible, and may be yo can drive a reborn…
Just a thought…
#15 by vehicle-tracking-system on April 15, 2008 - 10:28 am
Have a look on Java programminglanguage and software developmentin general…
#16 by PERDRE DU POIDS on April 21, 2008 - 9:16 am
Take care.
#17 by LN on June 25, 2008 - 7:57 am
I’ll open up by saying that I am a professional .NET developer who is also an open source enthusiast, but not a free software activist. I work for money, and make a pretty decent living at what I do.
My problem with your reply to Clemens is not a new one by any means. It is too often that Free Software and Open Source Software are used interchangeably, but they are NOT synonymous! Please don’t do this. This Free Software v. Open Software FUD has been around for years, and people have yet to correct themselves.
Open Source is distributing, commercially or otherwise, software with the source code freely available to the user for modification. There are no philosophical implications of “freedom” that come with Open Source as there are with Free Software. Examples of Open Source (but not free) software include flavors of BSD and Crossover Office (one of the best examples I can think of which is a successful commercial product AND open source / partially GPLed).
To sum it up: Open Source is a way of developing and distributing software on a massive scale. Free Software is a philosophy that, _if taken with a grain of salt_, can work; but, unfortunately, most FS people are extremists that treat the GNU Manifesto as their own holy book.
That being said, I will correct you. “If you are not a Free Software source activist at 20, you have no heart. If you are still a Free Software activist at 30, you’re an idiot :-)”. With Clemens, I agree, that Free Software is idiocy and bigotry, especially with the GPLv3, but open source is still a viable platform for development and distribution.