Mark Norton wrote:
Isn't this where the Open Source/GPL community feel-good factor falls
apart?
Let's say I'm one of the developers working on some free software. It's
open source, lots of people can/have contributed. But then the major
user of this software gets sold for lots of money to a company, let's
call them "EthicLog", whose reputation is mixed, at best, and pretty
awful from my own experience.
Sure, the software is still open source and GPL but other people have
benefitted at my expense. I've been sold down the river, I've been
had.
I don't look at it this way. And I've contributed software. Have you?
I used to use a Turtle Beach Audiotron. This device, although more
"closed", had a rather active user community. There was quite a bit of
software written to work with the Audiotron, to make the Audiotron
easier, whatever. The third party software forum (what the Audiotron
folks called it) was *quite* active.
Furthermore, while "closed" (not open source), the company was very
responsive to feature requests and regularly added features that the
user community asked for. This resulted, for example, in an API to the
device so "controllers" (intelligent remotes, computer software,
whatever) could be written. And the third party contributors
contributed plenty.
Why did I move from the Audiotron to the Squeezebox? One reason: The
Audiotron, as a product, was cancelled. I could continue to use it, but
if it broke, I was dead (I couldn't buy a new one), and all new software
for the product died with it.
The Open Source/GPL community writes stuff because they're writing
features THEY WANT (at least that's why I did it). Sure, the "feel
good" factor is nice, too, but ultimately it's a feature or a tool that
the author wants to have, or wants to see in the product. This is why
the software development model for Slim Devices is a "mixed bag": Sure,
they get tons of (very) useful stuff from the community, but then the
community also doesn't work on certain other things that are less
important to them (ease of use factors for new users, etc). Slim
Devices themselves needs to work on that.
If you contributed to the software, and you feel like you were sold down
the river, I feel bad about it. But that said, you still have the
feature or software that you wrote, and you still have the "feel good"
feeling for having contributed and helping out others. What's changed
just because those with a REAL financial stake in the company merged
with a larger company to give them more stability, more distribution
channels, and more resources?
-- Jeff
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