</flame> <discussion> At 10:51 AM 1/11/2005, David Jackson wrote: >...this is exactly the sort of trend that I have been seeing lately; >abandoning the free (as in speech, and beer) alternative that doesn't have >the featureset we want, in favor of the not-free (as in speech, or beer) >closed, proprietary alternative. > > Linux doesn't gain from that choice. The hobbyist community doesn't > gain. Society doesn't gain. The only person who gains is the person > selling the thing, and the person buying the thing.
You're right -- the seller and the buyer gain. But, society, at least those members who are interested in the product or in competitive products, benefit from seeing a working product which may inspire other innovators. Sometimes the developer is doing the project to put food on the table, not as a hobby. Other times, the work is done for more altruistic reasons or with more altruistic possibilities. Does this mean that the developer who sells his product is a slimeball but the one who gives it away isn't? What about the consultant who gets paid to tweak an open-source product for someone -- is he a good guy or shouldn't he be giving away his labor because it's the right thing to do? What about the consultant's customer that paid for the customization -- should they give that to the public now that they've invested in "their" customization? Without getting into any questions or issues of whether a product is "ready for prime time," a seller has a right to sell a product and a buyer has a right to buy a product, for whatever reasons they choose, rather than using a free product. If I choose to run SuSE 9.0 Professional, which I do and which I bought, instead of Mepis or Debian or some other free distribution, is that a bad thing since I had to pay for it? >The rest of us are cut out of the loop. Darn. (that's an "r" and an "n", in case your fonts aren't clear) "You pays your money and you takes your chances." If you don't want to pay your money, you have fewer choices. That doesn't make a decision to sell software, instead of giving it away, a bad decision inherently. > In reality, the percentage of people that benefit is so small in > comparison to all of society, that it's easy to say that -nobody- wins. Not a valid extension of the premise. There is a finite set of definite winners. If you're not one of them, that doesn't mean they don't exist. There's also a larger set of society that benefits from the folks who, commercially or non-commercially, say "cool, let's see if we can do that, too." > There is certainly a better analogy, so I'll make one up. > Imagine that you are interested in getting fish out of a river. I > tell you, I know how to get fish out of the river. I offer you two > alternatives; > 1) You give me 1 zorkmid, and I'll give you a fish... or... > 2) You give me 10 zorkmids, and I'll teach you how to fish. > Of course, you would choose option 2. Even if you have no desire to > learn how to fish, it makes much more sense, and is infinitely more > profitable, for you to get the fish on your own. Then you can catch more > fish than you can eat, and sell the rest. Pretty soon, you'll be rolling > in more zorkmids than fish. And you have the option to tell your > children how to fish, so that they can get fish from the river, and be > rolling in zorkmids. And the guy who taught you how to fish, he's 10 > zorkmids richer, and he can -still- get fish out of the river for > himself. He also has the peace of mind that he has given a gift of > immeasureable value to all of society, all for the paltry price of 10 > zorkmids. > > This philosophy, in many different other words, is what, I believe, is > one of the founding principles behind Linux development. Ok. So it's better to charge someone to teach them to fish, than to sell them a fish. But, your followup example -- where the student now catches and sells the fish, isn't consistent. Is he doing a good thing or a bad thing to sell the fish he caught? Now, my examples -- true examples, not analogies. I developed a PalmOS® application and released it as freeware. It is available on PalmGear® (if you're interested, look in the Dragonlode section of my website). I didn't release the source code. Neither of the _two_ people who emailed me about it (out of upwards of 3600 downloads) thought I was doing a bad thing -- both liked it, and one even made suggestions for the next release and corresponded a few times. Since I didn't release source code (or the RAD project file, in this case), was this a bad thing? I also gave out a few beta copies of a PalmOS application designed to track VCR tapes and DVD's. I used this for a year or so, but never released because I moved to a different database system. I didn't give out the RAD project files on this one, either. I also released via "request-ware" a database applet for PalmOS and PocketPC®, specifically for the home coffee roaster, that tracks different coffee beans by country, estate, crop, vendor, inventory of each, what I want to order next, etc. Several folks on a coffee homeroasting mailing list requested copies. The applet is editable by the database user, too. BUT, it requires the purchased database product HandBase (http://www.ddhsoftware.com). Was this a bad thing? Should I have purchased the $599 runtime license (price "each" per specific database and per OS) to release it as a full application for one or both OS's? Would it have been ok to charge for it under that circumstance, or should just eat the $599 charges? My choice was to give the applet and let them buy the database system. Or, would I have been a better person to have kept these applications and applets to myself and not let anyone else use them. I submit that I made the right choice and that my choice is consistent with the "sharing" that is the underlying key to Open Source. > It makes no sense for a hardware vendor not to give away software to > work with his hardware; it makes his hardware more valuable to have > interesting software to use with it. And, that's exactly what Frey is letting ITS CUSTOMERS do with its OEM Linux version and and with its OEM Windows version (although it offers a consumer version for Windows). Frey is licensing its system to OEM's for incorporation into boxes that the hardware provider will sell -- the software will be included with the hardware, on disk or on EEPROM (who knows which). >And synergistically, if he gives away the source code, we can all benefit >from seeing how it works, and interested parties who have all kinds of >wild ideas about how it should be changed, will implement these >ideas. Suddenly, this free software has tremendous value, even at the >low pricetag of free, because of all the new wild features it has. And >now everybody wants one. Except, the hardware vendor doesn't have the right to give away the source code that belongs to someone else when the hardware vendor and the software vendor aren't the same guys. Does this make the software vendor a bad guy? Let's take the analogy another step. You sell a thing -- call it a "wheel." You have a limited market for wheels, just the "automobile" manufacturers. Should you start manufacturing automobiles so you have a bigger market for your wheels? The hurdle to become a hardware vendor is a lot higher, and more expensive, than that to become a software developer. > If you don't believe that software can drive hardware purchases, I > point you at Doom. Doom raised the bar for 1-2 megabyte computers, to 8 > megabytes. 8 megs was what it took to run Doom well. This drove RAM > sales more than anything else in the computer industry at that time. >Just as 3D games have driven video card sales today. Just an >example...and there are probably better ones. I don't disagree -- consumer desire to run the latest "shoot 'em up" c software can drive memory and video card sales, and processors and motherboards too. So can the next bloated version of an office suite or an OS. But, it is the consumer's desire to use the software, not the software itself that is the key. The consumer has to believe that the cost-to-benefit ratio is satisfactory. The Bottom Line: ----------------------- Open Source or Closed Source, purchase only or free to use/edit/rerelease/etc, and which OS to use are all legitimate choices for any software vendor, consultant or consumer. Sometimes these choices are driven by economic issues. Other times they are driven by altruistic reasons. Once the basic economic needs (food, shelter, etc) have been satisfied by whatever means, altruistic beliefs can begin take precedence. Capabilities also have to come into play, as many people are incapable of being software developers. You might have noticed that I gave you black and white choices in my questions. The correct answers are in shades of grey. Terry Stockdale -- Baton Rouge, LA http://www.terrystockdale.com
