open source licensing

[tree_small777]

The use of open source licensing for software may be a good political decision, but it is not a good business one. Isn't it, do you agree with it?

[earobinson]

im not sure I understand your question, are you saying that people make less money with open source than closed?

[tree_small777]

im not sure I understand your question, are you saying that people make less money with open source than closed?

yes, open source licensing can prevent people making money, although it's a good thing....

[tommie-lie]

Do you know that neither the GPL nor other popular free licenses exclude commercial use? If you write a program and distribute it under the terms of the GPL, you are free to sell the *copies* to anyone who wants to pay for it. Sure, in the case of the GPL, the customers have the right to give it away for free, but this is not always true for other licenses. For instance, OOo uses the LGPL for its codebase, but Suns makes money with StarOffice.
Free software in the sense of the FSF does not prevent you from making money with your software, but it allows those who bought it to give it to the community for free. So, in a certain aspect, you are right, open source software does prevent the capitalistic way of making money. That is why free software is more an ideology and an idea that is based on the good-heartedness of the people and their will to support those who made the software they use.

[earobinson]

check it out http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=95025&highlight=money

EDIT: This thread should be in community chat also since it is not a support issue.

[az]

I think Mark Shuttleworth made his millions using Free-libre software. I am not certain, but I don't think it involved proprietary software. He offered a web service involving certificate authenticity for encryption of web content.

What Free-libre software is about is saying that software is not property. You can freely acquire, study,modify and redistribute Free-libre software. On the other hand, proprietary software is someone's property. You are not free to see the source code, nor to improve it. You usually cannot redistribute the proprietairy program in any form (source or binary)

The business model for FLOSS is to provide services. You pay the programmer for her work on the program and for her service. You do not pay her for ownership of the program. She does not end up owning the program any more than you do. This is different from proprietairy in that at the end of the day, the programmer who works for a closed-source, proprietairy software project leaves her office with only her salary - all her work now belongs to her employer.

That's it.

[earobinson]

I think your right azz i rember a quote about something like "open source has done so much for me so I want to give back"

also As I understand google adsense runs on open source software.

[az]

But, sure, you can make a lot of money with FLOSS.

Apache is free software. I think about 70 percent of webservers run it. How many web hosting companies do you know work for free?

[tree_small777]

But, sure, you can make a lot of money with FLOSS.

Apache is free software. I think about 70 percent of webservers run it. How many web hosting companies do you know work for free?

However, if apache is not free, the company can get more money, isn't it? ;)

[tommie-lie]

However, if apache is not free, the company can get more money, isn't it? ;) No. Why should they get more money if they have to pay more to make their services available?

[earobinson]

its a diferent way of thinking, read the link i posted up top. yes the company can get more money, but firstly is it socialy responicable, secondly sometimes it is beter to make it free then companies will pay programers to make custom add ons.

[az]

However, if apache is not free, the company can get more money, isn't it? ;)

No. We are talking about a service and not a product. Apache as well as the variety of related technologies are not like selling chocolate bars. Yes, you can make more money by selling chocolate bars than by giving them away.

However, something like web services are not tangible things. You pay someone for their expertise in keeping your webpage online. You do not pay for a copy of apache if you want to run a site with your blog.

Web security, project development, notwork management the whole facet of IT does not have to involve the selling of software, just the selling of services.

[ubuntu_demon]

I moved this thread to community chat.

[poofyhairguy]

The use of open source licensing for software may be a good political decision, but it is not a good business one.

Depends.

Its a great thing for hardware companies. The less people spend on software, the more they might spend on hardware.

I think that is part of the reason IBM and Intel seem to love OSS and really get it.

[tommie-lie]

Its a great thing for hardware companies. The less people spend on software, the more they might spend on hardware.

I think that is part of the reason IBM and Intel seem to love OSS and really get it.
Even that depends ;-)
Few hardware companies want to give away documentation, specifications or complete drivers to the open source community (just look at the real support for features in sound cards, scanners or other multimedia-related hardware for Linux. Often you only have only rudimental support). You can find arguments for both sides in various discussions about closed source kernel modules or driver architectures in general.