Open Source Philosophy Question

[SilverApple]

Let me start by saying I really like Ubuntu and the high level of simplicity it brings to Linux as a desktop. I'm not exactly a beginner but I didn't know where else to post this. Sorry if this is an inapropriate place. I have more of a philosophical question than a technical one. I am still a bit baffled by the concept of open source and need a little hand holding and maybe a pat on the back letting me know everything is going to be okay before I jump into many long hours (which I don't mind) of re-educating myself to the linux equivelants of windows software (Gimp, Inkscape, Blender, etc.)
:-({|=
My problem is that I want to switch completely to open source and I feel that at this time in the development of linux it is ready, full featured and stable enough to be used as my primary desktop os for home and work. The only thing holding me back is this, If open source survives will programmers starve? I know this may be naive of me, but I don't know what else to think. How will programming as a profession survive if no one can sell the software that they create?

I understand that only about 30% of software out there is actually sold as software, meaning something I can go into a place like Best Buy (I used to work for Geek Squad, Ugghhh) and purchase in a nice shiny box off the shelf. The rest of the software being produced is done so in house to suit the needs of a specific person or business. This is the case for open source, if these companies didn't have to pay for licensing rights then they could edit the software to suit there needs and only have to pay their programmers. Then in turn the fruits of that programmers labor would be used by this company for their business and also trickle down into the public domain. Please let me know if I am understanding this correctly.

Now that sounds like a wonderful business model, except for the 30% of programmers who would be out of a job. Don't get me wrong I am completely against monolithic corporations like microsoft and specially adobe's recent aquisition of macromedia (two long time competitors). But atleast the programmers who work for these companies have a job that probably puts more than just food on the table. I think everyone would like to be able to live comfortably and make a living doing what they love (I don't necessarily know that they would enjoy it after selling their souls to microsoft.....but). And what if you wanted to start your own proprietart software company from scratch?

Again... I probably have a misunderstanding of how this works, I hope that someone will enlighten me. I really enjoy using linux more than windows or osx and would like to completely switch over and become a part of the effort to take on the traditional software model. But I just can't switch to open source if I know that it could cause more than 1/4 of programmers to be out of work.

I would also like to contribute my skills. While pretty tech literate I am definately not a programmer, tried several languages (basic,python,torquescript,gml) and failed miserably at every one of them. What I do have is an eye for design. So I would hope to learn some FOSS tools for design and help out with thing like gui design, documentation and anyting else I could do to further see great open source projects survive! Thanks for all you responses in advanced, I know this was a quite lengthy first post, but it has been on my mind for some time.

[Paul133]

Will programmers starve? Literally, of course not; that's way too much of an oversimplification. As far as philosphically, well...no. The drive for open source software does not mean that all software will be free. First off, a lot of open source software isn't free. Many Linux distrobutions do cost money. They are, however, libre, or free as in "free speech" (whereas the other kind of free is the free in "free beer"). No company programs open source software for free. They may give it gree of charge with a GPL license but they still pay their programmers a salary and recoup their investment (through support, for example). On the other hand, volunteers don't get paid because they volunteer. If they weren't doing this, they'd be writing freeware! Free software, and particurarly open source software does not mean that all programming must now be done free of charge. It's a volunteer endeavor mostly. Some companies use open source, but they don't tell your workers "OK, now we're giving this software away for free, so you won't get paid." They'd be sued so quickly! Thus, you don't need to feel guilty that your starving programmers by screwing Microsoft. If you'd like to further discuss this, please PM me as this thread will probably be moved soon.

[Paul133]

Did you read my explanantion? Was it too verbose? Too terse?

[az]

The only thing holding me back is this, If open source survives will programmers starve? I know this may be naive of me, but I don't know what else to think. How will programming as a profession survive if no one can sell the software that they create?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/forum/software/OpenSource/MakeMoneyHowto

The point is that you pay the programmer for his/her work, but not for the code. The code belongs to everybody. When a developer for a proprietary software company leaves the office, all they own is their paycheck. The code they wrote that day no longer belongs to them.

A free-libre open-source developer gets to keep the paycheck and the ownership of the code (along with everyone else)

Businesses have been getting value in that model for years. Your ISP most probably uses free-libre software to run their operation (email, webserver, routing, etc...) and they charge you every month. Why would they run proprietary apps which do the same thing when they already get it for free?

From a software point of view, it makes sense to not reinvent the wheel every day. It makes more sense to pay someone to write new code (extending the existing code), starting off from a different point further along every day.

Not to mention the money to be made in services. If you are running a mission-crittical application, chances are you are willing to pay someone to keep it running well, regardless of whether it is free-libre or proprietary.

Mark Shuttleworth made a few hundred million providing a web service, using free-libre software. there is big money around, no one will starve.

It just makes a lot more sense to pay for new code instead of paying over and over for the same code that was written long ago, no?


.... And what if you wanted to start your own proprietart software company from scratch?


Why would you want to do that when your competitor is offering the same software for free?

That called comoditisation. The OS is now a commodity. That means that you get a choice.

It also means that someone will see value in paying you for something else than selling your software. For example, making it do new and exciting things - something you can't easily do in a proprietary model. Well, you can but it is not done a lot and costs a bundle, which is bad for everybody (except the sole owner of the software who just has to sit back and collect money by selling it the way it is)

[peabody]

While this perhaps doesn't address the spirit of your original post: if just you today switches to Ubuntu, I doubt that's gonna drive Microsoft out of business. In fact, I'd bet hard money that Microsoft is probably good to go for the next 50 years. Adobe too. Seriously, I don't think you need to worry about having starving programmers on your conscience. Seriously dude, not something I've thought about in using Linux to tell you the truth. I think you're blowing it way out of proportion :) .

[Paul133]

Well, he's asking it philosophically, I think.

[SilverApple]

Hey guys, thanks for the quick response. This is starting to make a little more sense. Basically what you are saying is that the 30% or so of programmers that work on "off the shelf" buy it in a box software would simply contract out their programming skills to say, a firm dedicated to working with companies to add features to an already made codebase. To get it to function the way they want it to and not wait for the company that owns this codebase to develop a new version that suites their needs (assuming that it would even happen).

This is starting to make more sense. So I guess there's nothing left for me to do but pop in my Ubuntu 6.06 LTS cd and get crackin. I'm assuming you guys do a fair deal of programming yourselves, but assumptions can be wrong. If not, then if any programmers who read this thread would like to add something to this discussion I would really appreciate it. The responses I have recieved have already pretty much put my mind at ease.

So my next question I have is where does a non-programmer contribute their skills. I would like to further the useability and overall look of FOSS apps, as well as documentation. If there are any projects you know of who would be in need of this sort of help, I would gladly ablige.

[Paul133]

Well (aside from screwing around with BASIC and psuedo-programs) I'm not much if a programmer. I'm also not much of a designer. However, I love helping people so I just come to this forum and try to help out newbies in trouble. I also tell people about Ubuntu so more people get involved and the community as a whole betters itself!

[Paul133]

Well (aside from screwing around with BASIC) I'm not much if a programmer. I'm also not much of a designer. However, I love helping people so I just come to this forum and try to help out newbies in trouble. I also tell people about Ubuntu so more people get involved and the community as a whole betters itself!

[SilverApple]

I am asking it in a philosophical sense. This is basically just a what if scenario. I don't really think that this will ever happen. Microsoft will continue it's strong arm tactics and will continue to consume an unfair share of the world's desktop computers with out of date buggy software. What spurned this discussion probably comes from the fact that I am a history/econ major and am interested in what the long term effects would be on the tech economy if this were to become mainstream. I hope that more software will open up and with news that AMD will be open sourcing the rigid ati proprietary drivers, things are looking up (especially for me since I own an Ati Card).

What really made me want to switch completely over to linux is the fact that vista is on the horizon, and the more I learn about that OS the less I like it. I don't even think I would want to use it even without the trustcomputing crap. I tried out the beta and I have seen linux alpha releases that are more stable than Microsoft's 2nd beta.

I thought about switching to a Mac, but the high price and uber elite attitude I have seen from checking out Mac forums made any ideas I had about switching to that platform dissipate very quickly. Ubuntu has such a great community behind it, and in the long run that counts for a lot.

[Paul133]

I concur. Macs are nice, but they're expensive and I don't need a new computer; just a new OS! I'm NOT upgrading to Vista unless I must. I thought your question was interesting as I dabble in economics and philosophy. Yet it seems that, assuming Linux got 50% market share, Mac dropped their computer business to focus on gaming and music, and MS had the other 50%, then what we'd start to see would be an explosion in open source software. The different distros would consolidate somewhat and everything throughout Linux would "just work" because codecs and drivers would all be open source. MS would be dying and having to find a niche. The future of software would become open source and Linux would be more like Wikipedia. Programmers would be specialists, customizing software to fit your needs or be working on some of the still propietary code (security). Software companies would still make money, but it'd be in support and other things. The software industry would become a pure service industry, while now it's a partial service, partial product industry. At least that's my theory. The future is undoubtedly Free Software (and maybe even free software)!

[az]

So my next question I have is where does a non-programmer contribute their skills. I would like to further the useability and overall look of FOSS apps, as well as documentation. If there are any projects you know of who would be in need of this sort of help, I would gladly ablige.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ContributeToUbuntu

[az]

Hey guys, thanks for the quick response. This is starting to make a little more sense. Basically what you are saying is that the 30% or so of programmers that work on "off the shelf" buy it in a box software would simply contract out their programming skills to say, a firm dedicated to working with companies to add features to an already made codebase. To get it to function the way they want it to and not wait for the company that owns this codebase to develop a new version that suites their needs (assuming that it would even happen).

More exactly, the potential that software has is not fully tapped.

The economics of the free-libre open-source model are that (more or less) every dollar spent on software would go into making the software better.

There is value in the ability to make it better yourself (through your company, for example).

The limits to how much money some company will spend that way are the same as how much they spend today, the difference is that the software gets better and better really fast. The more it gets better, the more potential there is for others to see in adding to it (which injects more money into the ecosystem). Zoom!

Instead of there being one pile of code that one company keeps getting paid for having written (you pay them to hold back development), the same amount of money goes into making new code, day after day.

You have to sit back and realise how much more growth the code can go through that way.