PDA

View Full Version : Should Linux Developers Make Money?



Omnios
July 27th, 2005, 03:51 PM
I have been pondering this for a bit thinking should Linux developers make money and no dought the answer is yes. As to how they should make money I feel that Linux should intagrate and accept an overall donation system. I have already seen the inclings of donation systems being put in place but till accepted as norm it may be hard to properly finance a project. Personaly I am on a dissabiltiy but when I get my financing together (things are a bit tight right now) Ubuntu will get a small donation from me based on the fact it it was commercial I would actualy buy it.

I hope we the Linux community do not have the general windows mentality when it comes to Donations. This is off a fee online game forum. "A game user complained he was unhappy with the game support he recieved with his donation. Others answered he had to be crazzy to donate to a free game."

Donations allow for people with extra money to help fund projects. But not only that it allows for better products to be developed. There are many projects I would like to donate to such as gimp if I knew that it would result in a product comparable to Phone Shop overall.

The bottom line is you don't have to but if you like a product or products you may wan't to further the developement effort by making a small donation towards them. Many windows projects are trying this road for things such as online games etc with greate success and may become a strong driving force behind Linux.

BWF89
July 27th, 2005, 03:55 PM
The one thing I don't get is how comapnies like RedHat make money off of RedHat Linux. I know they charge for the OS but couldn't you just copy the OS and give it to someone or do they have a thing that when you copy it and give it to someone you have to remove the RedHat logo not making it official RedHat. Or does RedHat include some proprietary software so you can only copy the open parts and if you give it to someone it won't be a complete OS?

Then I was on their site and saw that they charged for updates. But why would pay for an update since it's open source and you could download it for free a little bit after it was released? Could someone please explain this to me?

maruchan
July 27th, 2005, 04:07 PM
One thing that's certain is that there is no "Linux" organization under which all Linux developers can be grouped, and the definition of "Linux developer" is pretty loose. It is also rare to hear of a solitary Linux developer who is disappointed that he/she is not making money off Linux development. I suspect this is because for most people, it's a labor of love, and many of them have day jobs.

IIRC, companies like RedHat "add value" to what is otherwise free by offering things like enterprise-level support and assurances that you're not putting a largely untested OS on your high-spec servers.

Lovechild
July 27th, 2005, 04:09 PM
the RedHat updates are tested, compiled, packaged, backported and the distribution is supported for a long time.

The alternative is patching and compiling by hand, or using a distribution like CentOS which provides recompiled rpms... if you are a corporate sysadmin, you like stuff like what RedHat offers.

sonny
July 27th, 2005, 04:09 PM
I don't think donations are the answer we should be looking for to solve the problem of the funds Linux proyects have, because developers of a software can charge for training, operating, personalizing and so on, I mean, they can give the software away for free to big companies, but then charge for a training course to the employees of such company, or to charge for any modification that would make the program adapt for a specific need of the company, or to train others so they can now how to modify the source code, or things like that.

Don't get me wrong, I also support the donation idea, cus if it's a great tool for you and you are having it for free, the least you can do is give the author a small donation, if we all (the forum members) give $10 USD to the Ubuntu Foundation the total sum would add up more than 300 thousand dollars, I guess we all can give away 10 bucks per month, right? (By the way I haven't make any donation [-X But I will soon, I promess [-o< )

BWF89
July 27th, 2005, 04:17 PM
the RedHat updates are tested, compiled, packaged, backported and the distribution is supported for a long time.

The alternative is patching and compiling by hand, or using a distribution like CentOS which provides recompiled rpms... if you are a corporate sysadmin, you like stuff like what RedHat offers.
Yeah but all you get from downloading them (and paying them) from RedHat is an update that is easier to install. Couldn't one person just suscribe to the update service, copy the update, and release it on BitTorrent for everyone to use and not pay for?

Oh and I think that donations are a good idea for smaller projects but not the solutions for bigger ones. Seriosualy, if Windows XP was offered for free how many people would donate even a dollar to Microsoft if that didn't have to? People are greedy with their money. That's why software piracy is such an issue for alot of comapnies.

sonny
July 27th, 2005, 04:31 PM
Oh and I think that donations are a good idea for smaller projects but not the solutions for bigger ones. Seriosualy, if Windows XP was offered for free how many people would donate even a dollar to Microsoft if that didn't have to? People are greedy with their money. That's why software piracy is such an issue for alot of comapnies.
I agree with you, but not completly. Piracy is not an efect of greed, but rather an effect of avarice from the companies, let me put it this way, any software wouldn't be pirated if they would charge the "right" price for their products, because charging $300 USD for an OS that has MANY holes and mistakes is just ripping off the people, I mean MacOS X costs less than half the price, about $120USD in newegg, there are SO many programs that chrage MORE than they should, the statistical package STATA costs more than $1,300USD for a single user license; yes it's true, and near the 900 USD if you are a "student" (I guess a hardvard student), tha's an exageration of the cost, that's why piracy has so much market. Not because the consumer wouldn't pay for anything, but because they won't pay THAT price for the product.

GeneralZod
July 27th, 2005, 04:51 PM
Yeah but all you get from downloading them (and paying them) from RedHat is an update that is easier to install. Couldn't one person just suscribe to the update service, copy the update, and release it on BitTorrent for everyone to use and not pay for?

In Big Business, IT managers want guaranteed support (which Red Hat offers, at cost) and someone to shout at when things go wrong (again, Red Hat - there's no point railing at a bunch of part-time developers). Also, there is the perception that updates should come through an official channel from an official vendor - even if it saved money, an IT guy who downloaded an .iso of Red Hat updates assembled by a bunch of teenagers, burnt it to CD, and was caught trying to install on company computers would be fired out of a cannon :)

So in short, companies are willing to pay for stuff they can get for free if that company provides convenience, accountability, and presents at least a veneer of professionalism.

Edit:

As for donations, I try to always donate to projects I really like (next on my list are K3B, whose PayPal donation page is unfortunately in German, and mplayer, who seem to accept only hardware ](*,) ). I'd be happy to donate to gaim if they would accept it, but they state explicitly that they do not. Now that I'm no longer a student and have a paying job, the thrill of getting software for free has disappeared completely, to be replaced by a desire to reward people who have made my life easier through their hard work. I think it would be really cool if every member of this and other forums (who has a job!) would pick their three favourite apps and donate $10 or so to the writers - it would make the world a slightly better place :)

aysiu
July 27th, 2005, 05:03 PM
So in short, companies are willing to pay for stuff they can get for free if that company provides convenience, accountability, and presents at least a veneer of professionalism. Agreed. My company pays exhorbitant amounts of money to have someone give us "professional" blog and chat services that I can get for free with better functionality, but my boss would rather have the official, professional version than use a product from sourceforge.net, even if it's free, even if it's more functional.


Not because the consumer wouldn't pay for anything, but because they won't pay THAT price for the product. That's why once iTunes and other music services started charging US$.99 or less per song, people embraced it. P2P went rampant with illegal MP3 downloads partially because it was a new way of doing things, but a lot of it had to do with the ridiculous prices record companies were charging for CDs--US$18.99 and such for twelve songs (most of which were crappy). No, I don't think people are that stingy--they pay what they think a product is worth.

agger
July 27th, 2005, 05:09 PM
In Big Business, IT managers want guaranteed support (which Red Hat offers, at cost) and someone to shout at when things go wrong ...


And I think that's the main point here: If I'm a Red Hat customer (rather, a sysadmin at a Red Hat Customer's), then Red Hat will know approximately which systems I'm running and if they recommend that I take some update then I am entitled to shout at them and have them fix the problem if something goes wrong.

Plus, I might expect them to warn me what things to watch out for when upgrading, subtle changes in configuration, possible kernel bugs, etc.

If you just copy somebody else's updates for free, you are of course entitled to do so as it's free software but they won't support it.

Of course, with Ubuntu you get free enterprise editions and security updates (and community support), but some organization wishing to run Ubuntu on a lot of workstations and servers (I'm sure many do) will have to have some savvy insider doing the sort of support Redhat is charging for - and they might also need escalation support from some external company (Canonical, e.g.).

sonny
July 27th, 2005, 05:22 PM
Of course, with Ubuntu you get free enterprise editions and security updates (and community support), but some organization wishing to run Ubuntu on a lot of workstations and servers (I'm sure many do) will have to have some savvy insider doing the sort of support Redhat is charging for - and they might also need escalation support from some external company (Canonical, e.g.)
Support is everything for a company like RH; or Mandrake for the matter, whose clients expect them to solve all the problems (that's why they're paying them in the first place), but any company adopting Ubuntu would have to pay to Canonical or the Ubuntu Foundation to get that kind of support, and Ubuntu is ready for the enterprise with the proper support of course, and the savvy insider is also needed in a RH installation, as you still need a savvy sysadmin to run a MS server or network or whatever; the only difference is that there are MUCH MORE windows savvies than Linux ones.

MetalMusicAddict
July 27th, 2005, 05:32 PM
because charging $300 USD for an OS that has MANY holes and mistakes is just ripping off the people, I mean MacOS X costs less than half the price, about $120USD in newegg.
Dude, If your refering to XP you can pick up a full copy of Home for $100 US. Just saw it @ Staples. :) IMHO thats not bad. I dont however agree with their choice to make a "Home" and "Pro" version. Theres very little difference in the two.

So far I have donated $20 per release of Ubuntu. Plenty worth it. ;)

sonny
July 27th, 2005, 05:34 PM
So far I have donated $20 per release of Ubuntu. Plenty worth it. ;)
That makes you by far a better person than I am, and more valuable for the community. :roll:

Kvark
July 27th, 2005, 05:56 PM
Should linux developers make money... They are payed for their work, at least the companies that are smart. They get paid for dual licencing, services, support, maintenance, making custom versions, google bounties and in many other ways. If a company wants a new program that doesn't exist yet then they can hire programmers to write the new program.

So donations are not needed, developing software is profitable even without charging $300 for the service of burning it to a CD like windows developers do.

poofyhairguy
July 27th, 2005, 08:29 PM
Should Linux Developers Make Money?

(as in guarentees)

No. Nothing in life is guarenteed?

Should Linux Developers Make Money?

(as in "is it fair?")

Yes, but life isn't fair

Could Linux Developers Make Money?

Yep, selling books related to things they made or being paid by a person like Mark.