General Discussions

**Learning Newbie** · 06-19-2008, 02:15 PM

Red Hat is the type of example I'm thinking of. Is this good, in that it shows the economic viability of open source, and perhaps gets IBM and HP to contribute to the movement? Or is it bad, in that a corporation is profiting from the work of volunteers who didn't donate their time to contribute profits to a small group of individuals?

I'm not sure if this is true nowadays, but in the past, the vast majority of open source was produced by hobbyists, with no financial interest whatsoever. The only motivation was to make the world a better place in a small way, by making better software available to everyone who might want it, with no barrier. The most sinister and ulterior motive was technical curiosity - a desire for raw knowledge.

**vangogh** · 06-19-2008, 06:47 PM

It's actually a fallacy that free in the context of open source has anything to do with money. That was never the intention of the founders of the open source movement.

The free in open source is short for freedom. The freedom to do whatever you want with the code. You're free to modify the code in any way you want, you're free to add to the code, and you're free to profit from what you've added as long as you provide the original source for others to do what they want with it.

Red Hat doesn't charge for the Linux Kernel. They charge for whatever packages they add to the kernel and they charge for support. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Financial motivation isn't sinister. Like it or not our economic system is based on money. Every month my landlord asks for it, the grocery store requires I give it to them if I want to take their food home with me. I charge my clients so I can pay my landlord and buy groceries.

That doesn't mean I don't volunteer any of my time. I volunteer here for example. But my time is a finite resource and I can't give it all away. Being able to make a profit from open source allows people to spend more of their time furthering open source. Without being able to profit from it many people would not be able to invest the time they do into open source improvements.

**ForrestCroce** · 06-19-2008, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

The free in open source is short for freedom. The freedom to do whatever you want with the code. You're free to modify the code in any way you want, you're free to add to the code, and you're free to profit from what you've added as long as you provide the original source for others to do what they want with it.

It's slightly different; you're free to modify the source code, even encouraged to. But you have to provide your modified version back to the public, not the original. This is the 'poison pill,' and I'm pretty sure the people who started the movement used that term. The idea behind os software isn't to prevent the world from realizing a profit ... but there's a question of how, or over what. A developer who wrote something and donated it doesn't want others to profit off the labor he or she already put in, and if that becomes a corner stone, what's built on top winds up being free. But people spending time to help others put it to good use, the way Red Hat supports enterprise Linux installations, is a service, like any other.

Science itself is a lot like open source. When somebody discovers a fundamental property of a quark, they don't try to keep this knowledge a secret. An engine-oil company might discover something that winds up being used in contact lenses. It's as much peer review as it is "the bettermnet of man."

**VirtuosiMedia** · 06-20-2008, 02:33 AM

The thing that I find fascinating about the whole open source phenomenon is a concept called the product halo. The idea is that you offer a product for free, but your profit lies in the everything that surrounds the product: your premium versions, services, and support. I think it's an idea that going to see more and more traction in the future, and it makes sense. Some products get to the point where innovation is rare, so the only thing that will differentiate you from your competition is everything that goes along with it, like culture, customer support, etc. The first company that has a superior halo and offers their product for free will see a major market share swing (I wish the telecom industry would get the hint). All that said, I don't the proprietary model is going anywhere anytime soon. I think the two will learn to coexist.

**splenditello** · 06-20-2008, 08:14 AM

i think profiting directly from it sort of undermines the whole principle

**VirtuosiMedia** · 06-20-2008, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by splenditello

i think profiting directly from it sort of undermines the whole principle

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree on that one. In almost every single open source license that I've read, there are provisions for making money. Free (as in no cost) software is a nice idea, but ultimately you have to put bread on the table for your family. Some open source projects don't have any intention of making money, but for those that do, I don't have any problem with it. And like I mentioned above, a lot of times they find ways to release the product for free, but still make money from it.

**Learning Newbie** · 06-20-2008, 01:39 PM

Making money is part of the driving force, but it's not all. Odd as it may sound, I think being social is another important driver. Being competitive and wanting to improve your lot in life and parts of human nature. You can't argue that isn't true. But they aren't all of human nature, and that's also beyond debate. Wanting to help one's fellows is also unquestionably human.

And a lot of open source is inspired by ideals that boil down to making better software available to everybody. Plenty isn't, or is only part about this. Much open source is one guy who needs a particular app that doens't exist, writing it, and releasing the code. On the other end of the spectrum you have what IBM is doing, and you have open source programmers getting picked up into professional software roles. You have companies producing it to make their cost centers more effective. Really, the motivation behind the movement is as diverse as you can imagine! But we can't ignore that open source is very much written by volunteers, and many of them for reasons of altruism, or hobby.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 03:37 PM

I totally agree on the diversity of reasons for producing it, another one being just because it's cool to innovate. An interesting book, somewhat on the subject, is Wikinomics.