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Open Source/Free Software

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 2:46 am
by Ree
I have read about OS software quite a bit and I do know the advantages it brings etc, but still, why would one take his time, effort and resources to develop a high quality product and not get a single penny back? You may say, you can sell your code, but everyone can sell it too.

For example, I look at myself. If I had a good idea right now, would I take my time to develop the product and license it as open source software? No, I would try to sell it. Would I do this if I had plenty of free time and no worries about paying my bills? Maybe I would.

Sometimes I just wonder if people don't need the money... I can see it being fun, interesting (co-developing) and the philosophy is there as well - after all you're doing a good job making it available to anyone... but this is only if I don't have to be worried about my existance.

I know that some organizations fund the devs of OSS... but why not sell the product after it's finished?

Some also look at it as a devalvation of development as a service... Everything a casual client may want is available free of charge. There's always custom work available, yes, but your chances of selling (and re-selling again) your own ready-made software are few, unless you have something very sophisticated (and even then you may find one day there's an open source (maybe even better) alternative already). You won't find a lawyer consulting you for free, and yet you can find plenty of freely available software. And this 'free' concept is something clients like to keep in mind. "Everything's free - you just install me this and that, here's $20, thx".

So, yeah, these are my thoughts.

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 2:59 am
by s.dot
I think you pretty much answered it yourself.
and even then you may find one day there's an open source (maybe even better) alternative already
The market for software I imagine is very competitive. Not nearly as many people are going to try/buy your product when they can get something else for free.

I believe people do it for free because they support the idea of learning & achieving. Take these boards for example. Feyd himself has over 16,000 posts and he's doing it volunteerly. I sure bet he wishes he had a dollar for every post. :lol: As a whole, I don't think developers want people to not be able to do something simply because they don't have the money to pay for it.

Another valid point is free software could give you a good userbase to offer paid services in the future.

Although, i definately understand where you're coming from.

I just bought WS_FTP Home today, and I hated paying for it. But, im sure IpSwitch loved it. :lol:

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:06 am
by feyd
There's another thing that people seem to not realize: being the creator of the software allows you to license it in any fashion you like. This includes multiple licenses for the same code. If you want, you could have a GPL version of your code and you could have a closed source version too. It doesn't necessarily have to be different with you being the author, you can choose whatever you like in any instance (pretty much.) MySQL dual-licenses its products. They seem to be doing just fine. :)

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:15 am
by Christopher
I think you misunderstand open source, because it is not very much about buying and selling (though there is some of that). Take your example that you have "a good idea right now." Well, you and a thousand other programmers have "a good idea right now." The question is: how to you get that idea to market, because you probably can't really build it alone. If you can find someone to invest in your idea then you can fund a development team. Or ... if you can get other programmers excited about the idea and license it so they can use it too then you may get a free development team.

Which gets us to an interesting point about open source. The developers of open source software are usually not sellers of software -- they are users of that software. And that is what makes open source so interesting to so many companies (who fund most of the major development). Companies have found that by contributing to group development they receive much more value from the software than their investment. It is pretty simple economics. And because the software is equally available, there is a level playing field for competetors.

So we are really talking about two different and sometime competing motivations for developing software. One is the desire to use software and the other is the desire to sell software. And it ends up that there is much more desire to use than to sell. There is nothing preventing selling software, but there are now some new competetors on the field.

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 3:45 am
by Ree
arborint wrote:The developers of open source software are usually not sellers of software -- they are users of that software.
oscommerce? moodle? I doubt the devs use these themselves.
arborint wrote:Companies have found that by contributing to group development they receive much more value from the software than their investment.
Yeah, regarding the companies funding OS, I can only see the point of it in the case when they need the software to use themselves, and not to sell it. In that case they can take the advantage of OS development. However, I'm pretty sure there are companies which don't have any interest in using the software themselves...

But in the case of non-funded development it seems like it's all about the idea and general interest in the process, and you can add the learning factor as well.