Re: open source article (fwd)

[Jose Alberto Abreu <abreu en penguinpowered com>]

On Mon, 13 Mar 2000 12:35:30 EST tonstanco en aol com asked:

> But can anyone tell me why software can't be both open and sold like Windows? 
> Why is it that software has to be basically given away if it's open? I'm not 
> sure that anyone in Open Source has ever answered  this question. 

Hello, I'm Jose Alberto Abreu and I saw your message forwarded to the Mexican
Linux Users Mailing list. I am also a journalist and a Linux user, and I would
like to tackle your question.

Let me start by dispelling a popular myth:
Software is almost never sold, it's generally licensed.
For example, Microsoft sells you the license to install Windows 98 in one of
your home machines. When you buy this license, Microsoft gives you a copy of
the licensed software.

This software is NOT yours, and you can't do anything with it that the terms of
the license prohibits you from doing --for example, you cannot install Win98 in
multiple machines without buying multiple copies of the license.

Software is only sold when, for example, a programer is hired by a company to
create a program that will acomplish an specific task for the company, and the
company ends up being the only user of the program.

Now, when a company "sells" you a distribution of Linux or any other
open-sourced piece of software, you are buying many things, but you are not
buying software.


You may be just buying the CD-ROM on which the software was copied (like when
you buy a copy of RedHat Linux from Linuxmall for $1.99USD)

or

You may be buying the CD-ROM, 30 day FREE priority FTP access, 90-day
web-based installation support, a printed manual, and the StarOffice 5.1a CD
(if you buy it in the US or Canada), for 30USD

or

You may be buying the CD-ROM, 180 day FREE priority FTP access, 30 day
telephone installation support, an 2 more CDs with applications: the
"Workstation Bonus Pack" and the "PowerTools applications". All this for $80USD

or

You may be buying the CD-ROM, 180 day FREE priority FTP access, Server Bonus
Pack Web Builder Tool Kit/SSL Security 30 day Apache configuration support. All
this for $150USD

(note: all this information comes from the RedHat homepage)


Now, on to the next question:

> Why can't Open Source 
> developers get a royalty percentage of the sale price just like writers, 
> recording artists or movie actors, and the product sold just like Windows is 
> through traditional channels, so that the developers get paid for their work?

Developers do get compensated for their efforts! In fact, many of them get paid
to develop open source software (more than you would think). For instance,
Netscape engineers do most of the work in the Mozilla web browser, IBM pays
many people to enhance the Apache Web Server, Corel has people hard at work in
the WINE proyect, and many people offer contributions to the Free Software
Foundation (the creators of most of the GNU tools) and to Linux International,
amongst others.
The fact is that there is a very high demand for developers and many companies 
are willing to pay top money to people willing to work hard to hack the
source. The very fact that there is an ever-increasing demand for programers
makes open-sourced, standards-based software a necessity.

And, regarding your writer/recording artist/actor analogy, coding is nothing
like it:


--
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  Jose Alberto Abreu, bag detective and apprentice philosopher
        e-mail: abreu en penguinpowered com   ICQ: 65953001

         "I intend to live forever -- so far, so good!"
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