Melbourne Bennett has written an editorial on his opinions regarding Linux & Online communities, detailing how and why you should be giving back to them. Read the full opinion piece here.
Editorials: One Glass Of Water, Please?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Following the author’s suggestion, I immediately donated $10 to a Sourceforge project. My favorite Xine UI is Kaffeine, so I gave my money to that project.
http://kaffeine.sourceforge.net/
Die-hard RMS fans will of course disagree with this author (all software should be free, kinda thing), but I definitely agree. Software development is hard work. Some people are very willing to do it for free, but some (for example, those who dedicate themselves full-time to OSS) require support.
For one thing, I like to support open source companies because, being young and hopeful about the future, I’d like more and more open source-centric companies to exist so that when/if I actually apply to jobs, there are working environments available which I would enjoy.
The author was right to say there are many forms of “water.” I think it is also important that users of an open source system really _use_ the system to a full degree. That means when you find a bug, you report it. After you report it, provide follow-up information, and spend some time to help developers work out a fix (or code a fix yourself). You don’t have to contribute code, either. You can help with artwork, technical writing/documentation, packaging, etc. But I won’t devalue financial altruism: donating money to a sourceforge project is just as good as any of these other forms of work, especially to the authors who receive the donations, I’m sure 😉
In terms of proprietary apps though, I think the only way Linux will ever grab ahold of a desktop share is if its community stops shunning proprietary applications. What’s great about the Linux desktop is that all the amazingly good free software keeps the proprietary vendors honest, in the sense that you can’t start selling an e-mail client and be considered unless it really blows evolution or kmail away. And, since the price of most software is $0, any software sold on Linux that goes for more than $50-100 seems unreasonable (as it well should). Charging $300 for an Office Suite seems absurd when Abiword, Gnumeric, and OpenOffice are so close.
For the record, RMS thinks making money is fine. Free as in Beer isn’t his thing. He himself sold the first GPL app (Emacs) for something like $175. It was the price for his effort of putting it on a tape and mailing it to you. The only hitch was that you got the source code with it, and you couldn’t hide the source, ever. So if someone else wanted to turn around and sell his product, that’s fine. They just need to throw in the source code under the GPL.
I doubt there is not enough water for OpenSource.
OpenSource companies milked stock market for amounts of money that could make a ruler of a small African country more than happy and his nation prosper for decades.
OpenSource companies have no problems selling their hardware, software and services for more than competition (take Munich with 14,000 desktops as an example). That says a lot about willingness of customers to pay more for better product.
Still, if they pay more for OpenSource, and same time competition to OpenSource does not starve taking less- it should be enough water for OpenSource.
Finally, OpenSource already enjoying enough free support of developers all over the world, plus support of different governments (China, Asia in general, South America, Africa). Comparing to proprietary competitors forced to do all their software development in house- that is much more water on OpenSource flowers, so to speak.
Yes, lets be realistic: not every OpenSource project will be a success, not every one will be financially viable, not everyone will survive. So what?
It is life: if you can code and produce successful software product, big sponsors with big bucks will find you. If not- may be you should find another job.
Putting too much money into OpenSource will result in greed and people coding not for fun, enjoyment and ideas of making a world a better place- but for money, jumping from one high paid open source project to another higher paid OSS project. The way of life that GNU Manifesto rightfully condemns.
History teaches us: artists produce their best works when they starve. Unhappy artist- productive artist.
Programming is an art.
So, don’t overwater software developers. Eventually, the fittest will survive, bringing us the best software.
Of course, if you want to donate $10 to software developers- you are in your rights to do so. Good for you.
Your church will use these $10 too. So will African countries you can choose to support. So will repaying of the debt of your nation. So will your city or town.
You choose the best way to donate $10. If you think software developers are the most deserving group of people: may the God bless you.
“So will repaying of the debt of your nation. So will your city or town. ”
Your city using money wisely, now that seems a bit naive
.
What makes you think that die hard RMS fans will disagree with this? You have just explained the whole point of open source. That the community donates, both in terms of money and in patches/bug reports/useful criticism/etc.. back to the project.
Infact one of the biggest advantages that I see with GPL rather then BSD/MIT is that it forces some people to give back rather then taking code and not giving back. To see what I mean, here is something I saw today about a different issue (the whole MovableType thingy) but expressed the idea of ‘Free as in Freedom’ much better then I could: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/05/14/freedom-0
On a different note, I think the biggest problem is that currently the most of the users of open source are many times people who do not have the money to donate to open source projects anyhow. Getting official support from a company would be pretty hard as well since they might as well just hire you (not necceserally full time) or something simmilar to that.
I’ve slipped into a sordid emacs existence.
By way of watering the flowers, I’ve bought the bulk of the GNU Press list (skipped the GCC2.95 book; too old) and joined the Free Software foundation.
There needs to be a habit developed; perhaps a ‘suggested donation’ could be attached for those who are loads, not drivers, on projects.
The ecology won’t settle out soon, though.
It always amazes me that so many otherwise well informed people believe that the mass of a tree or other plant is built from the water and other nutrients it brings up through the roots. It might seem like that at first but when you think about it, you’d have to wonder why the soil in forests doesn’t just disappear as soon as the trees start growing! Of course in reality, the carbon used to build a plant really comes from carbon dioxide and is chemically converted into it’s biomass using sunlight for energy in photosynthesis. So a plant is really built from air, not water. I wonder if that’s what RHS was thinking about when he wrote all that stuff about space stations and charging for air. In any case, when he wrote the GPL, he really created a system that is unsustainable. Free software survives right now on the energy and enthusiasm of hackers and academics, which is donated for free, I suspect mainly in the hope of in some way contributing to the downfall of large commercial software enterprises. But when then? I personally believe the finance sources for development of open source software has been poorly thought out, and little attention has been paid to the real world nature of the revenue stream. It’s all very well to talk about a “post scarcity world”, but it doesn’t show any sign of materialising any time soon. When it does, then we can all grow apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle doves, as well as free software, for nothing.
“RHS was thinking about when he wrote all that stuff about space stations and charging for air. In any case, when he wrote the GPL”
RMS. RMS didn’t wrote the GPL. Eben Moglen did that.
“Free software survives right now on the energy and enthusiasm of hackers and academics, which is donated for free”
Do you mean free as in beer? I think that’s partly true, but not 100%. A lot of people get paid for their work. The companies behind those people get profit from their work. The Ximian, RedHat, SuSE, SGI, IBM, SUN [to name a few] developers who work on Mozilla/Linux kernel/GNOME [to name a few]… some developers don’t, and their reasons for developing vary. I don’t think the Linux kernel was designed and developed out of hate to a company named SUN, or something. Was it? Ah, conpsiracy.
People seem to forget that this whole model of free software has existed for time immemorial in terms of human charity. First it was the church, then came organizations such as the Red Cross and United Way. The business model free software needs to adopt is the one used by these philanthropic oranizations. Perhaps all open source projects should be under the auspices of one united effor called the Corporation for Public Software (like its counterpart, the Corp for Public Broadcasting). They could apply for federal funding and ask for donations just like they do on PBS. This business model certainly works for them and it should work for free software too. Heck, they could even charge for the software and services except being a non-profit (unlike Redhat) they do not have to worry about shareholders.
I watched Revolution OS, a DVD which interviews various figures from open source. Through interview with RMS (especially the extended ones), it became very clear that RMS’ ideal world is one in which all software is Free As In Beer. But that’s not to say this is an open source tenet, I’m just saying it’s what RMS would like.
I know the difference between Free software and gratis software as well as anyone. But I also know that RMS thinks the right world would be one where all software is gratis and Free.
That the FSF supports making money off Free software has nothing to do with RMS in particular.
Kind of flimsy to say Eben Moglen (and not Stallman) wrote the GPL. You might say he co-wrote it along with Stallman, but Stallman is really the originator/creator and the guy most associated with it.
Yeah I know some hardware co’s and those looking to profit using the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle are able to pay for some OSS development. Doesn’t really make much difference, it’s still unsustainable.. with the possible exception of h/w manufactures writing code that is specific to their hardware and not of benefit to others, the one thing that never seems to happen.
I personally feel that if you use software that is free and they want donations, you should carefully consider giving donations to that project(s).
As for online linux communities.. i feel that if they have advertisements on the site then they should be treated no different than any other ad-bearing community site.. weither it be a linux community/info site or a windows one.
“Of course, if you want to donate $10 to software developers- you are in your rights to do so. Good for you.
Your church will use these $10 too. So will African countries you can choose to support. So will repaying of the debt of your nation. So will your city or town.
You choose the best way to donate $10. If you think software developers are the most deserving group of people: may the God bless you.”
I’ll pretend that your argument was genuine.
– Church? State church. Already paid lots through taxes.
– African nations? Already paid far more than most people in the western world through taxes.
– Repaying debt? Taxes, some of the steepest in the World.
– City/town? Local tax.
– Software developer? Hmmm, I think they deserve a cut too. That will increase the chances of their survival.
/Jens
Yeah, I guess youre scandinavian too, we are already paying huge amounts of tax money for state sponsored projects in the 3rd world. I just wish we could chose how our money is used ourselves.
If I could chose how that 1% of the monthly taxes i pay are used it would be CONSTRUCTIVE stuff like education (and perhaps helping OSS devs). NOT feeding starving ppl, the population in some of those countries is just growing way too fast in proportion to what they can sustain, keeping some lucky ppl in africa alive for a little time (until the north koreans get out attention instead) doesnt seem like a smart thing to do, instead we should help them build up a functioning society. But I guess saving lives (if only temporarily) is easier to get sponsoring money into than “just education”, the ways the human mind works…
But then I would say all this “helping” is probably supposed to be more of a status thing for us than helpful for them.
“Look we are soo rich that we pay 1% GNP to them…”
> Through interview with RMS (especially the extended ones), it became very clear that RMS’ ideal world is one in which all software is Free As In Beer.
Hmmm, maybe you could interpret it like this. After all any free software can be shared for no charge.
But in any speech I’ve read/heard/seen, he only emphasizes the freedom of software, hardly its cost. In fact he sometimes advocates charging, but not for the right to use the software, but rather as a “salary” for the developer that doesn’t interfere with any of the user’s rights. (For some time he offered to improve GNU software for money)