Is Open Source Software Really Good For Business? | Hacker News Reader

Is Open Source Software Really Good For Business?

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7 pointsedw5197 comments

The entire argument is based on a fallacy: the idea that most of the software engineering industry makes money selling existing software.

Actually, most of the software engineering industry makes money from selling their services to build new software, or maintaining existing software that was previously built in the same way.

The question of whether the software is then shrink-wrapped and sold for money is irrelevant. As a Ruby on Rails developer, I couldn't care less what my clients do with the applications I build them (except, of course, within the context of building them an application that better meets their needs). And the fact that Ruby on Rails is open source makes no difference to that - except, perhaps, in that it allows me to work solo and so not have to deal with a large team of incompetent people in my daily work.

Actual software licences are a very small market, most of it owned by giants like Microsoft and Apple.

Daniel

Actually there are quite a few good lifestyles available if you charge for licenses of your software and you are a small software shop.

That fallacy only exists when you lump all of software engineering in with shrink-wrap software development. Most people don't think of consultants the same way they do product teams, which is also why people are always so surprised at where Visual Basic ranks among industry development environments.

I really wish we could get past free as in beer & move on to free as in speech. Getting the sofware for free is all very well & good, but the really valuable part is being able to change it for your purposes.

There are a couple of very large business focused projects that work on code escrow and termination clauses.

The general idea is that when you contract for a customized application you get a price break by not taking the source code (as the vendor will expect to get money from change requests, support and selling to other customers). However takeover or bankruptcy of the vendor will let you claim the code under a GPL-type license from third party escrow.

Some of the peace of mind of OSS, but a decent revenue model for the vendor. I would prefer 'genuine' open source but as a buyer I would rank this kind of arrangement far above the normal 'we die and your tools stop working'.

If he feels so bitter about open source, he should stop contributing to it. I am up for creating a donation fund to buy him a license of Vista Ultimate Edition.

Most developers working on open source software see no problem and love working in open source project. This is because most open source developers work for a large company, such as IBM or Sun. These companies of course use open source software to sell services which pays so much better than selling shrink wrapped software. Must better to push 30 junior consultants through the poor customers door for 2 years than simply selling software.

Look at the Linux commit log, 80-90% of new code comes from corporate open source drones.

However, every independent developer that has been working on a fairly successful open source project for a couple of years will become bitter at times and to some degree. Even Richard Hipp, the creator of SQLite hints about this in the google video where he discuss SQLite.

The reason is simple, after the first fun of working on a new project, there is very little incitement to continue. a) There is no money to be had, donation does not work in the sense of putting salt on your table. b) Selling services does not work, because most users don't need support or if they do, support will already be provided be lots of "open source" consulting companies selling services for your product. c) Most user feedback is rude and usually complaints about missing feature or bugs and d) you are usually alone. Its a myth that most open source project are run by a merry band of altruistic developers. Usually they are run by 1-2 developers for the love of the craft - at first. No wonder these independent developers become bitter if they continue for some reason. And the worst part, if he should dare complain a bit, he only get smug stupid remarks from idiots like yourself who have never contributed a line of code in your whole life.

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