The Trouble with Free Software

While I wrote this with the Software Freedoms in mind, which the GPL is an expression of, I'm only using it as a model for discussion. I'm not explicitly saying "license under the GPL".

So with that said, the GPL does not say "put your code up on Github". It says "give your code to your users". It also doesn't say "don't charge for your software." I'm talking about taking these ideas literally. The only people who get your software from you are people who have paid, and they get the source code along with it.

People have always surmised that, because of Software Freedom #2 (redistribution), they could turn around and release your code for free, so the majority of people have defaulted to just releasing their code, in the open, for free. I question whether or not that would actually be the case, or how big of an impact it would have.

I'm also not really sure I like Freedom #2 in its most explicit sense. I am starting to think that I'd prefer to operate under a model where anyone may modify My Code as they want (Freedom #1), and release the modifications as they see fit (Freedom #3), but the original base of it all, My Code, they need to get from me. In the context of "getting paid", I think that model might work better. But that's more of a minor detail.

I'm not saying "hide your code". I'm just saying, "stop leaving it laying around."

Yes, the world has benefited greatly. But Google and Facebook seem to have benefited more.

Canonical is a $110 million company. They are stewards of Linux, but they profit from the free work that others are doing. I'm calling into question whether or not that's enough. In the case of Canonical, it's a tough call, though getting a little less tough the more ad-tech they push more ad-tech into it.

On the extreme end, the massive profitability of companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc., is a signal that they are taking more than they are giving.

And there is a long, long tail of other, popular projects that have had huge impact on the world, for which the developers have not received anything remotely approaching fair compensation. Look at the impact jQuery had on the world in the mid 2000's. Looking at Wikipedia just now, it says that it's in use on 73% of the 10 million most popular websites. Surely, somewhere, somebody could have coughed up a few dollars.