The Problem with Commercial Open Source
frappe.io
frappe.io
I didn't get this at all.
If I have a free software product (GPLv3), and I require that you pay me $100 for me to send you a copy, how is that characterized as "rent"?
I looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent for guidance:
1) "Renting, an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property"
Since you have a copy under the GPLv3, which is effectively permanent, that's not really applicable.
(Also, proprietary software licenses can also be under a permanent license, so don't count as 'rent' under this definition.)
2) "Economic rent, any payment in excess of the cost of production"
That's a complicated definition that I didn't understand. I do see 'the total income is made up of economic profit (earned) plus economic rent (unearned).' So why is my commercial transaction for you to acquire GPLv3-licensed software from me 'unearned'?
That "cost of production" is not simply the labor+goods cost but includes opportunity cost. Which can be quite high when deciding to distribute free software instead of proprietary software. So I don't see how choosing to "sell free software" (as RMS describes it) is reasonably described as "rent".
Note that the quote considers the gains on proprietary software to be rent too, so this opportunity cost argument is kind of like saying any rent is not rent once any other rent opportunity exists.
But I would find it hard to categorize all software gains after paying all wages as rent since there could be an aspect of taking undeserved payment or as you say, you could be taking reasonable payments for investment risks. Only in the extreme, I could sell on your GPLv3 software and use some proceeds to imply I am the trusted source for it which is pure rent seeking behavior.
I got a bit distracted by the second half of the article since it seemed to be flowing to the usual point that most people feel more comfortable marking up service costs as multiples of the actual hourly wage¹.
I think the feel good argument for consulting based models is that you are selling a real limited resource to the individual customer, but I think this mark up is actually more clearly rent. You are attempting to hold an expertise monopoly such that no one can sell a similar service and no customer can find adequate expertise on the market and just pay wages similar to whatever you pay the consulting employee. Why would your documentation be good in that model?
If they made a more unique point maybe someone could post a TLDR.
(¹ No? I guess hardware/cloud mark up is what they mean by their products.)
Good point, thanks!
FWIW, I did try selling free software, though under the MIT license. My income was a fraction of the hourly wage were I do do in-house development that was never released at all. Enough to live on, but not normal software developer wages.
So I find it hard to call that "rent".
Speaking of economic rent, "Frappe has the huge advantage of being the home to most of the contributors and maintainers of ERPNext" makes it sound rather close to the economic rent attributed to labor unions ("higher pay for some workers, where collective action creates a scarcity of such workers, as opposed to an ideal condition where labor competes with other factors of production on price alone" - from WP's "Economic rent").
That's pattern matching on my side, since I don't have handle on what 'rent' is supposed to mean here.
Speaking of distractions, the analogy "FOSS is like the highway system" suggests the government should be funding FOSS, and/or that tolls are entirely reasonable. ;)
The rent is not for the software but for some additional service or hardware that you incur in making it available. As long as you provide some service other than just licensing the software.
As an open source creator, you essentially are giving away your labour to the community as charity. This is done out of free will and is not an obligation. There is no obligation whatsoever to support and provide guarantee either to any user. This distinction is where most open source contributors feel burnt out. As an open source creator, I look as community requests as "feedback" and not something I am obliged to do. When we take payment to provide certain guarantees or services, that is when it enters the realm of services and is not connected to the software at all. Anyone capable can do that. The company publishing the application has an head-start. That is all.
That is the mindset where it works as a public asset, rather than a "source available" or other kind of program.
I don't understand. I required people to pay me before getting access to the source code, under the MIT license. Knowing also that my customers were unlikely to redistribute the code further.
How is that giving away my labour into the community?