The Case for Free Use: Reasons Not to Use a Creative Commons -NC License
freedomdefined.org
freedomdefined.org
https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=0a505400-5bf6-4a6...
EDIT: Apparently the concept of commercial open source software is so confusing to some people that, bizarrely enough, they describe this comment as supporting the "free software" movement.
As an aside, my friends and I still use a closed-source tournament management Windows program whose last version was published in 1998. It's not the greatest, but it works well enough (and for many people in many use cases, "well enough" is more than plenty.)
We made it a name, we made the rules by backing up our ideals with our code, and our definition of free software (sometimes great (python, Perl, postfix..) sometimes worthless (mine for instance ;) ).
Call me a vocal integrist. It may be true. But we all worked hard to achieve where we are today.
We fought to define Free Software in very precise way to backup our claim for freedom. CC (/NC) won't change the definition of free software without the people who defined it being a little pissed.
You cannot take our freedom away to define what free software is, because we all collectively took part in it thanks to theses licenses.
And for the record, I may be a so called integrists. But, making fun of my values because you don't like them or they don't suit you, is what integrists do.
- a lot of trolls (Don't check I am a real troll);
- some actual freelancing jobs where I was pretty much a failure;
- took part in a website in a an uninteresting minor foreign language about free software;
- and I took part in some of obscure gatherings where people talked about free software like benjamin.
I am an average no one (you can actually check my background, I am a failure without any false modesty with ultra minor contributions, but I am not really ashamed). I am little bit excessive, but I can make people smile while talking about free software.
I have the weired idea however it does not matter.
I really don't think any open source programming language will accept my revolutionary idea that objects should follow the 17 rules of linear algebra (I swear I am convinced my idea is as brilliant as checking PRNG with Taken's series, or using L1 geometry instead of Euclidean while working with computers, and I swear I know I will fail and I am a bit crazy). I think I may be the member of the family you don't want to show to your neighbors/fiancée. But still I am part of the family :)
It's kind of cool, though. There is nothing wrong in not being successful or as fun as linus torvalds. I am pretty happy with it and I guess I am not alone in not feeling alone doing free software without being a star. Maybe like probably http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ROG5728 A gun nerd that cares the truth is said about the H&K P11.
I think the idea is more important than who you are.
Even though I am really no one, it is fun, and I like it... the way it is... I am pretty conservative. Sorry.
And the Free Software movement also supports selling your software. In the words of rms, "redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it."[1]
(2) I made an analogy to books to explain what I meant by commercial open source software. The author or publisher would retain the copyright, and I would have no rights to redistribute sources or compiled versions. This, of course, is directly contrary to what the free software movement advocates.
Yeah, but in a way that clashes with most real life ways to sell software. Basically, if you're not selling support or add-on services (or if your software doesn't need either) you can't really much sell "free software".
Sure, you'll find 2-3 people that have done it. I doubt you'll find 10.
I think you're underestimating the number of people who sell Free Software. NewsBlur, for example, is available on GitHub, yet still has thousands of premium users.
In the end, it's not like having a proprietary license will keep it from The Pirate Bay. As long as your price is reasonable and buying is less of a hassle than getting a free version, enough people will pay.
Both are examples of selling a service/add-ons (hosting, SaaS, etc). E.g the very examples I already gave as viable ways from making money from something open source (along with selling support).
This doesn't hold for most desktop software.
>In the end, it's not like having a proprietary license will keep it from The Pirate Bay.
No, but it will keep users buying it from the source (as opposed to feeling -rightly- entitled to just get it for free, if it was open source).
When that was written, redistribution was hard. The Internet did not yet exist. Redistribution often meant mailing a tape. Someone actually had to do work to redistribute.
Redistribution now is trivial and for most of us has a marginal cost too low to be wroth measuring. It's automated, and usually available from multiple sources.
Yeah, but the parent doesn't have to care much about your use case (if he doesn't want to), because that's extremely atypical, and millions of units of proprietary software are sold every year just fine.
If your users are ordinary people - not corporations that need to placate their boards - there is no reason to expect that you would be able to pay for development time by selling support.
Not seeing the dishonesty. RedHat spends huge amounts of money developing software. They sell one version with support, they offer a slightly different version for free. What's dishonest?
CC-NC has something wrong: it parasites the meaning of free software «buzz/success» but is is far from being free as in free speech: free software -as commonly accepted by the two antagonists community known as open source/free software- must grant you the radical non discriminative freedom of use a software whoever you are, whatever you think, whatever you wish to do with the software: including making money.
Why?
Pick up your reasons for this, they are as good as they can be. Be it :
- it is better for interoperability to share correct code so that internet works better (ISC DHCPd, bind, TCP/IP stack...);
- I am altruistic (FSF);
- I want to make myself a name by having my code seen as a business card (some projects github);
- I want to prevent competitor to do a lock in on code (IBM, sun);
- fill in your evil plan for world domination through a value of externality (openBSD, Apple, me)....
Good or bad reasons, or morally biased don't matter.
Free Software open source do grant you the right to do whatever the frack you want with a software, because it is about free as in free speech. There are agreement on what free software is (FSF 4 freedom/Open Source Initiative) and NC (Non Commercial) do not fit in the free software criteria.
I repeat myself: there is nothing wrong in disagreeing and choosing a proprietary licence.
I do say, there is something wrong in pretending to abide by Free Software/open source conventions and not doing it: it is cheating to your users, it is deceptive and delusive.
BTW, I (very) loosely was in inspiration on this topic, so I can grant you that is the spirit in Benjamin Mako Hill thoughts, and I can provide french transations.
OSI : http://opensource.org/ open source initiative (bad guys);
FSF (Good guys with weired hats, beards and rituals) https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Free Software Definitions admitted by good and bad guys : https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html commonly referred as the 4 freedoms.
why CC are a fraud (fr): http://www.libroscope.org/Vers-une-liberte-definie-Creative
WTFPL : The smallest exact Free Software Licence : http://www.wtfpl.net/
You lock the market. Once there is an open source project in a niche of high enough quality, especially if it comes out first, it will essentially never be dislodged and you can get corporate licenses for support/priority bug fixes.
Also in your case: encrypted. There is no app outside those that come pre-shipped with their platform that does encryption, isn't open source and is popular.
Lastly free work. To this day I am still shocked when I have people submit patches to code I've written without being asked/paid.
You are evidently aware of free/open source software, so I'm curious: if you thought that other people would be interested enough in this software that they might pay for it, why did you put in all the effort up front to develop it yourself? Why didn't you instead make the project open source much earlier, so that you wouldn't have to pay all the costs of developing it yourself?
I'm not being sarcastic or rhetorical; I'm asking because I can't imagine starting a large software project like this and not wanting to get the benefits of open source development. If you are considering open source now, why did you decide not to do it earlier?
> what's in it for ME if I open source?
At this point, there may or may not be much you can get from this project in the way of monetary reward by open sourcing it. That depends on who would use this software, whether they'd pay you to support it or customize it, etc.
But apart from money, you'd likely get: other people reviewing, testing, debugging and maintaining your code; other people packaging your code for distribution on various platforms; other people helping to support users of your software on mailing lists and in forums; other people writing documentation; the satisfaction of providing something useful to others; and praise and thanks from users of FOSS. None of those benefits come in the form of money, but they are nevertheless non-trivial.
"If you knew people might pay you money for it, why didn't you make it so they didn't have to, instead of making them pay money for it?" What?
If you're primarily concerned with having the program completed, why take the first path? The second path seems like it will bring you to that goal more quickly and for less time, effort, and risk. It just makes more sense.
And even if you're primarily concerned with making money, the second path can still make more sense. Using funding mechanisms like Kickstarter, you can be paid to write software that you release under an open source license -- and since your backers commit to payment up front, before you write the code, you don't have to take on the risk that no one buys a license for the completed program. So again, why go the other route?
Because I've spent most of my life working with people who are convinced they're good, when they're not. If they were, they'd have worked, or be working for the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook or Microsoft. I'm so very, very tired of charismatic but incompetent hackers. That is the second reason for creating the software. The first was because I needed a database that works offline and syncs across all my devices.
The other problem with open source dev is dealing with the impossible egos. I want to write good code. I don't give a damn what anyone thinks of my language choice, code style or lack of dress sense.
It's funny -- in my (perhaps limited) experience, most of the 'impossible egos' I've seen in the FOSS community belong to people who have similar concerns. They have put a lot of effort into developing a project in a certain way, and are frustrated and annoyed when a Johnny-come-lately coder appears and demands they do something differently. The attitude comes from needing to protect a successful project from 'contributions' that, if unchecked, could ruin the code or the community.
It's true that running a successful FOSS project requires managing both your code and your community. You will never be able to just write good code if you want your project to thrive. Maybe you're not into that; that's fine. But, as you well know, that means you have to take on all of the tasks that a healthy FOSS community could otherwise help you out with, like testing, debugging, and writing documentation.
If you're eventually hoping to be compensated for doing all that work yourself by selling copies of your software, you're still going to have to do more than just write good code. You're going to have to market it. Personally, I'd rather help manage a healthy development community than try my hand at marketing. Again, maybe you feel differently, but the point is that there's more to do than just write the code, unless you only care about using it yourself. A FOSS community can help you with that; so to answer your original question, that's the benefit.
In any case, thanks for being willing to consider all the options. For the most part I'd guess the primary benefit would be signing yourself up as benevolent dictator nurturing a community of developers (in addition to users) around your new tool.
CC-NC prevents large-scale exploitation. I'm not sure the drawbacks of confusion over trivial use, or small-scale exploitation, outweigh the benefits of not having a large corporation save money by using your stuff and not paying you.
I see this argument frequently in the photography world, but it doesn't make sense to me.
As an amateur making art for enjoyment, as a hobby, with no expectation of financial return, does it matter if some corporation makes money from my work? I'm no worse off than I was beforehand, in fact I might be in a better position because my name will be out there.
I have no love of corporations, but if they want to use my photograph to sell a product then go for it. Trying to prevent that sounds to me like muddled principles.