Open source: It's about capitalism, not freebies
I've been saying for years that open source is about capitalism, not communism.
I used to laugh when Microsoft ignorantly slandered open source as "anti-American" because the inverse was so clearly the case (PDF chapter from Open Sources 2.0).
Now Forbes, hardly a bastion of communist thought, is running an article that profiles several prominent open-source capitalists, including Brian Behlendorf (Apache, CollabNet), John Roberts (SugarCRM), and Rod Johnson (SpringSource). It turns out that these entrepreneurs have found winning ways to turn open source into cash.
No one would question Behlendorf's open-source bona fides, yet he's quick to suggest that it's not about free love: "The term 'free software' made it sound like an anticapitalist movement, yet the reality is, we were hard-core capitalists."
The secret is to use open source as a means to an end (PDF), not the end itself. Open source is a means to cheap distribution, a way to get software into the hands of would-be buyers at little to no cost. It's a way to make the software experience social and less risky, because users can try before they buy and because they can tailor (or pay someone else to tailor) software to their needs for a lower cost than proprietary software affords.
It has these benefits and more, which have made open source increasingly big business. True, there are elements of control in any successful open-source business, making open source more akin to proprietary software than perhaps its adherents would like.
But there's no denying that open source is, or can be, an integral element of a successful software business. It's about freedom, yes, but it's also about cash.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
There is nothing closer to a true free market than open source. Stallman himself has never said that the GPL and making money are divergent.
Purely delusional drivel.
You are the one who is deluded. I have listened to Stallman speak quite recently and he was very clear that that the GPL and Free Software are in no way contradictory with making money. In fact he said quite the opposite.
Get you facts right.
Listening to Richard Stallman talking about making money or capitalism would be like asking a fox if it was okay for it to guard a hen house, lol. Let me refresh your memory:
The GPL (or GNU Public License) was created in 1989 by Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software
Foundation. The GPL is what is now known as a ?copyleft? license, a term coined based on its controversial
reciprocity clause. Essentially this clause stipulates that you are allowed to use the software on
the condition that any derivative works that you create from it and distribute must be licensed to all
under the same license. This is intended to ensure that the software and any enhancements to it remain
in the public domain for everyone to share. Although this is a great humanitarian goal, it seriously
restricts the use of the software in a commercial environment.
The BSD (or Berkeley Software Distribution) was created by the University of California and was designed
to permit the free use, modification, and distribution of software without any return obligation on the part
of the community. The BSD is essentially a ?copyright? license, meaning that you are free to use the software
on the condition that you retain the copyright notice in all copies or derivative works. The BSD is also
known as an ?academic? license because it provides the highest degree of intellectual property sharing. (Walker, 2006).
I'll take the BSD license any day over GPL, if I decided to use any sort of open source software, thank you very much.
Now, if I release code under the GPL you can either contribute back (which saves all the contributors money in the long run) or you can negotiate with me to license it otherwise, in which case I'll probably expect you to pay me.
If I release code under the BSD license you can use it as you like and I get nothing.
Which license is more compatible with capitalism again? I'll look to the one that doesn't have other people making money off my work without paying me a penny. If the GPL is Soviet then the BSD license is positively Feudal.
As usual, the person calling Linux 'socialist' is just narked he can't get rich doing nothing while everyone else does all the hard work.
PS. That _circumvent_, not circumnavigate. Way to reinforce a stereotype.
The original intent of the GPL was this:
No-one who's paying for software should be held hostage by the vendor.
It's commoditisation in the same way you can now get your car from any of 30+ manufacturers and your computer from any of 300+ vendors. For some reason Stallman felt that the customer was right to resent being forced into upgrades or extortionate maintenance fees just to keep accessing their own data.
Can't help but agree with that.
Of course, it is a little more complicated in that occasionally Open Source licenses are used for reasons that are entirely non-political in nature. When that happens things tend to be released under the BSD or MIT licenses or some variation, or under a proprietary license (which may even have terms prohibiting commercial use), rather than explicitly collectivist licenses like GPL or LGPL.
What political reasons do people use OSS licenses?
In other words, a 'perfect' piece of code would, by definition, generate no revenue from its open source halo.
I'm a big a fan of open source in general, but not so much of the sustainability of its business model (as you know)
But it's also true that you can use GPL as the loss-leader and then complement it with other (sometimes proprietary) software.
Good luck
Apache's dominance didn't come from being open source fundamentally. It did come from being widely and freely available and being open to certain parties that had an interest in putting it on ever more platforms. And, as others have pointed out, it remains unburdened by GPL but choice of license really wasn't the point of your blog so I'll not take further issue with GPL here.
I agree with your "means to an end" and "distribution mechanism" points strongly. I just don't see the rest of the blog entry proving much more than these two points which, in turn, makes me question free software or FOSS as the hammer needed to turn these bolts.
Open source goes well beyond the GPL.
I think Open Source keeps proprietary software on it's toes and the research and innovations that come from big software houses force Open Source to try harder - all in all it's the best way to have proper development for all our systems.
We'd be in a stalemate in no time if we left it only in the hands of either.
I have recently discussed the same topic, and mostly agree with you. ;-)
Except I don't think the GPL is the only true license. I really think LGPL, EPL and consorts can offer more in this area (free market and capitalism applied to the software industry), but I'm open to the discussion. :-)
You can check it out here: <http://blogs.nuxeo.com/ebarroca/2009/01/free-market-open-source-and-risk-mitigation.html>.
See you,
EB.
definitely contradictory
if the author truly believes OSS is the means to an ends (and I agree)
why the entire company should not brand itself around "Open Source" like a cheap buzzword
open source in face value means source available, open for modification
trying to extrapolate it to capitalism or communism - is really a crime in itself
the reality (common to proprietary or open source) is
- turning open source into cash : in the end, what good is a pedigree dog if it's dead, all good software needs continual effort and energies
- you get what you pay for: to pay $500 for a software that works makes more sense than $5 on a crappy proprietary program that is badly maintained and get handcuffed to the sinking ship
- licensing is legalese horror - viral licenses eventually force hardworking companies to find workarounds (like Qt), engage in market control (like Android) or try sidestepping (see AGPL vs Google) or use OSS to fulfill hidden agendas (Flex)
if you don't understand the above
let me simply put what OSS means to me : "longevity" and "quality". period.
not a positive check on proprietary software
definitely not a freebie
- by BrnRvrd August 3, 2009 2:42 PM PDT
- Do not confuse Free Markets and Capitalism. Socialism's basic principles are not incompatible with Free markets of goods and services. They are indeed overlapping with the GPL.
- Reply to this comment
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(28 Comments)Inform yourself (as in do your reading, as a professional journalist should do) before coming up with half baked punchlines.