Some days back, my friend and a GNU/Linux fanatic 
Anurag called me up to inform me that Richard Stallman is in Mumbai and will be giving a speech in the Patkar auditorium on Sunday 27th August 2006. I got excited! He surely is a genius in his own right and founder of Free Software Foundation and GNU. I attended the meet and was somewhat disappointed to hear the same old things from the great man! What is “Free” software (and it doesn’t mean freeware!), why we should use free software, etc.
On hearing the speech, I remembered a Stallman book Free Software, A Perspective, that I had read (once again given by Anurag) and the whole thought process started once again. I must say, I disagree with Stallman’s economical ideas.
“Free” software is an ideallistic approach. Very noble. Good for the society and the users, but doesn’t seem good for the programmer. I have been a programmer as well as a user. So can think from both the perspectives. From a user’s perspective, I will say I love GNU/Linux because I don’t have to spend for it and still get something thats fantastic and better than the alternatives. I can get it from someone who is willing to give it to me. Thanks to Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman.
But from the programmer’s perspective it sounds financially unviable. By programmer, I mean a person who does coding for earning his livelihood and does not code only because of his love for development. Fulfilling my passion for development doesn’t give me my food, clothing and other necessities. I don’t mind contributing to free software in my part time. But can’t take it up as full time.
The financial status of Bill Gates and Richard Stallman will amply demonstrate what I am trying to say. Both are geniuses in their own way. But look at the vast difference in their monetary strengths. Most people (that includes me) are selfish. I can’t think about the benefit to the society at my cost. I am not as noble as Stallman/Linus. I will first think about how I will feed myself and my family. I will think what will give me maximum monetary gain out of my efforts. I would not like to give away my code and allow people to freely copy and then wait for someone to sponsor me because they like what I do. I don’t want to wait for gratuitious donations!!
Here are a few things I feel like quoting from the book. There may be many more things worth quoting, but can’t quote too much.
What does society need? …. programs that people can read, fix, adapt and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is a black box that we can’t study or change …. Soceity also needs freedom.
-Richard Stallman on Pg 58
Agreed sir that society needs freedom. But what about the programmer? What about his needs? He needs money to survive and enjoy. Why should he remain dependant on someone’s mercy and donations? Once the source code is revealed and people are allowed to copy it without restrictions, how many people will pay him for it? Support and service are just a small part of revenue. For companies with small scale operations, survival on support and service is extremely difficult.
The economic argument for owners is erroneous, but the economic issue is real. Some people write useful software for the pleasure of writing it or for admiration and love; but if we want more software than those people write, we need to raise funds.
-Richard Stallman on Pg 58
Its quite clear here that money flow, the working capital is not too great and admittedly it is necessary. You are dependant on either a programmer’s socialistic ideas or a donor’s willingness to donate. Financially, not a very ideal situation. Programmer is demanding payment for his efforts. He need not beg for donations.
The Free Software Foundaton (FSF), a tax-exempt charity for free software development, raises funds by selling GNU CD-ROMs, T-shirts, maunals and deluxe distributions, (all of which users are free to copy and change), as well as from donations.
-Richard Stallman on Pgs 58, 59
A software company has to sell T-shirts to earn!! It has to rely on donations!!! Is it what programmer’s want?
Some free software developers make money by selling support services. Cygus Support ….. estimates that about 15 % of its staff activity is free software development – a respectable percentage for a software company
-Richard Stallman on Pg 59
Does this mean that 85% activity towards non-free software is an acceptable norm and it is necessary for survival?
Science must push copyright aside
-Richard Stallman on Pgs 60 to 62
If a day comes when a programmer cannot claim copyright on the software he has created and has to make it free (as in freedom), how many programmers will still put in 100%? Even as of now, out of all the contributors to the free software, how many are actually doing it full time? If programmers see low revenues, won’t they lose motivation? Will that not reduce the pace of R & D? Will that be beneficial to society?
My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietory software that forbids cooperation, and thus make our society better.
-Richard Stallman on Pg 73
Admittedly, these are idealistic principles. Can’t expect everyone to be as selfless and noble as Stallman.
Let’s put all other arguments aside. Just concentrate on the economic fallout from a programmer’s point of view. Does he earn his livelihood or enough returns on his efforts if he decides give a free (as in freedom) software? Free software theory sounds more like communist ideas - everything for the society and nothing (or hardly anything) for your own benefit. Proprietory software sounds more like capitalism. Communism sounds great, but at how many places in the world has it survived?
Those who want to earn prefer capitalism, those who have to spend prefer communalism. As a software user, I would love to use free software because I can get it without spending. But as a full time commercial programmer, I wouldn’t like to give away my source code for free. Opening out source for mass reviewing (and holding back copyright) still seems somewhat acceptable, but always releasing it under GNU/GPL seems unviable.
I can’t remain dependant on donations in spite of putting in so much efforts. I can give a part of my time towards free software, but not entire time. I will have to resort to proprietory software for survival. Even still as of now there are companies like SuSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, etc. who are financially doing good on free software, but is everything they dish out truly free?
My gut feeling says Linus wouldn’t have released the kernel under GNU/GPL if he would have felt that he is sitting on something big. He needed people to try it out, he needed contributions and thats why had to open it up. He wasn’t that confident. As regards Stallman, he would have released everything irrespective of its financial gain. However, this is just a gut feeling and an opinion.
However during the lecture I came to know somewhat more about some personal unknown characteristics of Stallman. Here are some:
- He drinks a lot of tea. Actually, he drinks more tea than water!
- He keeps taking short breaks every 10-15 min! Seems somewhat impatient.
- He considers some of the Microsoft prodcuts as “spywares”
- He thinks like a programmer (of course). His first points are not number 1, but he refers to them as number 0.
- He “performs” on stage during his speeches. He pulled out a robe and a halo at the end of the speech in addition to various other acts during it.
- Last but not least by any means, he criticses Linus Torvalds for some of his views. Stallman doesn’t like it when someone refers a GNU/Linux operating system as Linux and considers Linus responsible for it to an extent.
September 17th, 2006 at 10:36 am
September 17th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
For example, if he insists that hardware manufacturer must make their drivers open source and “free”, then hardware support will suffer all the more under GNU/Linux. This stance will actually promote the non-free OS like Windows which will keep supporting all hardware and this in turn will give bad vibes about Linux. Acceptability will reduce further!
In my hunble opinion, Stallman is being impractical!
September 19th, 2006 at 7:21 am
September 19th, 2006 at 10:52 am
At the moment I am maintaining a neutral stance cos I don’t really know the full implications of the move.
September 19th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
Sorry to disappoint all GNU fans but Stallman’s economic ideas seem flawed! Do I have to sell t-shirts and wait for donations to survive! And that too in spite of writing softwares with hundreds of lines of code!! If I have to ultimately sell t-shirts, I might as well stop writing software and sell t-shirts full time. I will earn more!
I have pretty much an open mind! I am ready to get convinced that Stallman is right. But give arguments and answer the questions that I have raised!! I am ready for a debate.
But once again, let me make it clear. I thank Stallman for the softwares made by GNU and FSF. They are no doubt wonderful. My arguments are not against those softwares, but his economic ideas and insistence that every software should be released under GNU/GPL.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:44 am
September 21st, 2006 at 12:05 am
September 21st, 2006 at 3:18 am
September 21st, 2006 at 4:46 am
I may be wrong, but as of now Stallman is struggling with lots of things. He never gave any importance to money, so he doesn’t have loads of it (although he had great potential). Additionally the biggest software that applied his GNU/GPL - the “Linux OS” is known by someone else’s name and he is struggiling to prefix “GNU” to it. So he lost on both the counts.
He neither got enough money nor enough (and deserved) fame!
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:53 am
September 23rd, 2006 at 12:00 am
October 4th, 2006 at 1:43 am
But I’ll be following the same untill a better solutions arrives.
October 5th, 2006 at 5:15 am
Well, even I don’t mind opening up the source code of my applications. I have done that in past even when I hadn’t heard about Stallman and Linux was in its infancy. So many programmers have made use of my C function library and made their lives easier.
But that works as long as I don’t code for livelihood!
October 5th, 2006 at 5:54 am
Ashish wrote:
Stallman’s reply:
Ashish wrote:
Stallman’s reply:
October 5th, 2006 at 10:08 am
If you can’t post his full message here, can you please email it to me? I am pretty eager to read and reply to it. I already have a reply (or counter-argument ;)) to some of the points that has been raised in the reply. But I would like to read the whole message. Please post it here or email it to me. Thanks in advance
October 6th, 2006 at 2:32 am
You’ll get a better reply if you mail him directly, keeping things straight. And even I’m keen to know your counter points. Post it here also.
October 6th, 2006 at 7:25 am
He says we should live with less money! Why should we??
And is this not what I am saying? Using GNU/GPL means making less money!! Ask Sathya, Mehul and a few others! Are they willing to live with less money?? Sathya may need money for a better net connection and Mehul may need it for a better bike! I need it to secure my daughter’s future! Why should I not try to earn more?? I am not doing anything illegal!
Should a programmer go and beg for donations and sell t-shirts to earn money in spite of making so much effort in coding!! I have already said this and I am repeating. If ultimately I have to sell t-shirts to earn, I might as well stop coding and sell t-shirts full time. I will earn more!
Whats his differentiation between custom software and proprietory software?? I think they are not completely different things!! There is some over-lapping! Custom software can be proprietory as well! For example, if I develope an inventory control software for someone and he doesn’t pay me for the code, I may not give it to him! Still the software is custom software for its peculiarities! I may just fine tune it and sell some more copies! Or may even sell the software without any changes in the same line of business.
Lets take another example of how GNU/GPL could misfire! If I run a comapny which makes a great PIM after 9 months of effort and releases it under GNU/GPL. I sell one copy at Rs. 2000/- because no one will pay me more for a PIM!! Now, the buyer will give this software as a Diwali gift to all his customers without paying me a penny more!! So ultimately, I may manage to sell 30 copies and there are 1000 other people using it for free! How do I survive?? I simply can’t!! So I will either shut down software writing or stop releasing it under GNU/GPL!!
And who requires support in a PIM? I can’t rely on that revenue source because if people need support in a PIM, they won’t use it even if its a freeware!!
Lets carry the same example a little forward! My company is a new company and is not too well established. It is still an unknown company. Another big and known company gets hold of my code, fine tunes the code and starts selling the PIM with the help of its great marketing team. What do I gain out of this??
In my opinion, the existing revenue model of GNU/GPL is faulty. It needs an overhaul. There has to be at least a MLM (Multi-Level-Marketing) type of pyramid structure. In that structure, the original code writer must be given some share from the earnings of all those who derive their software by modifying the origianl software!
October 6th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
I believe current model of software usage should make way for usage based service model where each person is charged on part of software they use so the developer of that part gets the money as much as his software module is used. I know this is over simplification of the solution to the problem. But, then if the real solution is to be worked out on the current method of software development it will take a lot of time and effort from those who control big FLOSS projects and a revolutionary change in the way computing is done as of now.
October 7th, 2006 at 3:14 am
October 7th, 2006 at 3:25 am
God has given you a brain to think and form your own opinion. Don’t do something simply because someone else is telling you to do it. Think about it, find out all the pros and cons, get your doubts removed and then follow a path.
October 9th, 2006 at 1:13 am
Well, this is his reply.
Ashish wrote:
Stallman’s reply:
Ashish wrote:
Stallman’s reply:
October 10th, 2006 at 2:14 am
But, now his replies have shifted from economics to ethics!
Ethics is completely subjective. What I find ethical, someone else finds unethical and vice-versa. IMO, compelling someone to reveal the source code and then making free use of it to earn money is unethical because the original programmer is not paid enough for his efforts!!
Anyway, lets discuss everything else later. Please tell him to show me how I can earn enough money from GPLed software! I am seriously not interested in selling t-shirts or beg for donations!!
PS:
Additionally, as for comments about my conscience, when someone has no other convincing argument left, he starts with personal comments!! I think he must be having a lot more to say. I wonder why he wrote this!
October 10th, 2006 at 7:44 am
But freedom as both end-user and developer is good because as developers and fellow peers we can look at each others source code, learn from it. Re-usable code leads to good software made at half or quarter of the time bound.
Thats the way science works, thats the way knowledge passes from one source to another. As a end-user, the benifits are software can optimised for the given machine and built for that particular machine.
Again you can see, iam just speaking technically. Iam not that sure if ill speak correctly in a economic point of view and its immature to post my views here at this point.
But until a better economic startegy comes, there is no harm in following current. But as you know, actually most Free Software developers are Sponsored and Employed by MNC’s such as Red Hat.
Developers can charge for creating custom, task specified software for companies and corporations but general user softwares must be free.
These are just my views. They may be wrong. But to my heart i feel they are correct. Iam not speaking in a economic stand point.
October 11th, 2006 at 5:43 am
I read thru your reasons for following GPL. I have read all these many times earlier. All these reasons are good only from the other side of the fence (i.e. as a user). I say GPL is great for all those who use a GPLed software. But what about the programmer who originally wrote the code? Is he suppose to work only for progress of science, society, technology, knowledge, freedom, etc.?? What happens to HIM? How does he earn his daily bread (and cake too)?
In my hunble opinion, GPL fails miserably on the economic front especially for small developers, whether they develop custom software or general purpose one. So far I have not found a single convincing argument from anywhere.
February 21st, 2007 at 6:42 pm
This is how Red hat sells RHEL, and they do make money!!!
February 21st, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Please read thru the entire discussion to know what all has been discussed.
We all know how people can make money by getting employed with big guns. But what about small entrepreneurs? I want to be my own boss. I want to know how I can earn enough by releasing my softwares under GNU/GPL. Any clues?
By the way, RedHat and others are making millions from GNU/Linux. What does Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman and other programmers get from that? Shouldn’t they be getting something for their efforts?
February 24th, 2007 at 11:50 am
I am sure “small developers” doesn’t want to remain so all there life, and what would be the better way to improve skill than to work on world class softwares and move on to next level?
Robert Love author of “Linux Kernel Development” and maintainer of preemptive Linux kernel had shown his kills by working on the Linux Kernel and now he is “Chief Architect, Linux Desktop, at Novell”.
And come on, do you really think that everybody in the world has just one ambition in their life “to become millionaire”?
Heard about “Fame”, “Self Satisfaction on doing what you love to rather than what your manager love to”?
February 24th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Then there is one more:
Do you want to beg for donations and earn by selling T-shirts even after putting in so much effort in writing code? If that is what you have to ultimately do to earn your livelihood then it clearly shows that Freedomware fails miserably on economic front and that is the main topic of discussion here!
February 26th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Of-course people can compile it from source code and use it. But how many people compile and use softwares?
Last thing which I want to say here is, “Love it or Hate it, but you just can’t ignore it.”
Bye
February 27th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Of course I can sell my software after releasing it under GNU/GPL. But tell me one thing. How many copies of GNU/Linux or OpenOffice have you bought and how many have you just copied?
Take the example of a small programmer. He makes a small but very useful yet easy to use software and sells it’s first copy. The user likes it very much and recommends it to his 10 friends who in turn recommend it to 100 people.
If the software is released under GNU/GPL, all that the programmer would have is revenue from selling only 1 copy even if 111 people find it really useful! If it is not under GNU/GPL, he could have made some decent money for his efforts prompting him to work harder and make another good software! Love for coding doesn’t help you survive! You need money for it!
May 8th, 2007 at 7:21 am
Here’s what he wrote:
I would like to point a few core issues with it
1) You don’t HAVE to release your source code. If you are not using any of the GPL’d or free programs/resources in writing your program then you can release it under no matter what license you want; OTOH if you are using something for free (like GCC) while producing your bread and butter then it becomes ethical (and sometimes legally binding) to give something back to the community.
2) Major problem with people’s perception regarding Open Source is that you don’t charge for your work and keep it free-of-cost. The author is one of the members of that thought society which is entirely wrong.
3) Companies like Cedega keep their source code open for every one while providing compiled binaries at a cost. This keeps their business model intact while giving their software an open source advantage. They get many developers working on their code for free.
4) Qt releases its work under dual license where if their toolkit is used in commercial applications, the developer needs to pay.
5) Mozilla Corporation, raised revenues in order of $52.9 million in 2005 and their CIO Mitchell Baker drew a pay check of $120K for the year. Comparatively Opera, a popular closed source alternative generated 57.9 million Norwegian kroner or $9.65 million. Opera’s total earnings include the revenue from its mobile segment.
6) Their are numerous companies like RedHat and Novell who keep their source codes open (Source RPMs?) while earning more than enough money to “feed their families”.
Hope the reply helps! And please dont ask ME to justify these points :p If you wish to debate with him, please contact him via PM on thinkdigit.
May 8th, 2007 at 8:45 am
I thought we were just discussing on GPL?
Also go through http://article.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi/15148 this thread if you’d like. There’s a nice flamy discussion. It actually starts somewhere in http://article.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi/15104
May 8th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Pt 1:
Of course I can release under whatever licence I want, but this discussion is about releasing it under GPL.
Pt. 2:
I completely disagree with point no. 2 and mainly because it is based on assumption that my basics about GPL are not clear. But with this statement I can safely assume that the comment is written without reading (or at least without understanding) the complete post and other previous comments.
Pts. 3,4,5,6:
I agree that companies providing free software are making lots of money. What I am talking about is “ME” and not some big company! Take my example of a feature-rich PIM made by a small company. If the software is released under GPL how will that person make enough money?
And even when it concerns big companies, there are problems! Just imagine what can happen to RedHat with Oracle providing support for RH Linux!! How could Oracle hit under the belt? Simply because RH’s source code is open!
@mehul
I shall read thru as soon as I get some free time.
Thanks for those links.