On Tue, 4 Sep 2001 23:41:21 -0700, "David MacLellan"
>Hello Everyone,
>I have been in the software development game for the last decade. I have
>been using Microsoft technologies mostly however feeling the pinch from
>excessive licensing cost and the ever changing technology I have descovered
>Linux and I want to persue it.
>I'm not slamming linux but can anyone answer these simple questions?
>1) How does a linux based company make money after giving away the source?
>(Lets face it we all have to live!)
Linux-based companies concentrate on servicing their software for
their profits, but one important distinction between giving the
software itself away for free and giving the source code away for free
is that not everyone knows how or wants to spend the time compiling
the source code into the software. Thus Linux companies can still
make a profit selling the compiled software even though the source
code is GPLed.
Secondly, not all Linux projects have to be GPLed. You can exercise
full proprietary rights over a Linux application, and you will still
sell software within the Linux community, provided your product is
good and works well.
Quote:>2) How does one make money as an enterprising developer if I allow my source
>and binaries to be freely distributed without charge?
And there is the distinction: while you have to distribute the source
code freely under the GPL license, you are under no requirement to
distribute the *binaries* freely.
However, as per the servicing arrangements making the profits, here's
how the open source movement has a step above M$: if you are trying to
make a profit from sales of software which is equal to your customer
support profit, then you lose money when someone copies your software
and gives it for free to someone else, since you cannot sell support
to that new customer since they are guilty of software piracy.
If you make most of your money from servicing your software and very
little of your efforts are spent trying to make a profit from selling
the software itself, every person who gets a copy of your software is
a NEW CUSTOMER to whom you can now sell customer service for
additional profits.
As mentioned above, applications for Linux can be proprietary if you
want them to be. Just because most of the apps for Linux happen to be
GPLed doesn't mean yours has to be.
Quote:>3) Can a novice just grab my code and do whatever the hell they want to with
>it and make it unstable with poor programming techniques and pass it on?
Yes. Can they do it under your name? No, their name gets tacked onto
the poor quality product while your good name rests solely with the
good quality product.
And as per Linux proprietary software, if you made it proprietary, you
can take them to court under conventional copyright laws if they grab
your proprietary conventionally copyrighted code and make their own
changes.
Quote:>4) Can someone take my code and make a few changes and market it as their
>code without consequence?
Yes, but they have to indicate which portions of the source code came
from you. The GPL is a two-way street: you have to give it out
freely, they have to indicate that **you** gave it to them.
And as per Linux proprietary software, if you made it proprietary, you
can take them to court under conventional copyright laws if they grab
your proprietary conventionally copyrighted code and make their own
changes.
Quote:>5) How can developers globally agree on a common architecture for my
>project?
They get in organizations and committees and decide on these things.
Sure, it wasn't the initial way to handle OS, but they figured out
early on that standardizing some of it was a Good Thing.
Quote:>6) Do all Linux developers give away their source code?
Depends on the Licensing. If you business-BSD license your stuff, you
don't have to. If you copyright your code in the conventional way,
you don't have to. GPLed means you have to give away the source code,
but you do retain the right to people leaving your name on your source
code.
Quote:>7) If others contribute to my code base but I think it's straying from my
>original architecture is there any recourse?
Sure: don't accept contributions to your code which you don't want in
your code! Other people may develop parallel development of similar
coding projects, but you do have final control over what code you
choose to incorporate into your own projects.
The GPL requires that source code be freely given out. It doesn't
require that you accept all source code offered to you.
Quote:>8) Is it risky to agressively develope a new Linux based project at this
>time considering Microsoft's guideline that development costs are typically
>in excess of 1 million USD per application minimum (For Windows products)?
Most of M$ programming costs come from trying to fix the bugs and
holes in the Windoze operating system. This isn't Linux-nut
hyperbole, this is what independent M$ programmers indicate when asked
about what the majority of their coding efforts under Windoze
constitute (and what many of them say is a contributing factor to
their preference for coding under Linux over coding under Windoze).
Linux, by contrast, is already a stable Operating System, so you can
actually spend your time coding the projects and not coding around
mistakes in the Operating System.
And since you can still sell your software and are only required to
give away the source code, you can still get a profit from software
sales and from customer service. Since you were allowed to spend more
project time on making the final product work well and had to spend
practically no time at all making it work within the Operating System,
you've probably spent less time getting the product to market than a
similar M$-based company, and your product is also much more stable
than the similar M$-based product.
by