The Economics of Free Software

[Andy]

There was an article published in June 2002 which I think is still relevant today. I only discovered it today, my memory is not that good!

It is very interesting and can get you questioning why some apparently crazy business decisions are being made and the logic behind paying people to create free software and releasing technical details of interfaces etc to the public domain.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html


This article really got me thinking about the best way to apply my efforts in my software development. It saved me wasting time developing an inferior solution to part of my product and inspired me to search for the best available alternative and I struck gold. This allows me to incorporate the best solution that is free of charge into my product and focus on the areas that I am strong on and that people will pay for.

[SensoVision]

I've finally got time to read and comment this article and should say that it's interesting article, Andy, thanks for sharing!
He seems to be right in describing concept of supply and concept adapting it for computer world. Also it's truth that corporations sponsoring Linux done not purel for freedom of speech but they are looking forward to get income from this investment in future and I'm sure that people engaged in Linux developing understand this as well(just post this as author is drawing the picture that programmers who are smart enough to write complicated code which works well for millions of people simply naive, and I think it's plain wrong).
Also I've got feeling that author like Windows blindly and didn't really used Linux...

Here's an example. When Slashdot asked Linux developer Moshe Bar if future Linux kernels would be compatible with existing device drivers, he said that they didn't need to. "Proprietary software goes at the tariff of US$ 50-200 per line of debugged code. No such price applies to OpenSource software." Moshe goes on to claim that it's OK for every Linux kernel revision to make all existing drivers obsolete, because the cost of rewriting all those existing drivers is zero. This is completely wrong.

and here is example... he's wrong here in my opinion, why people freely offering it's time to write software should waste extra time for writing code which would be compatible for commercial drivers? Why corporations which make millions on us paying them for hardware couldn't invest a bit into upgrading driver to match new kernel? NVidia doesn't have problems with it's drivers updating it when necessary, so why does others should have such a problem?
Also devices under Linux are driven in a bit different manner than in Windows, usually they don't require some driver installation, many devices use same chips inside and could run with same driver... so many devices would run out of box with modules included in the kernel. I should say that some equipment (e.g. my DVB and TV tuner) working much better than under Windows.

He seems to see in sponsoring only side where companies try to make more money but forget about plain users which win from this. almost each commercial war e.g. between two competing companies which try to get customers by better pricing actually good for end users isn't it? So why criticize Sun or Netscape for their actions which support open source?
Especially when software like Firefox is works better, more stable and secure than it's rival...

Despite the fact that Mozilla has all the features I want and I'd love to use it if only to avoid the whack-a-mole pop-up-ad game, I'm too used to hitting Alt+D to go to the address bar. So sue me. One tiny difference and you lose your commodity status.

Of course browser is different as it's done by different developers but unlike IE it's designed for comfort use, I've installed it on many PCs and after time users told me that they couldn't imagine how good some programs could work. It's different but if Mozilla developers simply copy features of IE and it's behavior they wouldn't make any progress and this project would die, plagiarism isn't the way of making good software...
Not sure like others but reason of not switching to better product because of one small shortcut sounds to me as a bad reason, especially if take into consideration that there are so many extensions that there are probably one which let you customize your shortcuts...

I didn't wish to sound rude as actually I enjoy reading the article in overall as he's market observations are interesting and correct, but some statements in my opinion are wrong and I don't wish them to mislead people, that's why I posted such reply.
And I think it's worth reading to make your own opinion on this subject.

PS Andy, just of curiosity, if it's not secret maybe you can share what parts of your software have been changed under this article influence?

[Andy]

Thanks for you opinion Sensovision, you make some good points about lack of care by harware manufacturer's not supporting all platforms just because it doesn't immediately result in revenue.

and here is example... he's wrong here in my opinion, why people freely offering it's time to write software should waste extra time for writing code which would be compatible for commercial drivers? Why corporations which make millions on us paying them for hardware couldn't invest a bit into upgrading driver to match new kernel? NVidia doesn't have problems with it's drivers updating it when necessary, so why does others should have such a problem?

You make a very good point here. I suspect that the lack of development effort is nothing to do with the device driver software engineers, but their short-sighted managers. These guys will tow the corporate line any never ruffle any feathers up top so their career prospers. Sorry for my possible confusing terminology here. However, the software engineers could do well by producing drivers themselves outside work and publishing on a blog for example.

I think the criticism of Netscape was about their lack of direction so they ended up floundering in the internet boom. I forgot why Sun was criticised they have flourished I think.

Yes, a really good article to read for a refreshing change from the usual free blah blah blah which is often misunderstood as meaning only free of purchase price of the software.

PS Andy, just of curiosity, if it's not secret maybe you can share what parts of your software have been changed under this article influence?

I don't hide any secrets. I already disclosed that I was interfacing to ASpell for spell checking. This is licenced under the LGPL which many Linux users probably never read. I am also using a free Installer program (Inno Setup) which is free of restrictions unlike GPL. But my current software install is 100% my own code, even the web templates.

The article got me thinking not to resist the force of teams of people trying to make the best free-source solutions to certain things so the article made me decide to use free software for the WYSIWYG editor control in my next product rather than try and code this myself. Also, I am attracted to the text editing engine from Syntilla if I can user it under C# .Net for my professional web editor. Since I need to make a living, I am happy to endorse these things and help spread the word and not have to worry about people re-distributing my software for no charge via file-sharing networks etc. For this reason, I don't use any software that it licenced under GPL. I guess my thinking would strike a chord with anyone who has no job other than programming and they work on each project for many months before it is released for download?

My next product will be something amazing, going beyond WYSIWYG i.e. the visual design process is much simplified and the website making decision process is like a wizard style. This is not the pro version of my web development software but another product aimed at making a small sales/marketing site. You should not even need a paint program to supplement this.

While I am here, it is a good chance to show people a resource of free code outside of the Linux community that I get alot of inspiration and help from. This place is where developers post their articles for reasons like: paying back to the software developer community for all the help they got in the past, getting noticed by potential employers and many other reasons. http://www.codeproject.com Lately I am hitting on this site so much to learn new techniques of coding.