Free as in Mortgage Repayment
Okay, so in the first (zeroth?) hashlugradio broadcast, I put forth the view that the OS business model treated the programmers time as worthless. I wasn’t called upon it in the broadcast, but have been since. This is what I mean:
I am an individual programmer – not part of a massive company – I believe whole-heartedly in the Free/Open Source Movement. I scratch itches. I spend my time programming. I give away the results. I do not get paid for this.
How do I pay my rent?
- 2006-08-15 13:38:01
- Updated 2 minutes later
- By Aquarion
- From Evolving Media, Bedford
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- Filed under LUGRadio & Programming
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Edmund Schluessel:
There’s always the dockyards.
sil:
A few ways, all of which you already know about:
1. Get a job with an OSS company, who will pay you to hack on Free code (the Linus Torvalds approach)
2. Allow people to influence the direction you hack in on software of your choice with money (i.e., they say “make this thing your priority, because we need it, and here’s some cash”) (the Divmod/Twisted approach)
3. Help people install or run your software with personal contact (rather than just referring them to the FAQ); essentially here you’re acting as a consultant for that particular software (the Lemur/Xapian approach)
4. Charge for support contracts (a bit different from 3 above) and do the support (the Red Hat/Novell approach)
5. Sell nicer versions of your software (with a box and a printed manual, etc) (the Red Hat/Novell approach again)
SJ:
In fact, I had this discussion with rory of Soylentred.net ages ago. I have always held that ’the labourer is deserving of his reward’ as my boss would say.
The free software movement is fantastic, excellent and more nice things for end-users like me. it ‘s even a nice hobby for enthusiasts. At the same time, it si the application of marketable skills to prduce a product which you then give away. Seems a shame. It’s not like I wouldn’t pay a small amount for Firefox or videolan or whatever.
I realise that this isn ‘t helping to pay the rent either; but I suppose that the skills you use in writing Open-Source are transferable? are there not commercial entities who’ll pay for your work? or at least universities that’ll give grants?
I dunno, I find the whole thing a little too communist…
mrben:
Simple – you sell your software.
When you are contracted to do work as a programmer, you get people to pay for the work that you do, on the understanding that the benefit they get is the software that you have produced for them, but that the software itself will be released as open source.
As ESR points out in CATB, for the majority of people the value they get is from having the software, not from selling it. If someone contracts you to write software, and at the end they have the software, then there should be no problem with you open sourcing it (assuming it is written into the contract). Thus you pay the rent, and benefit the community.
Whether this works in practice is a whole other kettle of fish.