Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

No Doubt

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:8/15/2000; 11:41:47 PM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/15/2000
Msg #:19749 (In response to 19739)
Prev/Next:19748 / 19750

Nobody should be surprised (or elated) that open source projects generate consulting revenues. If you make your money from supporting your software, the ability of the software to stand on its own is obviously less important than if software were your *only* source of revenue. In fact, cynical people would identify that there is economic incentive built in to such a system to encourage you to build software that needs lots of support.

As for your dilemma, I have another way for you to make money off of free software: sell hardware. You see, as long as software is not your focus, free software is a good thing. Would someone more cynical than I point out the economic incentives embedded in a system where hardware vendors provide the software for free?

To me, the power of software is like the power of "prime" or derivatives in Calculus. Services are a linear function; you need to spend more hours to help more people. Hardware is a linear function as well; you need to add more silicon to help more people. Of course, with hardware, Moore's law means that the slope of the line changes with time, so time is the first derivative, or "prime" of the hardware function. On the other hand, software can increasingly add value to peoples' lives without requiring more blood, sweat, or silicon. Sustained creative thought is the first derivative of the software function -- unlike services which you cannot control and hardware which you must wait for Moore's law to improve, you can apply your mind directly to software challenges and see payback. (Of course, sustained thought is a factor in all these areas, but the point is that this has more impact on software than anywhere else).

The whole reason that people find software exciting, and I daresay the reason that people are willing to write for free, is that software has the power to touch *many* lives. Your small initial effort can snowball and create a very widespread positive influence. Depending on your self-esteem situation, this can be reward enough in itself.

The reason I bring this up, though, is I believe this is the crucial differentiator between a "software person" and someone who just writes software. If you are a software person, it is the ability of this accelerator to influence the velocity of mankind's travel that excites you. And you are driven to figure out how to make that gas pedal push down even more.

Software is the most leveraged way possible to harness human intellect. Services and hardware don't scale as well, and in a society already straining from lack of intellectual talent to fill current IT demand, it's an ethical violation to squander talents on high-margin one-to-one services. From a selfish individual standpoint, it would seem wise to milk the current IT worker shortage this way for personal profit. From an economic standpoint, though, it would provide more value to focus on building software that doesn't *need* services or expensive hardware -- and one would hope that the capitalistic system would reward accordingly.

By the same token, a moral economic perspective would dictate that your platform be customizable and extendable by the largest portion of the population possible. And I have news for you; a much larger portion of the bell curve can figure out VBA code and macros than can compile their entire OS written in C++. Any good software company gives you the option that "if you don't like what it does, change it". Granted, there are a few people who think they need to be tinkering with the plumbing of the house, but that's you, not your users. The idea that everything would be better if Joe user could just download the source and recompile his OS is laughable. Users don't want to do that, and you are betraying your users' trust if you waste too many cycles on something they didn't ask for.

And now the idea that OSS is more secure because source is available -- interesting but wrong, and unsupported by any real-world evidence. Security protocols, encryption algorithms, etc. benefit from public review. It's not very rational to extrapolate this truism to be all-inclusive, however. I suppose your house would be more secure if you conducted periodic tours for strangers to look through it? We are talking people here... If Leonard Adleman wants to look at my crypto algorithm, that's cool. I trust him and he's got a reputation to protect. But letting a stranger through my house? And that is *more* secure?? Apparently reason is another bursting bubble..

Cheers, Joshua

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