[Ilugc] Is the proprietary camp winning ?
- From: toufeeqh@xxxxxxxxx (Toufeeq Hussain)
- Date: Mon Oct 16 11:16:35 2006
Hi,
On 10/16/06, Ingeneur <goda.abishek@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Our point is about developer salaries. Now your company has employed and
paid salaries to s/w people to fix/customize the code.
To have salaries we dont need to go OSS or FOSS (if they arent the same)
In a closed source model the money would have been routed through the vendor
of software and that company would have grown monstrous.
After all, why will I start a company to do charity?
Open Source enables everyone to choose how they should run their business
and distributes wealth and business opportunities more evenly. There will be
no hassles about evil/benign monopoly, stiffling of innovation etc.
But do innovations happen in the industry? Can companies invest time
and money in research that they will *give away* to the community?
A wise man once told me:
"Free Software is not about altruism but about self-preservation".
Your notion that companies need to _give_away_ software as charity is
wrong. When a company decides to contribute to the Free software
society it is doing it mainly on _business_ grounds.
Robert 'r0ml' Lefkowitz explains this beautifully in his talk
'Seismology of Open Source'[1] why OpenSource/Free Software is what it
is today. I suggest you give it a hear.
Google is an excellent example of FOSS-based business. They spent
years developing their products behind closed doors using FOSS. Today
their needs on Free Software is so much that they _NEED_ to hire the
best Free Software developers available. Do you think people like Greg
Stein, Guido and Andrew Morton are hired by Google out of charity ? Do
you think each of their commits is blessed by Google's do-no-evil
deity ? The truth is Google needs Free Software as a form of
self-preservation because it depends on it, there is no charity
involved in any case. The Free Software community is not being
charitable towards Google nor is Google being charitable to the
free-software community. It's a symbiotic relationship.
Of course, Google was not a active FOSS-player from day-one of it's
inception and so will no other startup be. The transition towards
being a citizen of the Free Software society takes three steps (IMHO)
and in the coming years all _mega_corporations_ will have to take it.
1. Recognize that the Free Software community exists. (discovery)
2. Utilize Free Software as a replacement to proprietary software and
discover the merits if any exist (usage).
3. If the outcome from Step 2 is positive , then make sure that the
free software being used for it's needs is the best. (perfection)
4. Contribute the changes made to the community on a case-by-case
basis (active contribution).
A FOSS based business never starts out thinking it is going to
actively contribute code back to the community. As it evolves and
reaches a strong position (while still using FOSS), contribution to
Free Software becomes an eventuality.
[1]
http://osc.gigavox.com/shows/detail1502.html
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http://toufeeq.net
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