Larry McVoy on BitKeeper, kernel development, Linus Torvalds and BrucePerens (LinuxWorld)
Posted Jan 28, 2003 14:57 UTC (Tue) by
MarkSwanson (guest, #9328)
Parent article:
Larry McVoy on BitKeeper, kernel development, Linus Torvalds and Bruce
Perens (LinuxWorld)
I've written my first Linux device driver in 1993 so I'm not new to Linux
or open source. I've also read a fair bit about Larry and Bitkeeper over
the years.
A couple of questions come to mind:
1. It's Larry's company. Why should anyone begrudge him the right to make
a profit? It's Larry's choice to give away the source for free (or not) as
much as it is your choice to choose your religion. Why dislike him for
that?
2. Larry has spent a lot of money developing a product that free software
developers can use for free. Shouldn't we be thankful?
3. Charging for goods is a proven business model. On planet Earth - given
all of its incredibly vast and experienced free software developers - the
only way a product like BitKeeper could be born, grow, and survive was by
using its current business model. CVS (arch, et. all) despite being useful
are not bitkeeper. If the history of CVS development is any indication
they never will be. Shouldn't we learn from this?
4. The only way free software has made money is through the consulting
model. Can every software product morph to fit into the consulting model?
Can every developer/company fit into the consulting model?
Free software is great and I devote a lot of my personal and professional
time to it. However, through years of experience I have witnessed serious
morality problems with the consulting business model. I believe it has
fundamental sales and marketing issues that can not be avoided and only
grow worse the larger a company gets. I believe that in the real world not
every developer/product/company can or should give away their IP and
become a consulting company.
I do not begrudge Larry for making a living selling proprietary software.
I hope no one will begrudge me for it either.
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