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The gift economy and free software (NewsForge)
This lengthy NewsForge editorial looks at the
economics of developing free software. "It's not necessarily the
development philosophy that scares [big proprietary software corporations]
so much as it is the erroneous idea that Free Software must be free of
charge as well as free as in rights, and therefore there are no benefits
for the creators and maintainers of the software. This is, as modern
philosophers often say, "old thinking." It's a form of outdated reasoning
from the Industrial Age."
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The gift economy and free software (NewsForge) Posted Jun 7, 2004 22:06 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] One thing that I think frequently gets forgotten in discussing the economics of OSS is the extent to which is limits the developer's risk. OSS developers are often in the position of having already done some development with some other motivation (frequently to solve one of their problems, curiousity, or entertainment). They are then faced with the question of what to do with the result.They could just let the code languish, which is probably a popular option, but not one we hear much about. It is also somewhat unsatisfying, like getting a high score on a video game and not entering your initials. (I'd actually bet this is the most common case; I personally have over 60k lines of code that I've written and not released, and I'm probably forgetting a lot.) They could do a traditional business venture. But that requires a non-trivial amount of money and work; they'd have to do marketting, sales, distribution, billing, accounting, and so forth. None of these are likely to be much fun, and hiring someone to do them costs a lot. Going this route, it becomes necessary to make substantial revenue in order to break even, and that is a non-negligable risk. Even if there is eventually a payoff, it won't be immediate. Practically no investor would invest in a one-person company selling one small program; it doesn't make sense for even the most risk-friendly programmer to try this. Therefore, releasing the software as open source has a positive financial incentive relative to selling it, and is nearly equal to ignoring it, while being more satisfying. Even ignoring any net gains the programmer might get from releasing an open source program, the programmer can be pretty confidant of not losing anything on it. I would actually guess that asking why open source software is written is generally missing the point; it's written as in-house (often in an actual house) software. The question should be why the software goes from being in-house to open, and there the motivation is more clear: "why not?" and "what else would you do with it?"
The gift economy and free software (NewsForge) Posted Jun 8, 2004 9:12 UTC (Tue) by hathawsh (subscriber, #11289) [Link] I agree. Each time I've written and sold proprietary software on my own, I wound up in risky situations. Life is more comfortable when I'm writing and using open source software.I like the gift economy concept, but I think it misses the mark. None of the open source developers I know are really pursuing status. The open source world is more like a big university where each project is a classroom. Most of the time I'm a student, but in a few classrooms I try to teach. Tuition is free, classrooms are accessible 24 hours a day, and great minds get together there all the time. People don't go to earn money; they go to learn and contribute. Businesses benefit from the resulting skills and contribute money in ways that support open source. Proprietary software, on the other hand, looks to me like an amusement park. You have to pay for every ride, the rides only last so long, and you get nothing out of them but a thrill. Knowledge is not accessible in this environment: although roller coasters are often used in physics textbooks, you can't learn much about physics by riding roller coasters. You go home with a sunburn and a little less money. You long for more useful environments like universities.
The gift economy and free software (NewsForge) Posted Jun 8, 2004 9:26 UTC (Tue) by evgeny (subscriber, #774) [Link] Well said. I'd also add that releasing a code as an open source implies some investments (of time if nothing else) as well. Infrastructure sites like sourceforge, savannah, etc help enourmously in this respect and we owe them a lot.
The gift economy and free software (NewsForge) Posted Jun 8, 2004 14:28 UTC (Tue) by vondo (guest, #256) [Link] They could do a traditional business venture. But that requires a non-trivial amount of money and work; they'd have to do marketting, sales, distribution, billing, accounting, and so forth. None of these are likely to be much fun, and hiring someone to do them costs a lot. Going this route, it becomes necessary to make substantial revenue in order to break even, and that is a non-negligable risk. Even if there is eventually a payoff, it won't be immediate. Practically no investor would invest in a one-person company selling one small program; it doesn't make sense for even the most risk-friendly programmer to try this.Therefore, releasing the software as open source has a positive financial incentive relative to selling it, and is nearly equal to ignoring it, while being more satisfying. Even ignoring any net gains the programmer might get from releasing an open source program, the programmer can be pretty confidant of not losing anything on it. Even better, OSS lets you test the waters for financial gain, in a sense. Example: I wrote something I expected to be used just in house. In time, another group picked it up to use it, then another, then another. Supporting these additional users took a little of my time. Now another group is picking it up, but they need rather extensive changes, so I'm working out a contracting arrangement to tailor the product to their needs. All of this happenned adiabatically; I would never have sat down and said "I'm going to release this to make money off of it."
The gift economy and free software (NewsForge) Posted Jun 11, 2004 9:46 UTC (Fri) by kreutzm (subscriber, #4700) [Link] And other users might extend your tool, find additional bugs, so the next time you use it, it is more valuable than before, saving you money (because saving you the additional development time or money loss by incorrect operation of the tool).
Barn Raising ... Posted Jun 8, 2004 13:05 UTC (Tue) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] That's another motive for open source.You do favours for other people, so that when you need something you're in a position to call them in on it! And as others have pointed out, if you had to write the code yourself for some reason or other, the cost of releasing it is nil, and the benefits (calling in the odd favour or two ...) can be well worth it :-) Cheers,
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