The Fear Of Freeloaders Overblown In Both Proprietary And Open Arenas
from the stop-worrying dept
I remember reading a while ago how if you look at the extremists in diametrically opposed political parties, they tend to have a lot more similarities rather than differences. It seems that may be happening in the proprietary and open source worlds as well. We've discussed how silly it is for companies and individuals trying to understand "free" business models to worry about freeloaders. The fact is, yes, some people will get stuff for free and not contribute anything back. In fact, it may be a lot of people. But if the end result is that you are actually making more money overall from those who aren't freeloaders, who really cares? In some cases all those "freeloaders" are actually giving back in other ways, such as by amplifying and promoting your message for you, and bringing in new potential customers that wouldn't have known about you otherwise.For the most part, I assumed this was an issue for those with "proprietary" content/software. But, suddenly it's an issue that's getting attention in the "open source" world, with supporters of open source complaining about "freeloaders" who use open source software, but don't contribute back. This is silly. As Joel West points out, the whole point of open source software is that it can be used for any purpose. So, just as proprietary content creators shouldn't worry about freeloaders and focus on those who actually do contribute, the same is true for open source developers. Sure, some will freeload, but don't worry about them. Let them do what they want, and focus on providing more value for those who do contribute. In the end, the overall benefit will be much greater.
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Filed Under: freeloaders, open, proprietary
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Mindshare, anyone?
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Right...
Oh right, forgot, its all about greed now...GET MINE! GET MINE! GET MINE!! And anything that stands in the way of that is considered STEALING or some other breaking of the "rules."
F*cktards that exists today, I tell you...
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Re: Right...
It depends on the license. The GPL generally requires that changes you make and distribute be contributed back. Some companies (Cisco, I'm looking at you), have been trying to ignore that.
However, there are also people who distribute under other open source licenses that don't have that requirement (e.g. BSD) and then seem to complain.
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This happens quite a bit in volunteer organizations. A small core group do the lions share of the work while others don't bother. Guess what, sometimes that core group gets tired of doing all the work and stop doing it.
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Re:
What I think is really happening, is that open source is becoming more popular. Popular to more than just those who understand that working for open source doesn't necessarily translate into big pay days, and they're starting to feel all "Woe is me, I've chosen to do this work but I'm not happy with the conditions, so I'll cry about it instead of change my situation."
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What timeframe do they use?
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Re: What timeframe do they use?
I would venture a guess that right now most OSS users are new users and aren't likely to contribute for some time, AND that as long as adoption is on an upward climb, that will continue to be the case for quite a while. This ought to be seen as a really good thing because over time the number of new contributors will probably continue to grow right along with user adoption. Just not quite as fast.
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Re:
I think you missed the whole point of Mike's post. Both proprietary and open source software developers are taking the same attitude that what's "fair" is more important that what is most beneficial for the developers and the software itself. In short, they're cutting off their nose to spite their face.
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Re:
I see two distinct views in the comments: non-coders who seem to be saying 'WTF, I can't help with that and I shouldn't be expected to!' I agree, and I'm pretty sure the open-source producers agree as well.
Then there are the coders who are (theoretically) forking products and making improvements but not sharing back to the community, or worse yet attempting to sell 'their' product which is against the terms of almost every open-source license. In this scenario I agree with the open-source producers, improvements should be forwarded to the community, and people should not be charged for what is essentially open-source software with some add-ons.
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Re: Re:
Then there are those who violate the license, for example by distributing altered open source software without making their changes available. That is a problem, and one that gets dealt with. Obviously this all depends on the exact license in question, but generally, if someone is following the license terms, then everybody should shut up about it - they're in the right, and if the developer wanted something different they should have used a different license.
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Freeloaders
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How would Mike know that? I don't have to go any further. Unless he has time traveled into the future to see what is going to happen, there is no way to know.
perhaps open source will collapse on itself at some point, with the collection of egomaniacs and unsocial people who write the stuff, you never know when everyone is one dose of lithium away from losing their software.
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It's called a "prediction", doofus. Nobody knows the future with absolute certainty.
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People with any intelligence at all usually recognize a prediction when they see one. Morons, on the other hand...
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How would Mike know that? I don't have to go any further.
It's a good thing you didn't have to go any further, because that was the last line in the post.
Unless he has time traveled into the future to see what is going to happen, there is no way to know.
Since you seem to be unaware of this phenomenon, sometimes people will make a statement of belief and back it up with a supporting argument. This is what Mike has done. In most cases, these statements do not include lengthy disclaimers about the nature of opinion and the philosophical question of whether anything is really knowable. Does that help?
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Re: Re: Re:
Pot, meet Kettle.
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How do you freeload on something that is free?
I am not a programmer but use free software all the time. I guess I should stop cause I can't help it get better.
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Re:
PCLinuxOS grants special access to brand new releases on their Pass server for those who donate a small fixed sum via Paypal.
They in turn get to be the first to respond with bug reports and change requests, in addition to getting new cool stuff first.
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Re: Re:
Texstar, the main maintainer for PCLinuxOS, says, "I am aware of the GPL requirements and make all of my source code available via DVD and it can be downloaded from a free server."
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Re:
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Whoops. My bad.
Totally misread that. Thought you were referring to the politicians.
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This argument is almost as ridiculous as someone coming out and saying "these poor open source developers, their work is being stolen! They have the right to be paid for their work!"
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Open Source is Different
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Freeloaders
I gave all my money to my kids, so I don't have much; but if I download free stuff, and it is useful, I tend to find some way to compensate the source. If it is not useful, I don't. So, I guess I am a freeloader/not-a-freeloader?
As you said, "why worry about it?"
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This is likely to have the undesired consequence of reinforcing an all-too-common attitude among open source developers: that nontechnical users can be rudely dismissed when they report problems or request assistance, and should learn how to program or buzz off.
Open source cannot take off as mainstream software for ordinary desktop users if that is the reception that ordinary desktop users can expect when they run into problems. Since ordinary desktop users are "freeloaders", the suggestion that developers focus on providing value for those "who do contribute" will be taken as promoting that particular status quo, which ultimately harms open source innovation by maintaining a barrier to more widespread adoption, that created by the social divide on open source support forums between the coders and the "clueless n00bs" (or similar epithets) that just want to install it, have it work, and be productive with it.
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Re: AC 6-15-09 @ 6:55
I am not sure which open source projects you are following, but I have never had this problem or witnessed it. Most programmers I know working on FLOSS will take the time out of their day to help if you have a real problem. Maybe you just need to lighten and remember that not everyone who can program is out to spite you.
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