Re: [ossig] Financial Times: Why Open Source is Unsustainable

[Ditesh Kumar <ditesh@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> in this situation, there seems to be disbelief that someone would release 
> code without expecting any financial gratification in return. additionally, 
> a misunderstanding of the economics of open source leads to the notion that 
> the only form of payment is financial.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041028000105896

A letter from Mark printed on GrokLaw provides a very cogent reply to
the FUD, an excerpt of which follows (it mirrors Linus's response in
Revolution OS to the very same question):

... Your argument for why the free and open source movement cannot
sustain itself likens open source to a workers' commune and asks the
question, "Does that worker receive in cash or kind his share of the
gain in value during the period of his employment?" The answer is, of
course, yes. In fact, this is the primary purpose behind the GPL. The
"worker" contributes a bit of his work. In return, all of the work that
everyone else does on top of his work is available for his own use.

You are basically arguing that people who write free and open source
software have no way of getting any value out of it at the end and,
therefore, no lasting incentive. Indeed, you write: "But how do the
insiders, such as Linus Torvalds, cash out of the business that they
built?" Linus Torvalds made the initial effort to write a small
UNIX-like operating system that ran on a single CPU model, only worked
with a small amount of hardware, and didn't even do networking. Through
the participation of many others, he now has the benefit of the use of
one of the most stable, scalable, flexible operating systems on the
planet, able to run on anything from tiny wristwatches to large
mainframes, not to mention, of course, the fame and glory he has. You
may not think these "non-monetary" awards are worth his investment but
to say that he gets nothing out of it is not true....


Ditesh


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