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Businesses GNU is Not Unix Software

Do Companies Take Software, And Not Give? 394

Posted by timothy from the hi-darl dept.
SirDaShadow writes "The Inquirer has an excellent article that describes how companies take from the Open Source Community and how few are giving back. At the end of the article, it says it might be tax deductible. This made me think...wouldn't it be great for the OS community if we could provide a law to facilitate tax cuts to companies who give to OS, or at least make it mandatory to for-profit organizations to give a certain minimum amount and take it out of their taxes?" This piece ignores the obvious and large contributions that some companies have made in money, programmer time, code release and even just lending their name and credibility to projects like KDE and GNOME, but it does have some truth -- see for instance the Busybox Hall of Shame.
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Do Companies Take Software, And Not Give? More

Do Companies Take Software, And Not Give?

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  • Busybox. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Google cache [216.239.37.104]

    Blogzine [blogzine.net]

  • Noooo!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:15PM (#7818301)
    wouldn't it be great for the OS community if we could provide a law to facilitate tax cuts to companies who give to OS

    Absolutely not. As soon as you get government involved, OS becomes political, and influenced by political forces. This is the last thing we want.

    • Re:Noooo!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cyb97 ( 520582 ) * <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:23PM (#7818348) Homepage Journal
      Further OpenSource is an international affair, taxes and laws are purely national.
      I can certainly see problems with a large corporation donating millions of dollars to a project based in some "axis of evil" country or taxhaven somewhere and on the top of getting money out of the country in a pretty nice way getting taxcuts for doing so, too.

    • Re:Noooo!!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zakezuke ( 229119 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:27PM (#7818376)
      As soon as you get government involved, OS becomes political, and influenced by political forces ....In other news... the Goverment hit the mandated shutdown button for all Apache servers in Iraq as part of the war effort. GW Bush has said "We supported the software with our money, we have every right to shut down all communications of any nation we are at war with". Iraq officals in responce to this shutdown by buying copies of SCO. "Comercial products have no political influence, they just want money."

      According to a penquin in the street, "Stop that, it's silly".

      • In other news... the Goverment hit the mandated shutdown button for all Apache servers in Iraq as part of the war effort. GW Bush has said "We supported the software with our money, we have every right to shut down all communications of any nation we are at war with".

        If you are implying that the US government (or any other large, powerful entity) might use such financial rewards as an excuse for placing their own back doors in open source software, I really don't think that this is a big concern. Keep i

        • Keep in mind that open source software can be audited and modified by anybody

          We could certainly see a list of 'approved' projects for government support...

          Yes - Encryption the NSA can read
          No - Encryption that keeps stuff secret

          Yes - Software in english
          No - Software in nasty foreign languages

          -etc.
    • Agreed. Couldnt you just set yourself up as a non-profit organization? I wonder how hard that could be.
      • From what I have heard, setting up a 501-c3 is extremely difficult. Because of the benefits it provides, there are a lot of obstacles.

        • Re:Actually (Score:4, Informative)

          by dspeyer ( 531333 ) <(dspeyer) (at) (wam.umd.edu)> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:31PM (#7818676) Homepage Journal
          Not a problem, the FSF is already 501-c3 (it's not all *that* hard). They certainly accept (tax-deductable) donations which they use to hire programmers (and occationally lawyers). I'm sure they'd take one with acceptable strings (e.g. "Here's $100K, spend it on Gnome"). Obviously they won't take money earmarked for non-free software, but I doubt they insist on copyleft or GNU.

          I think there are similar organizations dedicated to KDE, Apache, Mozilla, and many other large projects. For that matter, a serious e-mail to a dev list offering money can probably get a 501-c3 set up.

    • For the most part I agree, we really do not want OS becomming political. OTOH, I think that a small change to tax law allowing for donations of money to a 501(c)(3) that is earmarked for an OS project (with a person, charity, orginization, etc getting the tax free funds to help with the project), that might be very helpful.

    • Government has been involved from the beginning. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:07PM (#7818562) Homepage

      As soon as you get government involved, OS becomes political, and influenced by political forces. This is the last thing we want.

      Government is already deeply involved and the decisions you make are already political. This cannot be escaped. Government is what set up and controls copyright and patent regimes, the laws under which computer software are chiefly distributed, copied, and modified.

      Government and big businesses are colluding to expand these regimes to include more behavior, making it impossible to do ordinary things without involving at least one of these regimes.

      Your post speaks to a typical Slashdot mindset that precludes getting involved in government to affect a beneficial change for citizens. Your post is hardly insightful.

    • Guess you don't want the NSA or the government to be using or contributing to Linux, then. But they do.

  • It's the corporate mindset (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Buran ( 150348 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:15PM (#7818302)
    Corporations want to take before they give. That's the sad truth. If there's no extra profit in it for them, they're less likely to do it.

    Articles like this one are going to have to be published in places like the Wall Street Journal or other papers that corporate paperpushers look at. Then perhaps they'll catch on. Hopefully.

    Good karma is sometimes worth a lot more than immediate profit -- if a company pitches in to help, and gets their name in the changelog or thankyou files, who knows? They might get a few customers that way.

    • How 'bout Human mindset. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nlinecomputers ( 602059 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:32PM (#7818409)
      And how many slashdotters who are NOT programmers have downloaded and used free software and never gave the authors any money for it? Isn't buying a Linux distro a way of giving back to the community if you're not a programmer.

      Typical Open Source hypocrisy: Programmers that whine about paying for programs and demanding that it has to "Be Free as in Freedom" and then get pissed off because someone takes you up on that. Don't want someone to rip-off your work? Don't make it Free.

      The price of "freedom in programming" is the freeloader.
      • There are several levels of freedom. "Free as in beer" being one of them.
        As you so blately point out "Don't make it free", well firstly software that is available online isn't automatically free. More than 9 out of 10 times theres a catch or strings attached. Usually in the file called LICENSE or in the top of all the source files.
        This is the only thing that separates warez from less than payware.

        You can use it on conditions, if you're not smart enough to follow the conditions you should have your brain re

      • Re:How 'bout Human mindset. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Buran ( 150348 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:45PM (#7818469)
        Not everyone who uses open source software knows how to contribute back. I don't; if I did, I would at least try. (I do plan to learn a bit of programming at some point, so I still might, and there are a few bits of open source software that I use often that I'd like to contribute to.)

        The chances that a corporation does have someone who can contribute are a lot higher than for an individual. My comments were aimed at them -- though you do have a good point.

        • Re:How 'bout Human mindset. (Score:5, Informative)

          by nmos ( 25822 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:21PM (#7818613)
          You don't need to be a programmer to contribute to OSS. You can:

          * Send $, pizza vouchers, Safari sub. etc to the developer of your choice.

          * Send $ to Debian or FSF (may even be tax deductable)

          * Donate hardware (something YOU really want supported) to a developer working in that area.

          * Test software and send back well documented bug reports.

          * Write documentation for your favorite app/utility

          * Write a Howto or mini-howto on something that has given you trouble.

          * Help others in your favorite mail list/newsgroup/forum.
    • It's up to the folks running the corporations to do what they want. We [infoether.com] pay for and administer RubyForge [rubyforge.org] because Ruby [ruby-lang.org] helps us do our job (application integration and such-like) faster and better.

      The Ruby community gets a nifty resource, we get the company name on the front page - everybody's happy. What's not to like?
    • from the article: "The end result of these studies is always the same, a grinning person telling us about how they won with open source software. Almost all of these companies say that they have cut their head count..."

      I am familiar with many projects that cut staff as result of deploying easy to use/administer open source software. You'd think companies would do the opposite - hire people with the money saved - but, sadly, that's rarely the case. Just another bonus for the directors of the company. Sadly,

  • Bah! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ignis Flatus ( 689403 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:15PM (#7818305)
    They'll just use the deductions to write off archaic and useless code, like drivers for ports that no longer exist. Do you really need punchcard access?
    • Because they become major contributors they end up all but hijacking a project for their own exclusive usage. Ever see a project start out in one direction and then all of a sudden end up being something completely different? Sometimes that's a good thing, but I'd rather have it by general consensus of the community rather than muscled into place by a company with money to burn.

      Paranoia taken to extremes here but couldn't Microsoft themselves build on a few projects out there to help steer them away from b
      • well on the other hand if it's a opensource project there usually little or nothing that stops any users from forking their own little tree which doesn't go in the same direction.

        Eg: Gimp vs. Cinepaint/FilmGimp.

    • Well, maybe (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:05PM (#7818554) Homepage
      drivers for ports that no longer exist. Do you really need punchcard access?

      Someday, concievably, historians might.

      OK, so maybe having a bunch of "useless" or obsolete software dumped into the quasi-public-domain isn't of much public good. But I still would think it is better than having all of that software simply lost to time forever.

      We are going to have a relatively massive memory hole in the future's conception of what programming at the professional level at this time was like caused by the fact that all of the source code of the software we use today is going to be simply lost, since no one has copies except for the companies that made them, and those companies more than likely are not going to bother maintaining or keeping track of that code. No one today cares what the source code for Clarisworks versions 1 through 3 for the Apple //gs looked like. But maybe someone will care in 200 years. Who knows?

      And then there's all those little "what if"s. For example, what if there's some huge quantity of deteriorating tapes somewhere containing some information important to someone, and it is determined these things need to be moved off and onto less fragile media, but the tape drives that read them can only be used from old, scarce and broken PDP-11s because they are the only platform for which drivers exist? In that light, device drivers for a dead platform don't sound so useless after all.

      Things of that nature. Really, who can say what code that someone someday cold consider "useful"? I say, the more code preserved by the GPL in our cultural memory, the better.
    • A company is only going to do something if it's beneficial to them. You're suggesting that because of the hypothetical tax cut they'd write archaic code, but why? There are two possible scenarios that I see:
      1. They write code just to get the tax break - this doesn't really make business sense because its likely the only thing they would be able to write off is the programmer time they spent on developing the code, and the programmer time costs more than the money they're saving in taxes, I.E. they lose mo
      • The suggestion is that they would release archaic code they already have but which is only of very limited or specialized use -- not that they'd write more of it.

  • Mmmmmmaybe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) * on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:17PM (#7818309)
    Well, of course there are two sides to every coin. I expect there's more corp sponsored free software hacking going on than you might think though. Remember that it's not always official - at my last job I submitted patches to various open source projects that I did on the job, because they happened to be basically what we needed and along the way I felt it was necessary to improve them. Often the only indication that they were done on paid time was that I sent them from my company email address.
    • Same story here, and I didn't even submit them from my company email. Mostly because I've got personal addresses that surely will last longer than my employment there.

      And I don't won't that company to take any credit for the work I did for other projects (and my manager is fine with it, as it adds a layer of secrecy around what they use for production)

    • Re:Mmmmmmaybe (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cylix ( 55374 ) * on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:31PM (#7818402) Homepage Journal
      Indeed,

      This is exactly the same story in my shop. Every application I have to fix and rework doesn't simply go to my personal patch folder. I would much rather have it part of a main branch so the issues gets resolved and hopefully in time it will be better then my fix.

      We are actually seeing alot of vendor box's come in that use a great deal of free software and I suspect they perform similar services.

      Here, I let management know that if it is under the GPL or similar license we are going to be submitting back fixes and in house scripts. Being we aren't a software shop they enjoy the exposure.

      Unfortunately, we are just not profitable enough to really submit funds to organizations. I hope this changes in the future and one day I can tell management these guys really make our lives easy. It's time for a donation to the cause.

      For a fact I know there are organizations who exist around Perl,Python,Sendmail (Heavily modified), etc and not one bit goes back. NDA bound not to say too much I'm afraid. However, I've seen massive scalability changes, authentication changes and whatnot. Some great work has been done in house and these companies are huge. Unfortunately, sometimes their work just doesn't conform to what people want back, but other then a patch or two I've never seen anything on the order of funding.

  • somewhat naive? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cyb97 ( 520582 ) * <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:18PM (#7818313) Homepage Journal
    I find this article somewhat naive. It's certainly true that there are lot of companies abusing GPL and OSS for commercial purposes some of them probably modify code and never release their changes.

    The article also suggest that instead of spending, and I quote
    "If you replaced 10 $30,000 Nokia firewall with a free NetBSD implementation, but it lacks the ability to report to your management software, why not do something about it?"
    This is not as easy as it sounds. Nokia probably payed through the nose to get the specs for that management software or signed more NDAs and deals that your company has seen in its lifetime. It's not always an option to do stuff yourself. Further most phb's will automagically raise the (valid) point, who to blame when the shit hits the fan. When something goes haywire and you payed some college kid $500, you can't call him in the middle of his exams and expect him to fix it. You can ask him, but he/she is certainly not obliged to fix it.
    If you go with Nokia, you can give their tollfree hotline a call and tell them your problem and the chances are that the hotfix/patch is already available.

    Things aren't so black/white as the article wants it to be, IMHO it's a pretty shitty article and doesn't really add anything to the scene apart from entropy. The busybox-link however, was interesting ;-)

    • I find this article somewhat naive. It's certainly true that there are lot of companies abusing GPL and OSS for commercial purposes some of them probably modify code and never release their changes.

      They don't have to, of course. Only if they distribute it must they release the source code. Naturally, if they do't release it, they shouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work with later versions of OSS that didn't take its existence into account.

      most phb's will automagically raise the (valid) point, who to

      • The problem is often PHBs want to save money on every possible opportunity. More often than you think you'll meet the "If it works today, why shouldn't it tomorrow" attitude from non-programming (or maintenance) type middle/upper-management dimwits.

        IT and especially internal (and often non-revenue) projects gets the worse end of the budget, in the end resulting in a more expensive cleanup when everything goes up shit-creek.
  • That is the point of Open Source. If you start requiring companies to give a donation, then whats the point? They will use M$, most don't care if they have the source code or not, they just ask does it work, and what is it gonna cost? I cannot believe this was even brought up.

    Maybe I am mistaken in my understanding of the post, and if so, please clarify.
    • In addition.. once companies realise they can hire a programmer to modify their software to fit their changing needs, everyone gains from it (assuming they abide by the GPL).

  • GPL in proprietary... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:21PM (#7818330) Homepage Journal
    I personally wonder, how many "close source" companies secretly and illegally include GNU-copyrighted code in their products, and sell it without source, violating GPL, but nobody knows they do, just because nobody ever sees the source.

    Of course if the source was to be ever revealed, that is some serious risk, but if the company plans to keep it always secret - why not?

    [environment-friendly post, contains recycled material]

    • Re:GPL in proprietary... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:28PM (#7818384)
      Of course if the source was to be ever revealed, that is some serious risk, but if the company plans to keep it always secret - why not?

      Because GPL violations are not too hard to detect even without source code. And even if they were hard to detect, any company that does this would be at serious risk from a disgruntled employee. What better way to get back at your company than to get them in trouble for massive copyright violations of open source projects? Not only will their products be in jeopardy, they'll also be widely hated.
      • Sure it IS risky. But what better way to cut down on development cost and time while keeping all the rights to the code? Give the employees a murderous deadline and gently hint them that you don't care about how legal their solution is, as long as it works and they keep it secret. And replace GPL code with your own later, say, with service pack 1, when the product is already deployed three weeks before the competition could do it, when you already have the money, paid your debts and can take your time to "c
        • But what better way to cut down on development cost and time while keeping all the rights to the code?

          I can think of lots of better ways.

          And replace GPL code with your own later, say, with service pack 1, when the product is already deployed three weeks before the competition could do it, when you already have the money, paid your debts and can take your time to "clean up" your code.

          Commercial software development doesn't usually work out that way. If a company can casually replace GPL'ed code with s
    • "I personally wonder, how many "close source" companies secretly and illegally include GNU-copyrighted code in their products, and sell it without source, violating GPL, but nobody knows they do, just because nobody ever sees the source."

      Wasn't Windows's TCP/IP code *lifted* from BSD? However, the BSD license allows for it as long as their credit remains listed, which is how AT&T got in trouble in their Unix vs. BSD fight. Hmmm...how much Linux code is in WindowsXP?

    • Quite a few. Its actually rather easy to tell in several cases. Try running any linux 2.2.1x remote DoS attacks against your wireless routers for example. Lots of them will fall over - and some of them from suprisingly major brands, most of whom bought in a 3rd party solution and didn't do their IPR homework. (And yes all the other holes apply too - is your wireless network vulnerable ?)

      One of the side effects of the music industry attempts to stomp out music piracy at any cost however is more and more cri
  • If you believe that the government should keep out of the business of "picking winners" in the market, then you must be against this clear subsidy. We have to win by the same rules everyone else plays by.
  • This was just what Erik did not need, and would be an excellent site that could benefit from such a program.
    • I have increaded resource limits I had set when the site was hosted on my home DSL line, so the busybox site should be quite a lot more available now....
  • Capitalism and Free Software are at complete odds with one another. You can't mandate gift-giving; it's called a fee. Capitalism fuctions like electricity, using the path of least resistance (least $$$ for most value). No company in their right mind would pay for what they can get for zero dollars.

    Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

    • Re:Not at all surprised. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear.pacbell@net> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:02PM (#7818548) Homepage
      Because you need to keep the cow alive?

      Otherwise you are held *hostage* by whoever owns the cow.

      Case in point:
      Apple
      Web browser, Safari, using KHTML code.
      Adopted the code into WebKit and WebCore, and in turn provide fixes and patches.

      Apple gains a small, lithe, agile, and capable HTML renderer
      Apple's contributions guarantee KHTML does not wither and die due to lack of attention as Mozilla gains steam
      Secondary effect of creating a third alternative to IE and Mozilla.
      Everyone, including Mozilla and IE users, benefit from the diversity and growth.

      Capitalism is efficient as long as the costs are taken into effect. If the cost of Open Source is factored in and it is still advantageous, then capitalism will adopt Open Source; we see this in IBM (they too contribute patches to Linux), SGI, Apple, and other, smaller, businesses that gain from the diverse contributors and stable development practices.
  • wouldn't it be great for the OS community if we could provide a law to facilitate tax cuts to companies who give to OS, or at least make it mandatory to for-profit organizations to give a certain minimum amount and take it out of their taxes?

    The chances of the OSS community getting any kind of a favorable law passed are zero. Period.

    Assuming the submitter is talking about the USA, face it: corporations rule. Money talks. Does the OSS community have the money to hire lobbyists and spread some "cheer" aro

  • whatever you do, do not make contributions mandatory. some companies can't contribute, in the short term. this would quickly push them away opensource.

    give it time, people learn to contribute more.

    if anything lets not bring taxes into this.

  • If the whole point of Open Source was to make sure that people "give back" then it would have failed long ago. The whole point was that here was the source, and everybody in the world can get at it, no strings attached except for the license requirements.

    Has Open Source benefitted from these corporate "leeches" that just take and take and never give back? Of course, even if just a little. If there was a problem with the software, then if the company that is using the software feel that it's important th

  • I don't see a problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:26PM (#7818369)
    Obviously, a sufficient fraction of those companies are "giving back" for there to exist a lively and productive open source community. And even "mere users" are useful for open source projects: they make feature requests and report bugs.
  • most open source licences don't require a "give back" as a provision for usint the software. Besides, based on how some people promote the philosophy of open source software, they aren't "taking", just making a copy for their use, it isn't as if there is less open source software as a result of a company using it vs. not using it. The very fact that companies are employing people to maintain installations of open source software is a plus if anything.

  • go with the flow (Score:4, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:27PM (#7818374) Homepage Journal
    Publishing is assymetrical. The efficiency of sharing info comes largely by its consumers outnumbering its producers. The network effect, where returns on investment increase when a platform's deployment footprint increases, makes the rapid spread of software deliver more to its users, especially its provider at the source. A little good software goes a long way.

    This is not to say that publishing software is a one way street. Opening the source is a great move towards interactivating the communication along the publishing pathways. At the very least, sourcecode servers provide an infrastructure where feedback from consumers can input meaningfully to the revision process, including patches, and especially structured test results. Many one-to-many relations, bidirectional, gives OSS development the definitive advantage in efficiency and robustness.
  • Oh for crying out loud, like we don't have ENOUGH jargon to parse through!

    So, that makes Linux an OS OS then?

    SOS! I'm drowning in acronyms!
  • An audience. No artist wants to perform without one.

    They also give a niche for OSS people to use the programs daily under real workloads, allowing them to practise and deepen their understanding, and test their work out in the "real world".

    They also give y'all OSS-based jobs, where you don't have to put up with Microsoft Sodding Windows.
  • The whole point of free software is freedom, the minute you begin adding forceful restrictions is the point it is not longer free software, like the internet freedom comes at a cost.

    If the cost if people dont need to give anything back then so be it. But if you start adding a requirement to give something back you will end up with shoddy code, less chance of anyone bothering to use it at the enterprise level and probably increase the TCO quite a bit.

    If you start adding more resrictions like this to free s

  • Is "Giving Back" Really Important? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:35PM (#7818423) Homepage
    The Inquirer has an excellent article that describes how companies take from the Open Source Community and how few are giving back.

    I read the article, and it's one of those rare times that there's nothing much in it that isn't contained in the Slashdot summary. Anyway, isn't it totally to be expected that most companies would take everything they can get from open source, and not give anything back in terms of time or money?

    But so what? What Linux needs more than anything else is to capture more than 20% of the desktop market. Once there's a foothold of that magnitude, we'll start seeing practically everything, from Doom III to Quickbooks, released in Linux.

    So, as for those companies who aren't "giving back," -- I say, that merely by virtue of adding to the pool of Linux users, they are giving the open source movement exactly what it needs most.

    • Don't set yourself up to be taken advantage of. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:08PM (#7819054) Homepage

      But so what? What Linux needs more than anything else is to capture more than 20% of the desktop market. Once there's a foothold of that magnitude, we'll start seeing practically everything, from Doom III to Quickbooks, released in Linux.

      I would ask the same question of you--so what? We already have that thanks to emulation and there are plenty of other versions of Microsoft Windows where you can be catered to so long as you're willing to give up your freedom. What we need are Free Software programs to do these jobs, not more non-free software.

      So, as for those companies who aren't "giving back," -- I say, that merely by virtue of adding to the pool of Linux[sic] users, they are giving the open source movement exactly what it needs most.

      Perhaps that movement is satisified, but that movement is also very shortsighted in its mission to please businesses [gnu.org].

      You certainly won't gain popularity over proprietors by giving them code under non-copyleft Free Software licenses or by choosing to run their proprietary alternative to a free program. Treating businesses like charities doesn't make you their friend, it sets you up to be taken advantage of. I'm reminded of the FSF's response to Microsoft [gnu.org] when Microsoft's CEOs were on the lecture circuit calling the GNU General Public License a "cancer" and "unamerican":

      "From time to time, companies have said to us, "We would make an improved version of this program if you allow us to release it without freedom." We say, "No thanks--your improvements might be useful if they were free, but if we can't use them in freedom, they are no good at all." Then they appeal to our egos, saying that our code will have "more users" inside their proprietary programs. We respond that we value our community's freedom more than an irrelevant form of popularity."

      Or why they ask you to give credit to the GNU operating system and not just the Linux kernal [gnu.org]:

      "People justify adding non-free software in the name of the "popularity of Linux"--in effect, valuing popularity above freedom. Sometimes this is openly admitted. For instance, Wired Magazine says Robert McMillan, editor of Linux Magazine, "feels that the move toward open source software should be fueled by technical, rather than political, decisions." And Caldera's CEO openly urged users to drop the goal of freedom and work instead for the "popularity of Linux".

      Adding non-free software to the GNU/Linux system may increase the popularity, if by popularity we mean the number of people using some of GNU/Linux in combination with non-free software. But at the same time, it implicitly encourages the community to accept non-free software as a good thing, and forget the goal of freedom. It is no use driving faster if you can't stay on the road."

      The chase for popularity is misguided and naive. I'm sure you have the best of intentions for GNU/Linux users, but you don't seem to understand that giving up freedom should not be done lightly [gnu.org]. Sometimes giving up software freedom is acceptable, but most of the time it is not a good strategy. We are not well served with non-free programs to get jobs done.

  • Goody! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Epistax ( 544591 ) <epistax@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:37PM (#7818433) Journal
    I wanted to respond to this when I saw it on the inquirer.

    Quite simply, the corporation adopts an open source project. A bunch of their employees use it. THEY know whether or not THEY like it, not the company.
    How many individuals help out an open source project after the start using it from their business? That's what's important.
    • Building off of what I said, shouldn't it be the people who are interested in the product (not interested in using the product, there's a difference) be the ones to help it, not someone in management being interested in it? I can't imagine a company ordering its underlings to upgrade a product they use but do not support. What I would expect is any fixes made by an employee to be given to whoever is supporting the product so that it could be added, but of course what might be right for one, might not be r
    • I don't bite when people write me about my articles, that is why I put my e-mail on the top of every one :).

      That said, if the people use it and love it, chances are that corporations are getting a benefit from it. I don't think the people contributing on their own time has the same power of contributing on corporate time.

      The scenario I was imagining was that a company uses the software, and saves a ton of money doing so. An employee goes to his boss, and says 'Can I take friday afternoons to code a new fe
  • Who's going to pay to put something back?

    In many jursidictions companies have a legal obligation to maximise shareholder value, so can't take the money from shareholders.

    If they put their prices up the customers will go elsewhere, so they can't take the money from customers.

    Which leaves employees. "Hi guys and gals, you won't mind a 10% pay cut to fund our contribution to the open source community, will you?". Yeah, right.

  • companies employ programmers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:43PM (#7818456) Homepage
    Most open source contributors are programmers (obviously). Some are students, and some are hobbiest programmers who earn their living some way other than programming, but a lot are programmers earning their living at companies that don't contribute to open source.

    At least some fraction of the pay these programmers earn at those companies should be counted when figuring the corporate effect on open source.

    Open source feeds the non-contributing companies, but those non-contributing companies enable more people to work as programmers, increasing the pool of people who are able to work on open source as individuals.

  • Please leave the Orwellian double-speak to MS, the IRS, Homeland [In]Security and the rest of the opposition. It has no place in Open Source.
  • or at least make it mandatory to for-profit organizations to give a certain minimum amount

  • And if you want government enforcement - sue.

  • BusyBox Hall Of Shame (Score:3, Insightful)

    by b_w_duncan ( 709534 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:54PM (#7818509)

    No disrespect meant to Erik, but I took a look around the hall of shame and it's not really as shocking as it first appears. Buffalo's wireless router has a statement at the bottom of the Linked page [buffalo-technology.com] stating they comply with the GPL and source code is available. The PDF link appears to be an exact copy of the GPL, in PDF format, for some reason.

    This leaves three products (counting the bottom three DVD players as one naughty entity) which appear to be breaking the GPL and are doing nothing about it. Considering Erik's 'Products' page, we're doing alright. It would seem that the other companies aren't really kicking up a fuss over having to have the source code available, maybe they just didn't read the GPL when they first used the code?

    From the viewpoint of the code actually being used, I think this is a good thing. It represents a shift towards OS. A previous poster said that if even a small percentage give something back, we're doing pretty well. How many closed-source companies can claim to have had constructive feedback on their products that OS has the potential to enjoy?

    Perhaps if we are receptive to this use of OS code, we will reap the rewards later when companies realise what a good deal they're getting? Patience is a virtue?

    Bruce

    • Re:BusyBox Hall Of Shame (Score:4, Informative)

      by andersen ( 10283 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:09PM (#7818568) Homepage
      It is not intended to be "shocking". It is intended to try and get at least a bit more license compliance. Having my lawyer send letters is a great way to get nothing done. The Hall of Shame has been far more effective at getting companies to talk to me about making the needed changes. To the extent it is working, I am glad it is there.

  • Not Unreasonable (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iCharles ( 242580 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:58PM (#7818527) Homepage
    The software is presented as free-as-in-beer, with no one actually making money off the source (I know there is a free-as-in-freedom angle, too. However, it is always the cost-of-license advantage I see advertised to corporations). No one who uses the software is obliged to do anything--don't complain if there isn't a feature you want (you have the source), but there is no license cost, and no legal obligation. The ethical one is debatable.


    Many companies lack the skills to maintain code--they simply don't have developers (or at least not the right sort of developer). To meaningfully contribute monetarily would erode at the cost savings. If the company is public, there may even be further complications.


    If you create a model where software is available with no license fee, then you need to accept that is the rules you play by. Certainly you can go after the company if the start to make money off extensions to the software (i.e. violate the license), but, as someone noted earlier, you can't put a sign that says "free food," and complain that someone didn't chip in.

  • R&D tax credits.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [orpxnyl]> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @04:58PM (#7818529)
    I believe American corporations could already contribute to open source projects and receive R&D tax credits. The only difference would be the open source project would not be "in house" but if they could show they received something from the "donation" then it should work. Then again, I'm not a tax man. Of course, if the open source project was administered by a non-profit foundation, then a monetary contribution would be a charitable tax donation (Mozilla Foundation?)...

  • Did I read this right? Did someone forget what the "O" in "OSS" stands for? Did someone miss the point in "Free as in Beer"?

    I know Slashdot is a magnet for anti-capitalist left-wing wannabe-geeks, but this throws the cake. We have finally had a story in which someone pretends to be so concerned for the state of OSS that they'd want to tax, legislation, and otherwise force corporations to contribute to OSS applications. We call people like that hypocrites. The level of cognitive dissonance here is only matc
    • "... but this throws the cake."

      I have never heard that expression. well once, but it was from a guy who was selling cake throwing machines.

      It might be interesting if someone started a not for profit Linux company. Then, anybody whose contributed code that is accepted could get a tax right off for the donation. This could be a selling point for corporation to adopt, and contribute to, Linux.

  • If you take a picture of my source code it will steal my soul!!
  • ...do you really want some companies contributing? As bad as their commercial code is, they could bring the state of open source down a few pegs.

  • Giving comes in many forms (Score:4, Insightful)

    by carndearg ( 696084 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:24PM (#7818635) Homepage Journal
    The idea that companies who use open source software and give nothing back are just taking and not giving is preposterous. They ARE giving, and in more ways than one.

    First of all, they're giving the OSS community their support by using the code. Not much, but knowing that makes a difference.

    Then, they're giving employment to the geeks that roll out the code. I've built a successful career... well, a career anyway, out of being paid to run,use and tame free software, and I owe it not only to the free software I work with but to the people who chose to use the free sotware. My career, and the things my employers can do, would have been a lot more limited had they not had another option but the roadmap laid down for them by a well known developer of feature limited and proprietary software.

    It's a commercial world out there chaps, let's not forget it. Every one of you who gets paid to do something based on free software has been given something by your employer that depends on that choice of theirs: your liveliehood. If you still feel that nothing's been given back then dont break the chain, give something back yourselves and write some free software of your own.

  • Hang On There -- (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DannyO152 ( 544940 )
    If a company hires folks to build upon open source projects, then the costs of writing the code (salaries) are already fully deducted, and as there's no additional material cost for releasing their code, there would be no additional deductions.

    IIRC, an individual's labor donated to non-profit causes are not deductible for the individual. And keep in mind that in the US if your individual enterprises don't turn a profit in three years, it's a hobby and expenses are deductible only to the extent of income r
  • How about a law that gives corps tax breaks for giving me cash and gifts? Makes just as much sense as giveing tax breaks for using Open Source software.

  • One Important Distinction (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cleetus ( 123553 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:39PM (#7818713) Homepage
    The article talks about how nice it would be if companies offered to do additional programming on the OS software they use. This is nice, but is not required, assuming the software in question is GPL'ed. All that is required it that the licensee make an offer to provide source code if they distribute binaries outside their organization. If these companies are in compliance, there is no issue here and the article is just wishful thinking.

    The Busybox Hall of Shame is a different animal altogether. These corporations are (supposedly/probably) not in compliance with the Busybox license. These are the *real* corporate bad guys, and the OS community should work to bring them into compliance, just like we did with Linksys et al.

    Bottom line: if you want users of your software to do more than just make source code available, create a new license with contribution requirements. Its highly likely that such a license won't be truly open source [opensource.org] and that no-one will want to use your software under such terms.

  • Is it possible not to contribute if you use? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Performer Guy ( 69820 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @05:50PM (#7818761)
    This isn't a problem, the freeloaders don't cost anyone anything when it comes to copying opensource software, infact they help it by broadening the base for potential services, applications and general viability. It's the contributors who make he product great. How many people have contributed to Linux, or do you just use it? Did you pay for it or get a free download.

    The point is that copying software is almost free, there's no harm done when you take. It doesn't subtract from what is already created, sure contributing helps it get written, but merely using the software helps it grow in many ways and it's no skin of anyone's nose.

  • Doesn't anyone read the article? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Elladan ( 17598 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @06:12PM (#7818845)
    Oh wait, this is /.

    All these posts along the lines of, "You released it free, now take your lumps!" are completely missing the point. (Well, at least of the article. The point of the timothy, who linked to the article, is another matter)

    The point is, if a company uses free software, it should open its pocketbook instead of whining. Instead of going, "Waaa, it doesn't have feature X!" or "Waaa, there's a bug!" it should pay someone to fix the problem. It could pay someone in-house, in which case it should release the patches back to the community, or it can pay someone externally to do it.

    One point that's often missed about releasing patches done in-house: the GPL doesn't require it for most backend software, but it's still a good plan for reasons other than being ethical and nice. If you release the patches, they can be integrated into the product as a whole, meaning you don't have to handle the expensive task of being their sole maintainer in the future.

    It seems to me that the article is exactly right. Companies already do this to an extent by paying companies like Redhat for support, but if a piece of software is important to your business, it only makes sense to take a direct hand in its development. The whole mentality of purely being a consumer of whatever is offered from the development community is neither productive nor cost-effective. If something is important to you, make it happen. Don't just wait for other people to do it for you. That sort of thinking gives you situations like Microsoft, where someone might get around to helping you eventually, but oh man will your pocketbook be sorry.

    As with politics, money talks. If you want the best software for your business, you should help fund the developers who can make it happen. Otherwise, since it's free software, you'll be able to use whatever the community thinks is important, but what you think is important may not be considered as relevant or get done as quickly (or at all).

    • Re:Doesn't anyone read the article? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Alan Cox ( 27532 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:34PM (#7819177) Homepage
      It isnt just patches. Some very large companies release some very large pieces of software open source. Computing heavyweights like Sun for example have contributed vast amounts of stuff.

      Outside the computing world you might be suprised just who has opened software. How about large banks ? - Yep - take a look at http://www.aplusdev.org for one example.

  • There is a payback for making OSS. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @06:24PM (#7818895)
    There is one payback for OSS and AFAICT its the one that gave us Eclipse and some other nicies like a GPLd QT and stuff.
    It's called bragging rights.
    That's the prime reason for companies to invest into OSS.

  • IBM (Score:3, Interesting)

    by scarolan ( 644274 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @06:29PM (#7818914) Homepage
    It's nice to see IBM putting their money into promoting and developing linux. I just saw a commercial on TV the other night, where all these different people are coming into a blank white room and educating this young boy. They teach him all sorts of things.

    At the end of the commercial [ibm.com] they say "His name . . . is LINUX". It was a weird commercial, but when a heavy hitter like IBM gets behind something the guys in the suits will start to listen. I predict that within 5 years, Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop and Office suite will be all but over.

  • Not always code or dollar$ (Score:5, Insightful)

    by red floyd ( 220712 ) on Saturday December 27, 2003 @07:01PM (#7819027)
    Not all support needs to be financial or code.

    I would argue that IBM, while it has contributed a great deal to the Linux kernel (RCU, JFS...) is currently making a much much greater contribution with its (admittedly in its own interest) staunch defense of the SCO suit, and it's countersuit claiming GPL violation (as well as patent infringement).

  • RPL -the anti-deadbeat license. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by randall_burns ( 108052 ) <randall_burns AT hotmail DOT com> on Saturday December 27, 2003 @10:32PM (#7819827)
    The RPL [opensource.org] was designed in response to a feature of the GPL that allows a company to modify Open Source products and not disclose that changed product unless they distribute outside their organization. The resulting license is considerably more viral than the GPL-which means that many corporate users would want to buy the software under a commercial license.

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