Getting Paid to Write Open Source Code 135
Thanks to Norm J for pointing out the recent Doc Searls'
article that talks about the growing number of ways to earn money while writing open Source code. This article is especially interesting in light of CoSource and SourceXChange. So, buckle down, and have fun-get paid to do what you love.
But if you are paid to do it, it becomes work! (Score:1)
Its only work when you have to do it...
It aint fun if you have to do it...
If you get paid to do it, its no longer fun...
and so many other homilies that come to mind.
Why I object to commercialism. (Score:1)
I'm not saying you, or ALL companies are bad, but a lot of them will not help Linux in any real way. I have said this to the Debian guys and I have said it before: the Free Software vs. Free Beer arguments doesn't hold. Free Software = Free Beer, period. Yes, you can still make money out of it, but it won't be the way companies would like it. They would rather forget about free software and bend "open source" to get it's benefits and none of it's drawbacks.
Re:what about patents? (Score:1)
Re:Infrastructure is good (Score:1)
"I expect I'm going to have to write wickedly
precise requirements with respect to coding standards; things like "no
compiler warnings beyond those generated by the starting source base",
etc. Things that I need guaranteed if I'm going to be able to support
the resulting software."
Good point. Requirements will need to be very specific, but hasn't this always been the case ? Another issue is the traditionally iterative cycling between design, coding and testing. When is the application "done" ? Does "done" include: documentation in certain formats, test plans, end-user acceptance, etc., etc. ?
Re:Interesting... (Score:1)
A couple of questions: Will your site only cater to the Linux world and the (L)GPL licensing model? I admire the idea behind Cosource but I strongly believe that you should support different licenses. If a bunch of people get together to sponsor a project under the APSL you should be willing to host that too.
Also what do you think about non-monetary compensation? If I decide to donate a high-end workstation for 6 month to enable a porting effort would that be supported on Cosource?
Lastly how do you intend to make money? Will we have to pay you a commission to get our projects listed on your site?
Sorry if these questions are already answered in a FAQ somewhere. I think other people might be interested as well so please post your answers here if possible.
Thanks.
Please elaborate (Score:1)
This sound like a great idea. Give us some details please!
Talent is not infinite (Score:1)
Woah!!! Hang on a second. I know this is way off topic, but I must take severe offense to this previous remark. I think it's absolutely phenomenal that nearly all music we listen to is comprised of the same 12 tones, yet there is utmost variety. Furthermore, despite the limited palette, not every Joe is a good songwriter. In fact, songwriting is a skill that very few are truly skilled at.
To bring this back around to software (now that I've vented), all of our software comes from a very small set of computing ideas strung together. Yet, once again we have a huge variety of software out there. And also, as with musicians, the talented programmers are few and far between.
Look at the crew who develops Linux. There are a small core of programmers who are talented system architects. I don't think there are enough people like them to build every company's specialized piece of software. Just like the current industry, there's going to be a mountain of crappy software out there. Open source has created good software by levering many talented programmers. Spread them thin and the quality code is no longer.
So, for this reason, I think paying for Open Source is a pipe dream. The benefits disappear because there just aren't enough good programmers. If you were a company, would you bank on random luck to get your software built? That's sure not how they hire people today!
Re:Interesting... (Score:1)
No.
Theres another very good reason programmers won't starve: technical development.
Our systems are getting increasingly complex. Open source software is one way to deal with complexity. It gets bugs ironed out of systems and allows international cooperation within industry. It creates defacto standards which are completely (I'm talking BSD or GPL here) accessible to all who use them.
We need an open source foundation for our systems for the HEALTH of those systems.
Healthy networking, and applications, and file formats, make new (generally PROPRIETARY) applications and approaches feasible. Think growing the industry. Without a good basis you are just building on quicksand.
Imagine if the internet was switched over to Windows 2000 (domain controllers and all)tomorrow. Can you imagine how much damage would be done? Cost, performance, reliability, hardware. Users would go back to floppy disks. It would be a complete disaster.
Open source (free software, whatever) is GROWING THE INDUSTRY. Proprietry software takes advantage of the new opportunities it creates. Programmers make _more_ money, not less.
--Molochorridus (think technology, not money)
Re:I get paid to do work I love (Score:1)
then you have a serious problem with commitment, integrity, personal responsibility, and working with other people.
People who define themselves through their work tend to think this. But there are other ways to show integrity and commitment than 9-to-5 and a yearly bonus. Like working for charity, or even developing free software for the good of humanity (I am not being sarcastic).
Business can build personal integrity and responsibility. It also can facilitate corruption and malpractise.
I tend to think of it as "do I need to get paid?". Performing work for a service is fair. Doing something for fun is also fair. Doing something for fun that benefits others is fair and good.
People who code open source want to give back something. Its the exact opposite of shirking obligation, its an acceptance of an obligation towards the community.
There are lots of half finished open source projects languishing on the web (generally the author got a job and had no time
--MolochHorridus
Re:Interesting... (Score:1)
LinuxExtreme.com [linuxextreme.com]
Open Source has gone commercial (Score:2)
GET THE SOURCE -- NOW at www.msn.com
Open Source has become just another buzzword, everybodies talking about it. But besides Netscape, which `corporation' has actually gave us any interesting source code (not hidden behind 1,0000 lines of legal crap)?
It seems Slashdotters are happy when they can download their latest corel-shareware.rpm but they're the same losers who start complaining when GNU/Linux is mentioned.
Well, like all things going commercial, quality gets lost.
Re:Prevention of Dissenters? (Score:2)
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
Personally, I think economics can have a benificial role in steering the direction of open source development. If its important enough to me, I should be willing to pay some money for it. If it's important enough to enough people, there should be a sizable reward for meeting the demand.
Re:Commercial vs. Open Source quality (Score:2)
this should be tax deductable (Score:3)
How the Hell Will this Work? (Score:3)
Let's say I am someone with money, and I want to put up $10,000 to have a vital piece of software written...
Let's say it's a device driver, or a codec, or maybe even a I/O library.
So I put up $10,000 of my own money. What do I get?
What if I'm not satisfied with the result?
What's more, am I forced into an open-source license? Can I request a BSD license?
Otherwise, I end up paying $10,000 for an open-source codec, device driver, or library, and on
top of that, I have to give away both the open-source, and my own closed-source product.
So I spent $10,000 and substantially increased my risk. Also, I spent $10,000 for a device driver that maybe someone else might have funded. So why not wait 1 month and get the same result for free?
Why not spend $10,000 and just hire a consultant?
Paying for open-source development just seems stupid for the vast majority of business models. What the hell does open-source have to do with say, factory robotics? (not portable at all.)
Or corporate automation (must be onsite and have deep knowledge of the business internals)
Or, why would I pay someone to develop the next Quake killer, just to have them give it away.
Or why pay at all, and just let some other idiot pay, and then leech off the open-source result?
They will be forced to use GPL you say?
Even worse.
I think CoSource and SourceXChange will end up showing the idiocy of the OSS business models.
In the end, we will see that the only two models that will work is the Support and Consultant model. But no one is going to pay for OSS product development since it makes no sense.
I might pay for someone to write an intranet app for me, since I could care less if they give it away. It's not likely to be useful to anyone else.
CoSource and SourceXchange will end up being nothing more than CareerBuilder/Monster.com style sites listing jobs for programmers who end up getting hired as consultants.
Interesting... (Score:4)
SourceXchange allows a single big sponsor to write a spec and then hire thousands of programmers. My (unimplemented) Programmer's Agency would allow a single big programmer to write a spec and then solicit thousands of sponsors. Each sponsor would contribute a small amount, which would then be held in escrow by the agency until the programmer completed his spec. The agency could then take a 10% commission on the programmer's earnings. From the sponsor's perspective, the agency would seem just like a mail-order shop selling commercial software... except it would be legal to copy what you purchased -- and you'd have to wait for it to be
written before you received it. From the
programmer's perspective, the agency would gather
thousands of small software purchasers into a
single rich purchaser with diverse interests.
Why can't the same companies implement both ideas?
--Ed Kiser
I get paid to do work I love (Score:4)
I quit my job 1 year ago.
I started my own company.
I write exactly the software I want.
I got investment and I have revenue.
It's not open-source, although I have
contributed in the past.
But, I completely love and enjoy what I do.
IMHO, open-source is like a hobby. If you can't imagine or find a way to get paid to do what you love, than that's your problem. Whether open-source or commercial. The openness or closedness of something is not what makes it fun or interesting. I'm sure the engineers who build stealth bombers at Skunkworks still have lots of fun.
Don't equate commercial developer with "suits" and "cubicles" and "dilbert"
Most of the people I know of don't have cubicles, or suits, they work in gargages in Silicon Valley.
If your attitude is "once I get paid to do open-source, it is no longer fun, and I have commitments and responsibilities and obligations, etc..."
then you have a serious problem with commitment, integrity, personal responsibility, and working with other people.
Is this a symptom of generation-Y, the real *ME* generation? It's kinda like "fuck everyone. I'm going to work when I want, on what I want, and no one tells me what to do. If you don't like my bugs, fix it yourself. Open-Source lets me get away with being a lazy irresponsible person. Because I can always fall back on 'if you dont like it, you have the source to fix it yourself' "
Is this really the essence of the Slashdot community? I don't want to be obligated to anyone?
Prevention of Dissenters? (Score:5)
The enforcement cannot be a strongarm contract -- individual developers do not have personal attorneys, and aren't willing to risk a lawsuit for $500 - $5000.
How do coSource, etc. handle enforcement on the development side?
Ownership (Score:2)
But I don't quite understand who actually *owns* the code that is written. It seems that the sponsor, the company that pays for the service, would own the code, and thus be able to set the license. Then they would be able to change it to any license they want.
I guess that's where CoSource and sourceXchange have to guarantee that it will always be under an open source license.
Tradition (Score:3)
However, I can think of a potential problem with this new "mercenary-like" approach to Free Software development. While I don't find anything innately wrong with being paid to do a Free Software development job - or being paid to do any programming job of any sort - this gives companies and people with money the upper hand when it comes to deciding what gets developed. True, most Free Software developers have other jobs, but when it comes to deciding between working on a "true" Free Software project and one for which you're getting paid, which a company wants - the for-pay job will probably win. It remains to be seen whether the traditional Free Software community is hurt by these developments.
Personally, I don't think this could happen - but it might. Do we really want to forfeit our independence?
Read. Understand. Post. (Score:5)
I don't doubt that you'll see proprietary companies touting the openness of their source code if you aren't already.
And yes, "Open Source" is a buzzword.
And yes, I also hate free (beer) software disguised as Free (speech) software.
BUT, you seem to be confused on number of issues.
First, Netscape is not the only corporation to have opened its code. Cygnus, IBM, Sendmail Inc and many others have always or recently been open.
Second, your only objection to sourceXchange and CoSource seems to be that the developer makes money. What's wrong with that? No one, not even RMS, objects to developers getting paid to do what they love. The objection is proprietary "standards", secret source code and lack of Freedom.
As for quality getting lost: What exactly do you feel will lose quality? Linux? These companies aren't hiring Linux developers, they are hiring developers for unrelated, Open Source software. And even if some of them wanted things like device drivers or kernel mods, they'd have to pass Linus to be official anyway.
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
Is there are reverse danger? (Score:1)
Is there a danger that with mechanisms like this in place, the work will be less likely to get done unless it's lucrative?
They're hoping to encourage shareware authors to go Open Source through this system. That would be really good (lots of shareware almost does a nice job but needs that Open Source polish), but of course there's a danger that shareware authors who caught by the bandwagon would have open sourced their work for free will now wait for someone to put a bounty on it and pay them to do it.
Are there other, similar dangers? Mostly I think this is a good thing, but I'm looking for the practical downsides here.
--
Re:Community standards (Score:1)
Yes, but I think some form of open source is more likely.
I think your potential customers are *not* software vendors. Your customers are people who want a new feature added to a pre-existing program, and most of the time that will be some open source program they are using, not one they've written and sell. Thus they will be bound by the license terms. While they conceivably could just not distribute the changes written for their needs, this will add to their maintenance costs since future versions of the base app won't incorporate the changes and may conflict. Glue logic for connecting programs might not be distributed, but that tends to be more specialized to a particular company's needs anyway.
Also, I think the emphasis on open source by the service itself will tend to make that the dominant focus of the clients; those who need closed source help have other sources. Also, companies might be reluctant to distribute proprietary software to a programmer somewhat randomly contacted over the net.
Re:Prevention of Dissenters? (Score:2)
I would think that companies would use the same sort of safeguards one generally uses to ensure contractual compliance. Before hiring a contractor, references and/or a previous working relationship are important. During the contract, status reports and demonstration of current status show the work is coming along. Legal action can be used to deter outright fraud, and otherwise it doesn't take that much overhead to have some impression of how the work is coming along. And the more important the work is to the company, the more safeguards you use, the more checking on the progress, etc. Even the most honest, hardworking programmer could die in a car accident tomorrow, so you make sure you're not so dependent on his/her work that failure is not an option.
Note that for damages below a certain amount, small claims court is used, not full-fledged lawsuits. Small amounts simply aren't worth suing over.
Linux media hype (Score:2)
There's no doubt that Linux is over-hyped in the media. Part of this is due to the MS trial; it makes interesting headlines for MS to have a real competitor for a change. I suppose that reporters will get bored with it eventually, just as they got bored with Java a while back, and move on to something else. But like BSD, Linux is an excellent product, and it can survive on it's own merit without all the media hype.
TedC
Commercial vs. Open Source quality (Score:3)
Not all commercial software is of poor quality, and not all Open Source software is well written. Bad programmers write bad software; whether they get paid for it is a seperate, unrelated issue.
It seems like a lot of Linux users are adopting the attitude "if it's Linux/Open Source/whatever it must be good, otherwise it sucks". A little more introspection in the Linux community would be a Good Thing.
TedC
Re:But how about long-term support and maintenance (Score:1)
This is quite
I guess what we need is to combine the two.
Re:Open Source has gone commercial (Score:2)
HP gave us the reference implementation of STL, and SGI has been maintaining it since. This is the version used in gcc.
And if we look further than the big guys, the biggest contributers to Ghostscript, gcc, GNAT, and gdb are all commercial, and XEmacs also originated from a commercial setting.
Commercial support for free software is nothing new, and for those of us who like both free software and earning money, it is definitely not something bad.
Re:Ummm... Isn't this just telecommuting? (Score:1)
I suppose that without the open source provisions, this system devolves into a really laid-back recruiting agency.
-Mars
Interesting... (Score:5)
However, there is still big money to be made. Why? Here's the deal: Open-Source has many advantages. The biggest advantage is that maintenance turnaround times are extremely high. However, Open-Source does have one flaw: initial development time, be it for a piece of software or even just a major feature being added to a piece of software, is very slow.
And that is where the money is to be made.
Why? Well, Open-Source proponents say that the initial development time does not matter. However, they're wrong: it matters. A great deal. People outside the industry care about it even if people in the industry don't. This isn't a bad thing, though, because that's where the money comes in. Imagine a company which writes only Open-Source software. Of course, you have the idea of selling support and such, but let's face it, that alone is not going to pay all the bills. It'll sustain the tech support division but it won't fund programming, especially not on completely new projects. However, what happens when that company also does consulting? That is, it is hired by others to write completely new Open-Source software or add large new features to existing software.
Why would people do this? Individuals probably would not, but businesses would. Why? Because they need software now. They can't depend on waiting for features to naturally evolve, as features do in the Open-Source model; it simply takes too long (and there is no guarantee that the feature you want will evolve at all). That is where the companies come in: what they are selling still is not the software itself. What they are selling is the ability to get that software out more quickly than would otherwise happen. It's like shipping via FedEx; you can save a lot of money by using the regular mail, but FedEx will get it there much more quickly (plus they're more reliable than the postal service).
There's money to be made in Free Software. You just have to know where to look. And ironically enough, Open-Source's only flaw is the reason you can make money from it.
Re:But how about long-term support and maintenance (Score:1)
if they have the source, it can be done. and for sure no one person will have total mindset of the code. this is the beaut thing about oss.
Re:Valid knee-jerk response? You decide. (Score:1)
can anyone tell me (dzions - chief scientist) why i would need 'interix' emacs for instance on NT when i can get the fsf version that's already ported to native nt? i cant say the same for tex, xview or gnome but why?
it just seems a bit of a duplication of effort.
cutting development to the bone (Score:2)
the bazaar [tuxedo.org] method of software development has 'evolved' because it's efficeint. efficeincy in software development means software gets out faster. how can 3rd parties not but get in the way, while they sort, shuffle and haggle over their own red tape?
while i bet ppl can think of good reasons why money for os development, what about the dynamics and effects this has on efficiency of output? oss at the moment is lean and mean with as few people to guide development as possible.
imop, until there's some runs on the board, this type of 'top-down' approach will be interesting to watch, but not a powerhouse of development as some may think, in the bottom-up world of oss.
But how about long-term support and maintenance ? (Score:3)
So, I start this company and get paid $100K to develop some large piece of software, say, a complete 3D modelling and rendering package a'la 3D studio + Pixar renderman.
Great, the company that neede this got what they wanted, I got paid, and everyone's happy.
Until, a year later, someone wants not just a feature addon, but a larger change that will require some architectural changes in the software. Now what ? I'm of to Bahamas and can't be reached, and noone else really has any real insight into what goes on in my code.
How do we ensure, that a program developed thru these new efforts gets maintained, or at least, keeps it's maintainers ?
This is different from the current OpenSource development, because now, people write the software because they need it themselves, or because they truely love the idea of that piece of software they are creating. For those reasons, the software that currently gets developed, is likely to have a competent and loyal maintainer or ``head of development'' for many years.
With the get-paid-to-do-X-and-getouttahere, the software is not likely to hold this key person for very long time. I see a problem in that. But how do we solve it ?
Linux Mall and donations (Score:2)
You can donate more than just the slotted $5 by increasing the quantity multiplier. When I ordered the cheap Debian cd, I put a good number in the donation box.
Re:Open Source has gone commercial (Score:2)
anything else, and that the GPL would be most successful of all.
If someone wants code to be looked at, I'm sure people who enjoy coding prefer a code base that can be freely added to and borrowed from on a whim. If an application proves useful and I know it is GPL, I might be inclined to see the intimate details of how it works and learn something from the author. While I'm at it, I might catch a few bugs and help add something useful myself.
On the other hand, if the source code of a bloated operating system were available under a restrictive license, I would not even want to waste my time or contaminate my thinking with it. I would want to "clean room" myself away and deny ever seeing it.
I have nightmares of being chased by Bill Gates with reams of Windows source code. "Here, touch it!"
Re:Jolt Cola, Now with 500% more caffein! (Score:3)
"It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the Beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."
So what we have here is someone experienced in tilting back cold refreshing 16oz Jolt Cola Classics (tm) and discovered the New Improved Jolt. When the fingers hit the keyboard, the once steady hands turned into convultions of mouse clicking like behavior.
Let's clear up some misconceptions, please! (Score:4)
I don't know about other authors, but before I do a minute's work for any of these groups, I'd have the license stated in my contract.
It doesn't matter much who owns the code as long as the license is fair. You can't take back the BSD license or the GPL.
Don't forget the non-profits like SPI and FSF. You can fund free software through them, and write it off your taxes, too. And I think they are more appropriate stewards of free software projects than companies like O'Reilly and Associates. Given O'Reilly's recent anti-GPL agitation, a lot of free software authors would not want to do business with them. It's a shame that HP chose them for an associate.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
P.S. use bruce@va.debian.org for email, my DSL provider went out of business and thus perens.com is down.
This is a bad thing for them? (Score:1)
> drop their software divisions.
I'm not sure they'd miss them, either; in many cases, right now they're just playing loss-leader. Yes, they make a net profit, but often they spend more capital on the software development than they get back from it in revenue, and make it up from some of the revenue generated by their hardware.
Re:Proofreading? (Score:1)
Free Speech = Free Beer??? (Score:1)
For your other arguments, I agree. Showing the source does not mean it's free, but it's an important part of freeing software. Perhaps we should get a clear definition of `open source' (even though it's trademarked), and understand that `open source' does not always mean `free' (speech).
/* Steinar */
Re:Well now that sucks (Score:1)
What to you mean by "pressure"? If someone is going to pay you money to do some work, they have every right to expect it to be done in a reasonable amount of time. Don't expect the employer to wait around until you feel like working on it. If you don't want a deadline, don't sign up for the work.
Re:Interesting... (Score:1)
You could still accept money for the work, just require the company to give you a workstation for the duration of the project to be returned after completion.
Can this handle changes in developer group size? (Score:4)
I think that with these contracting arrangements new developers will not wander along and help out. The original core group (or person) will work on it until it is done. I didn't see any mention of how to compensate someone who jumps in at the last minute and fixes a bug or adds the final feature. How would the latecomer be compensated? I would guess that the core group will not change for the life of the project.
If the projects span a few weeks or months, then the group size will not have time to change. I think of KDE or Gnome where developers are more likely to come and go and contribute widely varying amounts of code to the project.
The idea that all bugs are shallow given enough eyeballs doesn't say if the eyeball that found/fixed the bug was a member of the core group of developers. A newcomer could have found/fixed it.
This may not even be a big deal, I don't know.
Contract language in support of open source (Score:1)
"Consultant's and Company's Ownership of Intellectual Property and Derivatives"
To best further the goals of the Company, Consultant may make use of third party products or works in the design, creation, and support of the Project Deliverables. Bug fixes, modifications, improvements, and closely related additions to such third party products that do not specifically relate to the Company's business and are not Confidential Information will be property of the Consultant without restriction, and shall be considered part of the Consultant's Accumulated Know-How. An example of this situation is the use by Consultant of a so-called "open source component", where the contribution of fixes and improvements allows such components to be integrated into future versions thereby indirectly helping the Company and the development community. Consultant and Williams hereby grant to COmpany a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free license to utilize the Consultant's Accumulated Know-How in connection with the development, use, operation and mainenance of Company's internet-based site. The license shall be assignable or transferable to the Company's successors by merger or consolidation, and to any subsidiaries with respect to which the Company or any such successor shall own more than 50% of the outstanding capital stock, but shall not otherwise be assignable or transferable.
Of course a few windy clauses were added to what I wrote to begin with, but you get the idea. If more consultants and employees had this in their agreements it would help Open/Free source a lot.
Same as any regular contract employee (Score:1)
No sane manager lets a project go from start to finish without any intermediate checkups and reviews, even inhouse projets with inhouse employees. What makes you think this would be different?
--
Re:Open Source has gone commercial (Score:4)
No, I meant kzinti. -- Re:"kzinti" is plural (Score:1)
--JT
Open-Source Funding follow-up (Score:2)
Speaking of Cosource, this seems like a good time to let everybody know that I received a great response to the essay I posted earlier this year about Open-Source funding and escrow agencies. I'm currently going through the responses and preparing a second essay to make recommendations to people who want to contribute money to Open-Source development efforts. My review will include organizations such as the Free Software Bazaar and CoSource. Unfortunately, my day job keeps getting in the way, or I would have posted my follow-up sooner.
--JT (Jim Thompson, "kzinti" on slashdot)
Selfish? (Score:1)
more code exchanging good for openware (Score:1)
Re:Free speech/free beer (Score:1)
Re:Open Source has gone commercial (Score:1)
gave us any interesting source code (not hidden behind 1,0000 lines of legal crap)? "
Also, look inside the source code of XFree86, for example, xc/lib/xkbfile - in just about every file you will see a copywrite notice from Silicon Graphics giving this software away.
Re:But if you are paid to do it, it becomes work! (Score:1)
code mercs (Score:4)
a) the job will get done by the developer
b) the job will get paid for by the company
This is definately a step in the right direction for the Open Source movement. Not only does it allow people to make money, at the same time it still helps to furthur the community by making sure the code is open. The peer review is also a great way of making sure that quality code is produced. Not only that, but now, if a company needs support for certain hardware for a specific OS that doesn't have it, or some similar problem, and just wants it to get done, and does not care about owning the rights to it, it can get done quickly and efficiently.
Now you too can be a merc! Just sign up, hire some nerdy thugs, and make a killing! (figuratively speaking of course)
I can't help thinking of Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
So there would be a segment of the software industry (those programs that lend themselves to OpenSource - basically, OS's, business, most things besides big games) that could no longer be "sold", per se.
Linux is an Open Source software now, and it is being sold; why would Open Source software in the future fail to be sold? Support and manuals and setup would ostensibly be the reasoning, but Open Source software should still be sold, in the future.
No HP making copiers and software, no Sun making hardware and software. All these companies would have to drop their software divisions.
I don't imagine this would necessarily hold either; I would think, for internal use, that a permanent 'independent' software house would make more sense than regularly contracting out work to the same company, so in some situations HP would keep their software houses, while in others, like BofA for example, would continue to contract out, perhaps to HP or IBM, for example.
Some companies may shed their software divisions, but if the software divisions are added value ventures that push the sales of hardware and support, I don't see why the big companies, like HP or IBM, would lose them.
-AS
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
True enough, the Red Hat does not, per se, sell Linux, at least not in the same way that M$ sells Windows, but the software remains for sale, in stores, etc. In a way the presence of boxes of Linux on an aisle shelf works very much as advertisements for Linux and for RedHat. The problem with *not* selling boxes of Linux is to require people to be savvy enough to download an installation and work their way through, or to buy a CheapBytes type CD? Caldara has a very nice solution, in that they have value added support software to their OpenLinux, with their own installer and 'proprietary' dual glib version compatibility. I'd imagine, even if RedHat isn't 'selling' Linux, it's important for someone to carry boxes of Intel Linux, PPC Linux, Alpha Linux, etc, in store aisles... at least until online shopping is the norm, and browsing aisles is relegated, if ever, to the dustbin.
As for an internal independent software house, it's a management and allocation bonus. On demand, no searching or hunting for talent, as well as being able to control/supervise on a daily basis the software programmers. Otherwise the same argument goes for secretaries, management, utility, janatorial, marketing, etc; none of them make any money for the company, they just help to keep the company running. It is *only* the software programmers, the hardware designers, the manufacturing plants, and the distributors that make any money for a company, but the glue layers between all these components is necessary, and a permanent software house is just as useful, to fix bugs in Open Source software utilized internally, to port some Open Source software, to maintain Open Sourced software, etc.
Still, I can see what you're getting at, but I just don't quite believe it will go that far anytime soon, like say the next 10 or so years. There are still shortages of decent technically skilled workers in the Silicon Valley, so no company would be willing to let go of it's talent and allow them to earn 'market' value...
-AS
Re:Interesting... (Score:1)
You are absolutely correct as long as Red Hat rolls over and dies as soon as someone else manages to match the value of their package. However, if Red Hat stays on the ball, they will continuously improve their oferings. If you look at industries besides the software industry, you will find a similar situation. As long as there is competition within the industry, each company strives to improve their product (though sometimes the improvement is along the lines of "Now with scrubbing bubbles!"). This is healthy and normal.
Re:How the Hell Will this Work? (Score:1)
Re:How the Hell Will this Work? (Score:2)
There exists quite a bit of software which is not itself a product. There are lots of people who want some piece of software that they don't intend to sell, they intend to use.
Your attitude sounds, quite frankly, like childish selfishness, like the kid who won't let his little brother play his video games when he's not using them. So you pay $10k and get some piece of software written that you want. Other people get to use it for free. Other's use of the software doesn't make it any less useful to you. In fact, it will probably make the software more useful, since others will contribute improvements, that you get to use, for free.
Re:Open-Source Funding follow-up (Score:1)
Returning to the main topic of this thread, I see myself as being in two positions at once. I am writing a piece of software that I wish to open-source, and getting paid for it would be nice but it's not my motivation. I also wish to help compensate the people who have written my OS, but unless I can be sure my little donation is being combined with thousands of others' donations, these people are receiving "tokens" rather than what they deserve.
We need organizations like SourceXchange to help change the economics of software development.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
I tend to think that non-monetary compensation will become extremely important for both companies.
For example, it would be awfully hard for me to write a driver for a piece of hardware without first owning it. (Forgive me if I've got the wrong site here, I've just read both. .
Also, waiting for a milestone to receive cash to get hardware x would be kind of hard, huh?
Obviously there will be a lot of things to work out after your beta run, but I think this is an important thing to look at up front.
In addition, non-monetary compensation is at least partly responsible for the way in which the OSS movement has flourished, attracting these kinds of attentions.
This is free software! (Score:2)
Re:Open Source has gone commercial (Score:2)
Lando> 2b || !2b That is the statement
No, it's not. According to the BNF in K&Rv2, a statement is either followed by a semicolon or enclosed in parentheses (with a few other variants). What you have is a logical-OR-expression (most specifically), i.e. an expression (most generally). Also, I don't think the first character of valid identifiers can be digits, and "2 b" doesn't mean anything. "2*b || !2*b That is the expression" would be more accurate. (Correct me if I am wrong on these points.)]
If your software really is useful, I'd speculate that you would have more long-term success with open-sourced software than anything else, and that the GPL would be most successful of all. Free software tends to get used by a lot of people; the more people use your software, the better off you are in the long run. Consider that companies who own their programs and code have been hiring old COBOL coders like mad for Y2K stuff; what's important isn't controlling the code, what's important is being recognized as somebody who can do nontrivial things with the code. Make it free, get it out there, you'll do well.
Re:Valid knee-jerk response? You decide. (Score:1)
I DID read the website. Besides the fact that your marketing bozoids say nothing (without some digging) about anything other than, QUOTE (from YOUR HOME PAGE): "INTERIX is the high-performance software platform for running UNIX and LINUX applications, commands and shells on Windows NT." ENDQUOTE; YOUR words, not mine.
NOWHERE in your website do you mention the terms of YOUR license, other than to say that your parent, Softway, has filed with the Open Group for Unix certification...so the only reason you DON'T want to call it UNIX is because you don't want to tick off the OG.
From the above, I infer that you will seek and market a closed, proprietary solution, making YOU the fellow that's off topic (Topic is: "Getting Paid to Write Open Source Code," not, "Advertise Your Latest Attempt to Jump on the Free Software Bandwagon!")
Doc, you can "layer" ("lawyer?") all the "personality" on top of bloated, non-scalable, broken 60's POSIX-wannabe, me-too technology you want. "micro-kernel," "macro-kernel," whatever, it still lives on top of and requires the same 20-million lines of code and 500 megabytes of kernel and required services that Microsoft wants to sell me for a minimum of $700 and you want to add $299 or more on top of! You're just going down the same path that Datafocus/MKS went down with NutCracker. The ONLY difference (besides your code, and MAYBE your "technology,"...I don't know; the source is CLOSED, so I can't examine it!) is you and Softway want to be called an "OS," rather than a "porting solution."
My rule has always been, 'If it looks like a skunk, smells like a skunk, and has two white stripes down the back, I don't need to be squirted to know that it STINKS and I better stay away;' or as my late father might have said, "Son, I don't believe that little black-and-white striped doggie is gonna hunt." (SMILE)
As for "knee-jerk," "valid," and "troll:" well, I may have done bad things in my life, but I'VE NEVER ADVERTISED ON SLASHDOT BY POSTING TO THE FORUM. If you're gonna advertise, pay the blockstackerz and get a banner!
As for "justifying Interix," you won't here, because you CAN'T. It is proprietary, closed and built on a failing operating system built for 286's. If you want to "support" and not suborn the community, pay for a REAL operating system, don't sponsor a "Bounty Hunt." Sponsor a Project, then release the source to the community.
Otherwise, just slink away and join the rest of the clueless PHB's and marketing know-nothings that joined our community only when Linus made the front page of Forbes. The rest of us have been laboring unnoticed here in the trenches since '92 and code for and operate with TRULY open minds...focused on OPEN SOURCE.
By the way, my original comment was meant as a humorous riposte to your obvious off-topic advertising of a closed, commercial product on a thread about Open Source Software and its future. I posted it with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. The fact you couldn't read that into the post, shows that maybe you're spending too much time around the marketing and VC guys and not enough time coding, Quaking and enjoying life with the rest of us. Or, maybe there's no room in your "personality," on top of all that bloat for humour? (Ummm, Doc; calm down...another joke.)
Re:Valid knee-jerk response? You decide. (Score:1)
No, I don't reserve my "bile" and "venom" for the Dark Lords of Redmond. They do it to themselves, every time a departmental server has to be cold booted after a BSOD or to alleviate the leaks in memory.
I don't go after Sun for Solaris, (although I _DO_ for Java! heh-heh) because they released the source code for me to examine in order to determine if it is safe to run my and my customers critical applications on (ever hear of "Free Solaris"?
I could care less about the licenses, GPL, LGPL, artistic, whatever. I want to see the source, to determine the stability of the system. I want to compile the kernel myself, with only the services I want and need. I don't want to have to guess at how to interface the tools I write and the apps my customer depends on to an impossibly convoluted mess of spaghetti that even the "manufacturer" admits few if any of their "artisans" understand.
As to "porting" Unix and Linux apps to NT, I ask you _WHY_? Why do you "...enable customers to recapture their long-term investment in applications written on UNIX systems for reuse on Windows NT. The INTERIX software platform allows customers to run these UNIX system applications on Windows NT." Why would I, as an ISV or corporate user use your product, instead of serving data in an agreed, standard format, over the network, to stable, dependable platforms, whose users do not have to worry about data loss due to constant GPF's? Why would I bother to gamble on your solution, when everyone who has tried this before (including Mortice Kerns) failed miserably? It's not their (or your) fault. NT is suitable for OpenGL games and small, departmental applications. It doesn't scale, it crashes frequently and it leaks like the Titanic after the iceberg hit.
If you want to hunt for new code mercenaries and pay them $1000 to "port" open source apps to your system, more power to you. Just don't gloat about getting off so cheap. At least not here.
A better use of your $1000 would have been to give it to maddog's Linux International (to which MY parent company belongs) or to one of the fine Project Teams seeking to expand Linux (yes, even Caldera, and let's not forget SUSE, RedHat, and all the rest who distribute "closed" apps in their distros, but have OPEN KERNELS).
I do read your comments: in defense of the IEEE, and (thankfully) of Rob's right to advertise here on
Again, _YOU_ made it personal...don't want to see comments like my initial one in this thread? Then use the 'Slash' the way Rob designed it and set your user profile to screen everything under "1". Either that, or don't accuse someone of "trolling" or "kneejerk" reactions and expect not to get called on it.
Now, will you answer my question about what is different in your solution from NutCraker? Will you tell me WHY I need to port to NT, when I can just share the data?
Re:Open Source has gone commercial (Score:2)
Check Freshmeat, but here are three:
http://cvw.mitre.org (The Mitre Corporation)
http://openmap.bbn.com (BBN/GTE)
and, of course,
http://www.sendmail.com (you didn't qualify your definition of the size of "corporation).
Not to mention IBM's donation to the Apache Foundation, and the various beginning-to-be-profitable Linux/*nix distributors (XFree86 and SUSE, Gnome/Enlightenment and Red Hat Labs (not to mention RPM's) and Sun and its sponsorship of the Java community (through the Java Fund and others).
Don't forget that jsut because the underlying art isn't "free or open," doen't mean the derivatives can't be...so then we need to count LiteStep (ACKK! M$loth!), X (???) and even AT&T itself (Unix begat BSD begat Minix begat Linux...ad infiniteum).
Re:Why I object to commercialism. (Score:2)
If you mean the stack, then I can use Open Source C (gcc port to M$/OS/2, etc.), code alternatives to the stubs that Microsoft, must, by definition, leave Open, in order to be interoperable with the rest of the world (even they can't afford to write off those not on Windows...remember, they're an INTERNET Company now!).
But I believe the majority of desktops communicating via TCP/IP use SOCKS and that doesn't belong to M$, its owned by some Austrailian company or other, and not "Open" either (sigh!)
I can see using M$'s libs for only M$ code, and then they have every right to ask to "review" the result, as you saved some precious time by re-using their "prior art."
I, personally dislike using any libs not "open," or that I don't write myself, especially communications protocols, as I don't trust "Black Box" comms....but use the M$ libs and MFC if you want or need to. Others of us will continue to use other tools and take more time, but wind up with better optimized, and more secure product...THAT is the major benefit of the maturity of the models we use now (such as the TCP/IP communications protocols, etc.)
Remember that all of this was developed originally over 20 years ago by the US Government and its contractors and then "given" to the world because of statutory requirements...if the "prior art" is public and allowed to mature, and adopted as "Standard," even M$ cannot "steal" the product. The code may "fork," but the community, by its efforts can isolate the branch and allow it to die. It is only when we allow M$, IBM, Sun, HP, et. al. to define the standards with proprietary, "closed" code that we run the risk of losing the war by capitulation. This is one of the most unsettling aspects of, for instance, Java.
I agree that software SHOULD be free, and most of the best stuff, the stuff that survives, is...but, there must be a model for rapid development of "Free" software that supports the best of us in their work. It remains to be seen whether this is an answer. It is certainly not THE answer. The market will decide
Re:Well now that sucks (Score:1)
By definition, people who are paid to do something are not slaves.
If it develops free (speech) software, it is free software development. Whether it cost somebody money to generate that software, GPL==free software. If YOU don't want to do that, don't.
Re:this should be tax deductable (Score:1)
Re: non-monetary compensation (Score:1)
A project sponsor would probably consider the reputation of the bidding developers, and provide qualified ones with sample hardware. For example, almost any ethernet adaptor vendor would probably be willing to give a new card to Donald Becker.
Re:Open Source has gone commercial (Score:1)
Re:Proofreading? (Score:1)
Who's says Rome CAN'T be built in a day anymore ?? (Score:2)
Sure, SourceXchange will eventually become "the WD-40 for open-source development." Since, after all, what in a "new" program is really NEW? It's like asking a songwriter what in his/her song is original -- same language, new twists and turns, further propegation (sp?) of this new paradigm.
I'm not at all against hackers getting paid for their craft, but I REALLY like the aspect of peer review -- which is no longer an unspoken commandment of open-source. Sure, we all know it's there; but THEY do not
Free speech/free beer (Score:4)
Prisoner's Dilemma (Score:1)
Perhaps the best way to get some of this stuff funded would be through small donations from a large number of users who, unlike corporations, aren't worry about competitors.
Community standards (Score:4)
It will be especially interesting to see how all this goes down with Richard Stallman and the Free Software stalwarts.
I don't recall hearing anything (yet) from this corner. I imagine there will be some
Whatever disagreements may persist between RMS and others in the often fractious movement he
started, the difference between Free and Open is now clear. The two can no longer be mistaken for
synonymous, and companies looking for open source development don't need to stumble over the F
word.
Perhaps it is clear for the discerning
often a great idea would come up and somebody would say, "Oh it would be really nice if somebody
worked on this." But because it wasn't really sexy, or because it wasn't an overnight hack, it would just go undone.
This is always going to be a significant problem. Not just for specific projects, but for
things like documention and quality control / testing. People may want to code it, but do
they want to take the extra steps to make it maintainable? This is an area I didn't really see addressed in the article.
Re:This isn't so new. We do both those and then so (Score:1)
The classical reaction of a corporation is to say, Hey why I am going to give a free ride to a competitor, which in fact might happen, the corporation must be shown then she can grab many other side beneficts the beneficts of Open Source.
Re:this should be tax deductable (Score:1)
Actually, the company paying the salaries DOES deduct the taxes from their gross corporate revenues. Also, I imagine that open source bounties would be treated as a 'work for hire' contracts. That is, around tax time you receive a 1099 from the company. You attach it to your taxes and report it as income. You are obligated to pay taxes on it, including the extra 7.5% self employment tax (the half of the social security tax that is normally paid by the employer). The company, on the other hand, reports it as an expense and deducts it from their corporate taxes.
This model has a lot of benefits for the company. Having actual employees (rather than contractors) can often be a hassle. Unfortunetly, if you keep a lot of contractors on site for a year or two, the government might decide they are really employees and require you to withhold taxes, offer benefits, etc. By letting the contractors use their own facilities and set their own hours, they pass the most important government tests for determining contractor vs. employee status and avoid a bunch of messy tax and legal entanglements.
At least that is how it works in the USA. What about in other countries?
Thad
Re:the other Open Source business model... (Score:1)
Check out qmail. I've heard that it is much easier to deal with than sendmail.
Thad
Ummm... Isn't this just telecommuting? (Score:2)
around it, but this is at the core just
telecommuting. I know freelancers who have been
doing this sort of thing for years. One of them
consults for a company in Chicago but does all
of the work from another city. The company does
no have to provide office space or a computer.
The consultant does not have to relocate his
home and then fight rush hour every day...
Everyone wins.
the other Open Source business model... (Score:1)
writing the software, you just got to make the
application obfuscated enough that in order to
use the product it's necessary for users to buy
the 1000 page tome you wrote for O'Reilly.
[ Sorry, but Sendmail is really giving me grief
at the moment. 1000 pages! for goddsake... ]
Re:But if you are paid to do it, it becomes work! (Score:1)
Re:code mercs (Score:1)
Now, i'm not so sure. The work would naturally go to the lowest bidder (or simply be worth less because theres a large community of people who will work for hardware).
Don't get me wrong. The idea of roving around like MadMax in a v-8 interceptor with a cellular modem and onboard Linux box really appeals to me.
but on the other end, there's something sinister about it. It wouldn't be the first time corporate interests exploited Hacker Culture ("it's not a job, it's an adventure! you can stay at work all night to meed a last-minute deadline on salary with no overtime!")
if i ever have kids, they're going to need health care.
/zard
Discordian Moderation... (Score:1)
makes me smile and laugh... this is almost as funny as this post [slashdot.org] by a AC, then read the Deliciously recursive reply...
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
Re:Prevention of Dissenters? (Score:4)
open source associations (Score:2)
this is a good thing. it is the next itteration towards
*associations* which will mediate an intelligent distribution
of the needs of producers, and the interests of consumers.
--| open source associations |-----
Where 'supply and demand' are the determining factors, there the
egoistic type of value is the only one that can come into reckoning.
The 'market' relationship must be superseded by associations
regulating the exchange and production of goods by an intelligent
observation of human needs. Such associations can replace mere supply
and demand by contracts and negotiations between groups of producers
and consumers, and between different groups of producers...
Work done in confidence of the return achievements of others
constitutes the giving of *credit* in social life. As there was once
a transition from barter to the money system, so there has recently
been a progressive transformation to a basis of credit. Life makes it
necessary today for one man to work with means entrusted to him by
another, or by a community, having confidence in his power to achieve
a result...
A healthy system of giving credit presupposes a social structure
which enables economic values to be estimated by their relation to
the satisfaction of men's bodily and spiritual needs. Men's economic
dealings will take their form from this. Production will be
considered from the point of view of needs, no longer by an abstract
scale of capital and wages.
Economic life in a threefold society is built up by the cooperation
of *associations* arising out of the needs of producers and the
interests of consumers. In their mutual dealings, impulses from the
spiritual sphere and sphere of rights will play a decisive part.
These associations will not be bound to a purely capitalistic
standpoint, for one association will be in direct mutual dealings
with another, and thus the one-sided interests of one branch of
production will be regulated and balanced by those of the other. The
responsibility for the giving and taking of credit will thus devolve
to the associations. This will not impair the scope and activity of
individuals with special faculties; on the contrary, only this method
will give individual faculties full scope: the individual is
responsible to his association for achieving the best possible
results. The association is responsible to other associations for
using these individual achievements to good purpose. The individual's
desire for gain will no longer be imposing production on the life of
the community; production will be regulated by the needs of the
community...
All kinds of dealings are possible between the new associations and
old forms of business--there is no question of the old having to be
destroyed and replaced by the new. The new simply takes its place and
will have to justify itself and prove its inherent power, while the
old will dwindle away... The essential thing is that the threefold
idea will stimulate a real social intelligence in the men and women
of the community. The individual will in a very definite sense be
contributing to the achievements of the whole community... The
individual faculties of men, working in harmony with the human
relationships founded in the sphere of rights, and with the
production, circulation and consumption that are regulated by the
economic associations, will result in the greatest possible
efficiency. Increase of capital, and a proper adjustment of work and
return for work, will appear as a final consequence...
Exerpted from: Rudolf Steiner, *Capital & Credit*
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Steiner-
Re:How the Hell Will this Work? (Score:2)
The value of something has very little to do with how much people will actually to pay for it. That nice coat in the store is worth more to me than the current price; but it's going on sale at another store across the street next week; so I'll wait and save 40%.
That device driver might be worth big $$$ to me; but I'll wait until Bob, or somebody else who needs it as much as I do, offers big bucks for it. Then I'll wait, hire some kid at minimum wage to type ftp, gunzip, configure, make, install for me; and save 99% of the purchase price. If it's Open Source and on the net, I'll get it seconds after Bob gets it.
It's time arbitrage. The first person in gets screwed relative to everybody else. Does that sound fair?
Re:Community standards (Score:2)
Sadly, those steps are rarely taken in commerical, proprietary code...
Cosource [cosource.com] mentions docmentation as one of its potential type of projects. I don't see why testing, code reviews, et cetera can't be contracted out just like development.
This isn't so new. We do both those and then some (Score:5)
Put quite simply, nobody seems to be eager to to give funding to projects that may potentially help a competetor, regardless of the benefits of the open source model. For some reason, it is OK to buy the same word processor as your competetor if it comes from Microsoft or some other closed-source shop, but the second you want to release the source, they think they're just giving a free ride to someone else, which doesn't sit well with them.
We've taken pitches for software a company wants implemented, we've given pitches to companies for software they need implemented, and we've done software in advance in hopes of finding the market that will support it. In all cases, the mention of our intention to make the source open has been met with massive resistance.
In short, it simply won't fly. The market is not yet ready to contribute to the open source movement, they are only ready to plunder the works that already exist. It will be a good five or ten years before the more clueful companies show enough benefits to topple the old model of proprietary computing.
Re:Can this handle changes in developer group size (Score:2)
For example, We won't have a single project called "KDE" on Cosource.com. What we will have is a folder called "KDE", with lots of different projects in it, like "Add a CTERM(Rate, FutureVal, PresentVal) spreadsheet function to KSpread".
Thanks,
Bernie Thompson
Cosource.com
Re:what about licensing? (Score:3)
I'm not sure how sourceXchange is handling this --probably selected by the developer as a part of their RFP.
With Cosource.com, the developer places a bid to win the project. That bid includes their price, their schedule, their peer reviewer, and their license.
Project sponsors get to look at and accept/reject each bid. The first bid to gather enough sponsors to pay the price is assigned the project.
The license is not a text field.. it is a menu of radio buttons of standards licenses like GPL, MPL, etc. with links for everyone to go read the full license text on the home site.
I'd love to heard any comments you have on the way we're doing this. We expect that it'll take a good bit of fine-tuning to get this right so we're balancing the needs of sponsors, developers, and the Open Source community at large.
Bernie Thompson [mailto]
Cosource.com [cosource.com]
Re:Interesting... (Score:3)
Will Cosource.com only use the GPL licensing model? No, we'll provide a menu of licenses for the developer to choose from. The sponsors can then reject bids that use licenses they aren't happy with. We'll accept requests to have new licenses added to that menu.
What do we do about non-monetary compensation? Cosource.com will only handle monetary compensation when it launches (because we are aggregating many sponsors, rather than a single sponsor per project). If you want a machine instead of cash, sourceXchange is the one for you, at least initially.
How to we make money? We mark up the developer's bids, much like a retailer.
Thanks,
Bernie Thompson
Cosource.com
Re:Interesting... (Score:4)
Hi Ed,
Obviously we haven't made this clear enough (our upcoming FAQ will speak to more cases) -- Cosource.com is designed to do just what you're asking for: Either an initial sponsor or a developer posts a project, and we start gathering sponsors for that project.
We handle the developer-initiated case, and we certainly handle the multiple sponsors -- that's our primary focus! This logic for the site is implemented in Perl (mySQL database).
Join our beta program and check it out...
Cheers,
Bernie Thompson
Cosource.com [cosource.com]
Re:But how about long-term support and maintenance (Score:2)
You're kidding, right? Cygnus makes a very healthy living supporting OSS; stuff they've written, stuff other people have written. If a program is important (e.g. egcs) to some company's business, they'll pay someone, anyone, to provide it.
Use cosource/sourceXchange/any-other-means to tell the same community "I'm willing to pay someone to support this code". Or develop your own expertise and support it yourself.
Compare this to the proprietary source model. The vendor assumes that, if you want the product, you also want some low level of support; the cost of that low level of support gets into the price of the product. The vendor then sets a higher level of support and charges another fee to obtain that level, adjusting the level and price until profit is maximized.
In the cosource/sharedXchange model, there are no assumptions. Desire for and willingness to provide support are made explicit; an efficient market in "what does support mean to you?" evolves. I can see some people bidding $x each for "fixes to these ten bugs"; I can see other people bidding $10x for "fix any bug I can reproduce for you within 5 working days".
None of the above is profound; it's been said before, and amply demonstrated, by Red Hat, and Cygnus, and a whole lot of other people and companies.
Infrastructure is good (Score:5)
Last year my company sponsored what we called a "Linux Bounty"; we identified a dozen or so Open Source applications that we wanted ported to our operating system. We put dollar amounts on each and set up some simple rules:
- First acceptable implementation gets paid
- We decide what's acceptable
- We'll update in real-time a list of projects for which we have received implementations
- Whatever copyright terms applied to the original source base applied to the submitted code
We got a half-dozen implementations; for those which were useable, we paid. The most expensive item cost me $1000 out of my budget, and was cheap at the price.The biggest unanswered question about sourceXchange indeed lies in the matter of peer review. If I'm going to write a check for a few grand, I'm going to want to have some degree of trust in the technical judgement of the person or persons deciding if the submitted work meets the requirements. I expect I'm going to have to write wickedly precise requirements with respect to coding standards; things like "no compiler warnings beyond those generated by the starting source base", etc. Things that I need guaranteed if I'm going to be able to support the resulting software.
All in all, though, I expect to be a sponsor of a variety of projects. Start small, work my way up as I gain trust in the process. I don't like the idea of starting small; it will cost me time I can ill-afford. But it's the only way to mitigate the risks involved with someone else making an accept/reject decision on my behalf.
Jason
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
So there would be a segment of the software industry (those programs that lend themselves to OpenSource - basically, OS's, business, most things besides big games) that could no longer be "sold", per se. Companies would still pay to have it built, but then everyone could use. Companies would probably create software research funds and all member companies could request various software to be created/updated.
Which suggests that all software could eventually be outsourced and created on-demand, and the main companies would only make "real" products, and sell services only. No HP making copiers and software, no Sun making hardware and software. All these companies would have to drop their software divisions.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
And since Open Source software has more developers behind it, on more platforms, proprietary software solutions designed with specific hardware in mind (ie Sun making solaris for Sun hardware, HP making software for HP hardware, etc) will become increasingly hard to sell. The proprietary software is no longer a value add over Open Source solutions. The software divisions will spin off - witness Javasoft. Yeah, Java is from Sun, but it's mostly it's own company that Sun just has a large investment in. Because Java isn't tied to Sun's hardware, it's going it's own way.
Even for internal use, an independent software house would be hard to justify - it has no means of making money, and it's probably cheaper to outsource it all, just like companies find it's better to outsource IT. Why have a team of engineers create code for your copier, when you can contract some dedicated software house to modify some existing Open Source code for you? Admittedly, this is a far off example, because Open Source is nowhere near the embedded systems market, but this is an extrapolation.
I'm hopeful, in any case. I envision loosely knit teams of programmers contracting for jobs - not even representing a company - just a group of individuals with complimentary skills coding for fun and profit. Reminds me of that group of ISP developers who put themselves up for auction on Ebay.
The point is that openness makes this possible (Score:3)
I believe that Open Source is what makes these schemes possible and different from a simple contracting agency. The understanding that the project is to be released under an open source license affects the dnamics of the sponsors and the motives of the developers, as well as lubricating the entire process.
First, Open Source allows a group of users, who want the software for its use value and not as a product to resell, to come together and pool funds for the development. Sure, there will be free riders, but they only get to sit and watch the scenery go by.
Second, developers like to work on open source projects. The reason I would rather work on an Open Source project is the ethical motive that my source will be free for use by everyone and not hoarded to extract a price, whether I get paid for writing it or not. I do want to earn a comfortable living and welcome this chance to be able to do so while developing Open Source.
Third, the bidding and collaboration arrangements suggested by these sites are made far more practical by an Open Source license because there is no need to keep the project strictly confidential, and because of the very large pool of potentially reusable code.
Thank you
Pavlos Papageorgiou
pavlos@spamblocker.voxar.com