Re: 'GPL encumbrance problems'

jdow <jdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I don't need to absorb all the money there
> is in circulation, unlike someone I could name. Just some of it.

THAT is a  fatuous comment. If I have to spend all my time offering support then I have no time to develop new stuff. I eventually starve. Basically that statement says I must have another source of income than writing software if I am to be a sole proprietor consultant designing software.

That is true... VERY true,  >IF< and only if you are a sole proprietor consultant designing software by yourself. You just might starve for real, and I certainly see your point. Linux would have starve! d as well, if he hadn't offered up his kernel to the net and say "Here tis!  Have at it!" He's certainly maintained his 'control', managed to eat fairly well and provide for his family, and recieve back from his initial offering a ton of benefit. As you and I sit in front of our monitors, we are recieving benefit from that initital leap of faith, in the immediate here & now.  That is the mindlbower!  Nothing like it anywhere else, and I really like it!

Of course if Linus had been meek, and not properly assertive (as opposed to aggressive, withdrawn or passive) he might had gotten run over, robbed blind, and still sitting in his student digs with a very pissed off significant other, and  hungry kids.  Sure, I do see that and acknowledge the problem. It's not until  the development stage is open-sourced, others allowed and encouraged to assist, followed up with asserting intitial rights to authorship and maintaining some semblence of ope! n control of your project that the profit (minus the closed source development cycle)  from the income from  support,  distribution, and  releases comes in. 

Of course this only applies to larger markets than obscure...  if you were developing  an industrial control specific to million dollar Milnor tunnel washers, of which there are probably only 100 or so in the world, giving away the farm would serve only to reduce your market share.  No brainer.  I'd close up the sucker too, if I could and get by with it.  Or,  if I have the ability to do this kinda thing, then maybe I need to expand my market horizon,  and be acknowledged as the go-to guy in  industrial controls, not just a developer for Milnor  (a very fine company who builds million dollar textile washers!) specific products and hope for the referals.

One of RedHat's most profitable aquisitions was a small company that gave away a open so! urce module designer for industrial controls. I forget their name.  But, I remember they made significant coin giving away their product and selling the service that came of it, and I got to meet some of these folks and they were all smiles. That open-source worked for them was quite apparent. It's not for every situation. Nor, can one have it both ways.

So, I think it would be better if you didn't regard my comment as "fatuous" off the cuff.  Maybe for your circumstance it is.  Maybe, if you changed a perception or two, if wouldn't be, or maybe it still would be.  I'm not in your shoes, so  I can't say one way or the other, but according to my perceptions, some of which I came by the hard-way,  I have my handle on the concept, for my circumstances, once again according to my perceptions.  I do care enough to share them, even if my rant comes across  as completely in the bucket.  <g>  Yeah, I have to make allowanc! es for that. 

Bob Young didn't do badly  and I doubt he, or Donny Barnes, or any of the other original 'living room crew', would ever DREAM  where it all would lead.  So, from my examples, >I< conclude that Open Source can and does work, within the opportunities that came to those projects, and the leadership with the wit to pursue them. That is the really tough part. Good Management, with a keep eye towards Risk in all of those cases, was in place  as well as Development.

Damn, that was almost 10 cents,  put it on my tab, Ric