why did you choose to make your app open source?

[deadrats]

i know this will most probably come off as some serious flame bait but the the title of this thread is something that has gnawed at me for more than a decade.

as some of you may remember me mentioning, back when i was in school one of my majors was comp sci and if truth be told i majored in it because i hoped to one day land a high paying job as a programmer, as such i am perplexed by programmers that give away the code they write for free.

it personally strikes me as odd that one would spend hours, days, weeks, years, writing code simply to turn around and release it to the public.

why does that strike me as odd? because it effectively eliminates a) any competitive advantage you might have had and b) it effectively erodes your revenue potential because anyone can take your code and compile a working binary.

with regards to competitive advantage, i'm sure everyone here at one point or another has seen a closed source vs open source flame war, with the most popular one being the windows vs linux and the one that seems to have taken off these past 4 or 5 years proprietary encoder vs x264.

the claim by the open source faithful is that the open source work is inherently superior and/or more secure because of the "many eyes looking at the code" model, i.e. that because it is open source more programmers can examine the code and fix/improve any deficiencies.

this strikes me as a logical fallacy because it assumes that a) anyone looking at the code is skilled enough to understand it and be able to help improve it and b) that they are looking at the code for benign reasons.

it seems to me that if an open source author were to create something truly better than the closed source competitors, either speed wise, security wise, stability wise, that said advantage would only last 1 or 2 development cycles of the proprietary software before the for profit developers lifted the algorithms or even just flat out stole a massive chunk of code and raised their proprietary software to the standards of the open source software.

so basically i'm wondering, from those in this forum that develop open source software; why do you do it? and do you ever worry that some competitor, that sells closed source proprietary software, will simply steal your code, use various code obfuscation techniques to hide the theft and then make a nice profit as your advantage erodes?

[deadrats]

It's the same kind of motivation that drives pure scientists. Can you imagine Albert Einstein trying to patent the photoelectric effect? He was more interested in advancing knowledge of physics than in immediate $$$.

actually the photoelectric effect was first observed by Hertz back in the late 1800's, in the early 1900's Einstein offered a mathematical explanation of it's cause, there was nothing to patent. devices that rely on this physical property have been patented.

It could very well be highly gratifying and sufficient in itself to an open source developer to know that his efforts revolutionized commercial offerings by example, if not by direct code re-use.

yes, but why wouldn't one want to make some dough off his/her work and then receive the satisfaction of teaching others, kind of like id software did with their quake engines, first they made a load of cash selling their games and then they released the game engines as open source so that others could learn from them and make their own games if they so desired. this i can understand and wholly support.

There are also occasional lucrative consulting opportunities, for which open source experience makes a fine resume. And success with open source projects can lead to real-world regular employment opportunities. Things are not as black and white as you may imagine.

yeah, i thought of this also but it seems like a rather poor business model, it's almost like donation ware, where you hope people will donate to your project because they like the software.

maybe it's just who i am but i would be more worried that someone would steal my code and render my app irrelevant.

take x264 as an example, my understanding is that the 2 main developers took over the project back in 2003 or so from a guy that went to work for ateme. in the time since they have expanded the capabilities of the encoder, both in terms of speed and quality and perusing through the code reveals that they have spent quite some time hand coding lots of assembler, but let's just focus on one aspect of the encoder, say it's b-frames.

x264 faithful almost always say that it has the best b-frames of any encoder and for the sake of argument let's say it true. DS and the penguin have spent significant amounts of time getting the code to where it is, if you were them wouldn't you worry that one of the competitors, say the folks behind main concept, apple, sony, any of them would decide "hey, these guys did all the hard work, let's just copy the code, get our b-frames at the same level as theirs and there's nothing they can do about it".

the same goes for the linux kernel, kde, gcc, any open source project, i don't see how it's possible to be better than a closed source project.

it's kind of like me going to chef school, developing a kick ass recipe that's low fat and tastes great, opening up a restaurant and then sharing my recipe with all my competitors, along with a list of my suppliers so they know where i get my supplies.

i just don't get it.

[Chetwood]

Originally Posted by deadrats

i just don't get it.

Obivously.

[dukey]

A lot of open source is sponsored you know. Look at open office.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Why make my software OpenSource (free software)? Because creating software alone and keeping it for yourself is boring!

Sharing your work, getting feedback from "real world" users and discussing problems with other developers is what gives you the ideas and the motivation to keep on improving your projects and your own skills

Furthermore, making your software available under the GPL gives you access to existing code from the thousands of OpenSource projects that have been released under the GPL.

If you keep your software CloseSource, you can't re-use any GPL'd code! Also if you really plan to make money from a software project of your own, a lot of nasty legal issues, like patenting fees, will arise...

(Doesn't mean you can't make money from OpenSource software. Only look at what Red Hat and Co do! And "big players" like Intel certainly wouldn't contribute to Linux, if it didn't pay off from them)


Or as Mr. Stallman said once:

Isn't it ironic that the proprietary software developers call us communists? We are the ones who have provided for a free market, where they allow only monopoly. … if the users chooses this proprietary software package, he then falls into this monopoly for support … the only way to escape from monopoly is to escape from proprietary software, and that is what the free software movement is all about. We want you to escape and our work is to help you escape. We hope you will escape to the free world. The free world is the new continent in cyberspace that we have built so we can live here in freedom. It's impossible to live in freedom in the old world of cyberspace, where every program has its feudal lord that bullies and mistreats the users. So, to live in freedom we have to build a new continent. Because this is a virtual continent, it has room for everyone, and there are no immigration restrictions. And because there were never indigenous peoples in cyberspace, there is also no issue of taking away their land. So everyone is welcome in the free world, come to the free world, live with us in freedom. The free software movement aims for the liberation of cyberspace and everyone in it.

I don't have a problem with someone using their talents to become successful, I just don't think the highest calling is success. Things like freedom and the expansion of knowledge are beyond success, beyond the personal. Personal success is not wrong, but it is limited in importance, and once you have enough of it it is a shame to keep striving for that, instead of for truth, beauty, or justice.

[Wilbert]

i just don't get it.

There have been great closed source programs whose development has been stopped years ago. Think about Besweet or AutoGK. I'm sure that there are other great examples too. Is anyone still using those (once) great tools? If not, why not?

[deadrats]

Originally Posted by Wilbert

There have been great closed source programs whose development has been stopped years ago. Think about Besweet or AutoGK. I'm sure that there are other great examples too. Is anyone still using those (once) great tools? If not, why not?

there are more open source projects that have just died, Project Looking Glass comes to mind right off the bat, Linspire, Ximian Gnome (i used to love that desktop), Procmail, ReiserFS, there are ton of distros that came and went, hell i even put together a debian based distro, about 10 years ago, i called Deadrats' Linux that didn't go anywhere.

[deadrats]

@LordMulder

please note, that my biggest problem is with the GPL, as it's an infectious license, a cancer that contaminates everything it touches. i have no such problems with other open source licenses that are based on reality, like the MIT license or the BSD license, Intel's open source license (under which they released code for QS implementation) or any other similar license.

(Doesn't mean you can't make money from OpenSource software. Only look at what Red Hat and Co do! And "big players" like Intel certainly wouldn't contribute to Linux, if it didn't pay off from them)

do you know how red hat makes money? red hat copied Microsoft's certification programs about a decade ago and started offering red hat certified engineer certs, they also have classes for same, they license their server products and in case you didn't know their biggest revenue source is Microsoft itself.

back when Microsoft was last sued by the feds for anti-trust issues, and before apple became the monster it is today, Microsoft came up with the idea to create the illusion that it wasn't a monopoly and decided to prop up several "competitors" by giving them a load of cash. to apple they game about $150 million bucks to keep them from going into bankruptcy, they bought a bunch of red hat server licenses for millions of dollars and they gave Suse about 6 million bucks in a cross licensing deal.

there's only a handful of open source projects that make any real money, money that a viable software company can point to as having a functional business and each and every single one of them makes money only because of licensing agreements with primarily Microsoft, Google (though they stopped throwing money at the firefox project) and a handful of other multi billion dollar companies.

but don't mistake that for a viable business, the open source projects are almost like a charity, they exist because it's advantageous from a tax and anti trust position to throw some spare change at them, it's not like the have a viable product that they can market to the end user within the general public.

If you keep your software CloseSource, you can't re-use any GPL'd code! Also if you really plan to make money from a software project of your own, a lot of nasty legal issues, like patenting fees, will arise...

this isn't really true, now is it? yes, maybe if you follow the letter of the law but in practical terms i can easily copy your code use it in my own closed source project and a) you would never know and b) you would never be able to prove it.

i'm sure you can think of a number of code obfuscation techniques to hide the theft, what's really to stop some unscrupulous competitor, especially one that's in it to make money, from testing out your software, deciding that there's something that your software does better than his and stealing the code to that functionality and implementing it into his software as closed source? you really think that you could prove in a court of law, to people without a computer science background, that the code was stolen from you? you really think that a jury of joe-punch-clocks is going to understand or care about licensing issues with the GPL? you really think that you won't get sued and/or prosecuted for reverse engineering closed source proprietary software in violation of the DMCA and the software's own licensing agreement.

you can't break into someone's home to get proof that they broke into your home and stole from you; likewise you can't reverse engineer someone's software to prove that they stole it from you.

if i had to make a predication i would say that more likely than not the folks behind main concept, perhaps sony, have looked through the x264 code and lifted some code. i would be almsot willing to bet money one it.

[deadrats]

Originally Posted by dukey

A lot of open source is sponsored you know. Look at open office.

that's the only way the make some money, but they don't make any serious money, not the type of money you could call a business.

Open Office has been downloaded over 12 million times. if they sold the office suite at a measly 10 bucks a pop they would have made 120 million dollars. know how much they have actually made? don't know, i can't find a single source that claims they have made any money at all.

in fact Open Office started as Star Office, a closed source proprietary competitor to MS Office. the company that made Star Office was bought by Sun for $73.5 million and the reason Sun bought them was because they wanted to escape paying license fees to Microsoft for MS Office (at the time Sun had over 42 thousand employees and the license fees were through the roof).

in 2000, Sun made the source code to Star Office available for download under and they never made a single dime from the move, not a penny.

you can't make money from "free", if you're business model relies on donations and some company feeling sorry for you and licensing your product but you don't have any actual paying customers, if you're giving your product away for free, then you don't have a business model, you're running a charity.

if i'm a landlord that doesn't charge any rent then i'm running a homeless shelter.

[Wilbert]

there are more open source projects that have just died, Project Looking Glass comes to mind right off the bat, Linspire, Ximian Gnome (i used to love that desktop), Procmail, ReiserFS, there are ton of distros that came and went, hell i even put together a debian based distro, about 10 years ago, i called Deadrats' Linux that didn't go anywhere.

That's not the point. Everyone can pick up where the development stopped. If closed software is not developed anymore you are out of luck.

please note, that my biggest problem is with the GPL, as it's an infectious license, a cancer that contaminates everything it touches. i have no such problems with other open source licenses that are based on reality, like the MIT license or the BSD license, Intel's open source license (under which they released code for QS implementation) or any other similar license.

Then don't use it. I see you have no problem with stealing anyone's code (yes i know that it is allowed with BSD), but you don't want to give something back in return.

i'm sure you can think of a number of code obfuscation techniques to hide the theft, what's really to stop some unscrupulous competitor, especially one that's in it to make money, from testing out your software, deciding that there's something that your software does better than his and stealing the code to that functionality and implementing it into his software as closed source? you really think that you could prove in a court of law, to people without a computer science background, that the code was stolen from you? you really think that a jury of joe-punch-clocks is going to understand or care about licensing issues with the GPL?

The GPL is upheld in german and american courts. You might want to do some research instead of spouting nonsense like that.

you can't make money from "free", if you're business model relies on donations and some company feeling sorry for you and licensing your product but you don't have any actual paying customers, if you're giving your product away for free, then you don't have a business model, you're running a charity.

Yes i'm sure that Novell and Redhat don't have a business model and are just doing charity ...

[deadrats]

Originally Posted by Wilbert

That's not the point. Everyone can pick up where the development stopped. If closed software is not developed anymore you are out of luck.

that's kind of a dubious statement, is it not? in theory anyone and everyone can pick up an abandoned open source project and continue it but in reality the more complex the project the less likely that someone is going to have the time, skill and knowledge to continue it. if DS and Aku decided to abandon x264 and stop developing it, we could continue using it as is and people could still distribute binaries for it but how many people do you know that would have the skill and spare time to continue actively developing it?

Then don't use it. I see you have no problem with stealing anyone's code (yes i know that it is allowed with BSD), but you don't want to give something back in return.

i know i used the word "steal" and GPL faithful use the term all the time, but you can't really "steal" something that's give away for free, can you? the GPL places some unrealistic restrictions on it's use, like requiring all derivative works to also be GPL'd. if someone comes along and takes the x264 code base and heavily modifies it so that it runs exclusively on a GPU, something at times DS has said would require a complete rewrite and at other times has said isn't even possible, why should they be required to also give away their work just because the x264 team felt like doing so?

and for the record, i'm not big on "stealing someone's code" i was just pointing out that with open source software it's very easy to do it and get away with it.

now i will grant you, if i was selling a proprietary piece of software for a nice chunk of change and there was an open source project that was reputed to do somethings better than my software, i would definitely take a look at the code.

The GPL is upheld in german and american courts. You might want to do some research instead of spouting nonsense like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

if you read through the list of cases you will note that there was never any dispute as to whether or not GPL'd code was used in a proprietary offering, only if they were allowed to do it.

from the article:

"NuSphere had allegedly violated MySQL's copyright by linking MySQL's GPL'ed code with NuSphere Gemini table without being in compliance with the license."

"the netfilter/iptables project was granted a preliminary injunction against Sitecom Germany by Munich District Court after Sitecom refused to desist from distributing Netfilter's GPL'ed software in violation of the terms of the GPL."

that's not the same thing i was talking about, i was talking about just lifting large chunks of code and using code obfuscation techniques to hide it within proprietary code. you would have one hell of a time proving that this took place.

Yes i'm sure that Novell and Redhat don't have a business model and are just doing charity

as i said the business model is Microsoft

http://www.redhat.com/promo/svvp/

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/07/25/microsoft_suse_deal_renewed/

as you can see MS gave Novell $240 million in 2006, $100 million in 2008 and gave them another $100 million in 2011.

as for whether these deals count as charity or not how's this little quote grab you:

An interesting tidbit appeared in the joint Microsoft-SUSE announcement on the new deal: only 725 customers have bought SUSE Linux support under the agreement. That's a lot of money for a relatively small number of customers.

wow, a whole 725 customers in 6 years. yeah, there's tons of money to be made with open source software, LOL.

as for Red Hat, straight from their site:

http://www.redhat.com/about/company/history.html

2004
January
Red Hat raises $600 million through a bond offering, bringing its cash reserves to about $1 billion.

i will concede that i can't find any links supporting my claim that MS gave Red Hat a load of dough but i clearly remember it happening years ago and the biggest reason that i can't find the links is because google's results are being skewed by Red Hat paying MS to get around UEFI restrictions.

[dukey]

Originally Posted by deadrats

that's the only way the make some money, but they don't make any serious money, not the type of money you could call a business.

Open Office has been downloaded over 12 million times. if they sold the office suite at a measly 10 bucks a pop they would have made 120 million dollars. know how much they have actually made? don't know, i can't find a single source that claims they have made any money at all.

in fact Open Office started as Star Office, a closed source proprietary competitor to MS Office. the company that made Star Office was bought by Sun for $73.5 million and the reason Sun bought them was because they wanted to escape paying license fees to Microsoft for MS Office (at the time Sun had over 42 thousand employees and the license fees were through the roof).

in 2000, Sun made the source code to Star Office available for download under and they never made a single dime from the move, not a penny.

you can't make money from "free", if you're business model relies on donations and some company feeling sorry for you and licensing your product but you don't have any actual paying customers, if you're giving your product away for free, then you don't have a business model, you're running a charity.

if i'm a landlord that doesn't charge any rent then i'm running a homeless shelter.

Indeed. Open source has its limitations too. Look at games, theres no big games that are open source.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by deadrats

please note, that my biggest problem is with the GPL, as it's an infectious license, a cancer that contaminates everything it touches.

That's pure nonsense. It's all your own decision whether you want to re-use somebody else's GPL'd code in your own software or not! If you decide to take and re-use somebody else's code that was released under GPL, then you have to go GPL too - and that consequence is well known to you before you decide to take that code and re-use it in your own software. Also, if you take somebody else's work and re-use it in your own work, it is only fair to share the "derived" work (the work based on somebody else's work with some modifications by you) under the same conditions! Everything else, i.e. re-using somebody else's work in your own software but then keeping the derived work ClosedSource (for profit or just for malice), would be the exact opposite of fair. Therefore the GPL does not take away anything! It ensures that "free software" remains free and doesn't get absorbed into ClosedSouce software. It's the well-known and well-established principle of "CopyLeft". So to make a long story short: The GPL gives you choices. There are clear and fair conditions under which you can (at your own choice) re-use somebody else's code. Proprietary software doesn't give you that opportunity. It simply prohibits any re-use.

BTW: If you really need to re-use some GPL'd code in your own software, but cannot make your own software GPL-compatible for whatever reasons, you may still contact the original authors and ask them to additionally release the code in question under a "proprietary" license and sell you one of these licenses. This is called "dual licensing" and many projects make use of it. x264 and Qt come to my mind here.

Originally Posted by deadrats

do you know how red hat makes money?

Sure. Their target audience are "enterprise" customers. For a company it would be worthless to get all the software for free as "free software" (or OpenSource), but then there is nobody they can call in case of problems. They need to keep their server "up and running" 24/7. Every minute of downtime costs a lot of money. The "normal" community process (report the problem on bugtrackers, wait for the developers to have a look at it, etc.) would be too slow here. Thus companies like Red Hat offer OpenSource software plus service contracts. So, in case of any problems, you know who to call in order to get the issue resolved ASAP. For companies that is a very important factor. That plus "long term" support for ancient versions.

Indeed. Open source has its limitations too. Look at games, theres no big games that are open source.

id software makes their titles OpenSource a few years after the release.

[dukey]

id software makes their titles OpenSource a few years after the release.

True, but only the code. The game is still copy protected. There are no true big open source games. Only stuff like tux racer and other small games.

[Doom9]

@deadrats: The reason why somebody goes for some license varies greatly - and just because you are not on the same page, doesn't mean they're wrong.
Just as people come here helping others - that's kind of "giving away your advantage", too. Say you play single sports in a club, and you give some of your peers some pointers and that ends up giving them an edge the next time you play against them and you lose. So would you rather keep it all to yourself?
It's as with all facets of live - sharing something has its advantages and drawbacks. How much you're willing to share and in what manner is up to you (or when it's about issues you're doing during the course of your work, your employer).
There's quite a few people here that make their living writing software - some of that software might be purely commercial with no sharing of code whatsoever, other might be a mix and some might be purely open source. You might for instance share the work you do in your free time because it's a hobby. That might give somebody else a leg up, but if you don't care, what's wrong with sharing it?

You said

that's not the same thing i was talking about, i was talking about just lifting large chunks of code and using code obfuscation techniques to hide it within proprietary code. you would have one hell of a time proving that this took place.

if it's not your code, it's not really your problem, isn't it? And if it is your code, ask Macrovision how well all the layers of protection they wrapped around the copy protection of Blu-ray worked out. And then if you get caught with your hands in the cookie jar, you both have legal and PR reprecussions to deal with. Nobody can rule out that there are people getting away with this, but its the copyright owner's code to give away and just as you as a user of such code know what you're getting yourself into, the copyright holder knows what he's getting himself into by releasing the source code under some more or less permissive license.

If you're truly interested in hearing people's reasons why they chose a license, let them speak. But if all you intend it to show people how their decisions are wrong, we have to close this thread.

BTW.. what's your stake in this? Do you make your living writing software? If not, I'm having a very hard time understanding how you can criticize people who share what they're best at, especially in a place like this that always had an affinity towards free software.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by Doom9

Do you make your living writing software?

IIRC, he's an unemployed exterminator, but he took computer classes in school.

[deadrats]

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

...it is only fair to share the "derived" work...

yes, but what exactly is the limit of the term "derived work"? if i took avidemux and changed the gui so that it mimics either tmpg or vegas or some other offering, i could understand the demand and expectation that i release the resulting work as GPL'd code. but if i took the base application and heavily modified it, ported the code to Java, improved the threading substantially and made sure it could be compiled with Rootbeer so that it runs solely on a gpu, why should i be required to release that code as GPL'd software as well? one could argue that i took the basic foundation and build a magnificent castle, i could see a 'thank you to the original avidemux team' line during the installation process but to release all the code as GPL? how is that fair?

[Guest]

Debates about licensing and GPL specifically are off-topic for this forum. It's also off-topic for this thread that *you* created. Thread closed.

Please follow up elsewhere if you wish to continue your campaign against open source software. Here are some starting points for you:

http://www.fsf.org/
http://www.infoworld.com/category/tags/gpl-0