From fsb-return-677-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Tue Apr 21 21:35:27 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA10527 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:35:20 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA21455 for ; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:35:16 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 31436 invoked by alias); 21 Apr 1998 19:35:42 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 31429 invoked by uid 0); 21 Apr 1998 19:35:39 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 21 Apr 1998 19:35:39 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA31159; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 12:33:28 -0400 Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 12:33:28 -0400 Message-Id: <199804211633.MAA31159@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: open source definition Status: R Critique of the Open Source definition page at: http://www.opensource.org/osd.html I have some suggestions for enhancement/clarification that I think should not be controversial, and one serious difference of opinion that won't come as a surprise to anyone. I'm also sending to the FSB list for reactions. NON-CONTROVERSIAL: (I hope) All of these are suggestions for clarification or point out holes in the license. I believe that they are all consistent with the intent of the terms as published. They are certainly intended to be. GENERAL: The term 'author' should be replaced by 'rights holder' throughout. This is generally the author, but not always. If a company decides to release something it owns into the open source domain, it is not the author and under strict interpretation therefore cannot take part in the Open Source branding program. PROVISION 2: SOURCE CODE "The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program." I read this to be stronger than I think was intended. Here is an example from an end-user perspective: apache-prime: I want to install an apache module. I don't have the time or inclination to rebuild apache-prime. The most convenient mechanism from the end-user perspective would be a dynamically loadable binary module that was also accessable in source form. So far, so good. However, if apache-prime is designed to facilitate this approach, it is not clear that it meets the requirement that [paraphrased] "source code be the preferred form of modification." You could require that the program license insist that add-ins be done in source form, but this prohibits a proprietary-enhanceable free giveaway and is inconsistent with existing licenses. It may not be an issue in practice. The enhanceable giveaway is a short-term viable strategy, but *only* short term. Open source developers will soon replicate such a thing if it is useful; the advantage to permitting it is that it places the base system in the open source domain and encourages people to invest money in marketing the base system. I therefore suggest adding clarifying wording something like: Programs providing a binary plug-in or add-on interface are not in conflict with this provision, provided that the program itself meets the terms described here. PROVISION 2: SOURCE CODE The rights holder should be able to prohibit redistribution of modifications that would not meet the terms of the open source license. Example 1: I incoporate a patented algorithm, redistribute it, and then hit you for a patent license. This violates the intent of Provision 7 (which needs clarification, by the way). Example 2: I distribute a CD-ROM under Open Source containing MPEG content, but I fail to convey to you the right to publicly redisplay that content. This does not seem to me to be "open" in the sense of the license. Problem: The Berne Convention has a notion of "artistic integrity" that applies to all copyrightable works and is (by law) vested in the author and not transferable or waivable (also by law). Under this convention, I can sue you for using my work in a context that was not consistent with the work's "intent." This has been successfully applied to things like "where a painting was displayed" and could presumably be stretched to inappropriate use of software. Contrived example: In Europe, I could argue that it is aesthetically unacceptable to run EROS in an IBM shop and sue you for doing so. How does this interact with an Open Source license? Should it be addressed? PROVISION 3: DERIVED WORKS There is a gaping liability problem inherent in the wording "under the same terms". Suggested modifications: The author may require that redistributed variants prominently note that they are modified and by whom. In addition, the author may require that the redistributed variants must NOT use certification marks that are owned by the author or used by the author under licensing constraints. This provides a legal basis for authenticating authorship and for insisting that authorship not be misrepresented or represented in a confusing fashion. In particular, this is require to prohibit a modified binary from being distributed under the "Open Source" brand. Based on a phone discussion with Eric, it seems this is consistent with the original intent. This is a separate kind of restriction from the patch file issue. PROVISION 7B: TRANSFER OF REQUIRED RIGHTS Suggested addition: (you'll want to word this carefully) The license MAY require that redistribution of derived or modified versions implicitly convey a royalty free, unrestricted license to use AND REDISTRIBUTE any intellectual property rights necessary to lawfully execute the software. [ Issue: no bait and switch with hidden costs ] The license MAY require that modifiers who are unable to satisfy this provision may not redistribute their modifications. [ Issue: people should know what they are getting, and nobody should be allowed to put me in violation by encouraging me to download and use something I won't have the rights to. Note that you might have the right to place something on a web/ftp site were I can get it even if you don't have the right to grant me a right to use. Example: crypto sw. ] See also my examples under "PROBLEM 2" aboe. CONTROVERSIAL: PROVISION 1: FREE REDISTRIBUTION I have no problem with saying "no royalty for aggregating the thing on the same media." I have no problem with saying "no royalty if you don't make a profit." I have a big problem with saying "if you make a profit on a modified version the author can't insist on a cut." It may be that this is just a difference of opinion on which I will not come to agreement with the Open Source community. My belief is that there is merit to requiring source availability without restricting commercialization. Let me argue for why allowing this is a good idea, and the claim about incentives to defect is mistaken: Suppose company X enhances my software Y and charges a profit. The enhancement will tend to be minor relative to my software, because there is only so much the market will bear as a fee for free-derived software. This furthers the cause of distributing Y, getting it into more people's hands and making them aware of the utility of it. If the enhancement X of the software is truly valuable, the free software community can easily replicate it. In the meantime, the free community has actually benefitted by leveraging the marketing dollars that the commercial entity applied. Key issue: the contribution of marketing energy is a valid and viable means of cooperation. Jonathan Shapiro From fsb-return-678-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 05:47:43 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id FAA11088 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 05:47:41 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id FAA15528 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 05:47:40 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 8407 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 03:48:06 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 8400 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 03:48:05 -0000 Received: from lacrosse.redhat.com (root@207.175.42.154) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 03:48:05 -0000 Received: from bobster.redhat.com (root@bobsled.redhat.com [199.183.24.65]) by lacrosse.redhat.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA09890; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 23:47:32 -0400 Received: from bobster.redhat.com (bob@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bobster.redhat.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA01156; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 23:48:05 -0400 Message-Id: <199804220348.XAA01156@bobster.redhat.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: <199804211633.MAA31159@earthlink.net> from "Jonathan S. Shapiro" on Tue, 21 Apr 1998 12:33:28 EDT. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 23:48:04 -0300 From: Bob Young Status: R > Critique of the Open Source definition page at: > > http://www.opensource.org/osd.html > CONTROVERSIAL: > > PROVISION 1: FREE REDISTRIBUTION > > I have a big problem with saying "if you make a profit on a modified > version the author can't insist on a cut." > > It may be that this is just a difference of opinion on which I will > not come to agreement with the Open Source community. My belief is > that there is merit to requiring source availability without > restricting commercialization. Please don't confuse commercial with proprietary. Publishing under a freely redistributable license does not necessarily restrict the commercial success of your product, and can enhance that success. On the other hand this is the problem with the name Open Source. If there is to be an "Open Source community" it could include people and companies who are willing to distribute the source to their software without necessarily making their software freely redistributable. Seems to me that a better name for software that includes both its source code -and- is licensed under a freely redistributable license might be "free software". ;-) To be clear: while having access to the source is useful, it is the complete control the user gets when the source code is combined with a license that allows the user to do whatever he wants with the software that creates the "benefit" our customers appreciate when they chose Linux over the industry standard, but proprietary, OS. Cheers, Bob. Red Hat Software, Inc.----------------------------------------- Phone 919-547-0012 x227 Fax 919-547-0024 P.O. Box 13588 email: bob@redhat.com Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 http://www.redhat.com From fsb-return-679-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 07:21:13 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA11253 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 07:21:12 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA16344 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 07:21:10 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 10068 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 05:21:37 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 10061 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 05:21:36 -0000 Received: from toad.com (140.174.2.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 05:21:36 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id WAA25789; Tue, 21 Apr 1998 22:19:46 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804220519.WAA25789@toad.com> X-Authentication-Warning: toad.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Bob Young cc: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" , esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, gnu@toad.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: <199804220348.XAA01156@bobster.redhat.com> Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 22:19:45 -0700 From: John Gilmore Status: R > > My belief is > > that there is merit to requiring source availability without > > restricting commercialization. [he means proprietariness.] This aspect of the term "open source" has already caused confusion among some of our friends. Judi Clark reported in the NetAction newsletter on the open source workshop. A large paragraph in her report was how NCSA had built the first graphical web browser as open source software, etc etc. Unfortunately it was untrue. You could get source code matching some of NCSA's binaries, but you had no right to do anything commercial with it. It wasn't Open Source Software. But everyone seems to be confused and think it is, since they provided source code. The part they forgot was the "Open". John From fsb-return-680-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 09:46:59 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id JAA11681 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:46:58 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id JAA18006 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:46:51 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 11857 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 07:46:51 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 11848 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 07:46:49 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 07:46:49 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id AAA06477; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 00:44:30 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 00:44:30 -0400 Message-Id: <199804220444.AAA06477@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: bob@redhat.com CC: esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804220348.XAA01156@bobster.redhat.com> (message from Bob Young on Tue, 21 Apr 1998 23:48:04 -0300) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > > I have a big problem with saying "if you make a profit on a modified > > version the author can't insist on a cut." > > Please don't confuse commercial with proprietary. Commercial was not the right word, but neither is proprietary. Proprietary is a negative, value-laden word. I do not think it is appropriate for what I am talking about. Two separate issues conflated in GPL and also in Open Source: the issue for source code and support and the issue of making a profit. It had been my hope that the "open source" effort would finally separate them. The issue of source availability and support is not impeded by whether the original vendor makes a profit. What is required for these issues to be addressed is the following (perhaps I have missed some, and I'ld welcome further items to add to this list): 1. The source code must be available. 2. The user must have the right to modify the code, or to contract with someone to do so. 3. Third parties need to be able to distribute repairs to the code without getting into royalty entanglements. 4. All of the above must have the right to redistribute modifications to the code base. The only part of this that is tricky is to distinguish between being paid for the act of support vs. being paid to write the patch code. I'm sure that with some thought it is possible to arrive at wording to address this issue. The second issue is profit making *on the software*. On this issue it is my opinion that the current open source terms suffer from all the deficiencies of GPL. The essential problem lies in the fact that I cannot charge you a royalty to redistribute my work. It's instructive to ask who can and cannot make money using this model: the publishers can make money the packagers can make money because the packaging is a difficult to reproduce tangible good the marketers and distributors can make money In fact, the ONLY party in this scheme who can NOT make money is the party who makes the whole thing possible -- the original software author. This is because the terms prevent the software author from getting royalties. Weirder still: under the current terms the software author can charge direct customers but not indirect customers for the code. When you stop to think about it, this position is VERY odd, and flies in the face of the nature and structure of traditional distribution channels. As I have previously pointed out in this list, and everyone eventually agreed, this model precludes getting early-stage investment to build the initial product with. As Eric has pointed out, the Bazaar model works only when there is an artifact to start from and react to. Under the Open Source requirements, it is extremely difficult to fund the creation of that initial artifact. Here is an alternative model: Suppose I am required to provide the source in readily available form, and that others are allowed to provide and distribute patches and modifications. We can, given current technology, even allow redistribution of complete releases to anyone who can demonstrate technologically that they already are a licensee. Public key mechanisms can handle this. Require further that if the product goes dormant, it reverts to the public. There are similar clauses in agreements between publishers and authors, so we have a model for that. Allow modification, modulo the certification mark issues that I raised earlier. Do not, however, impose distribution pricing policies for new users/purchasers. Let the rights holder define those. Does this solve the support issue? Yes. You have source and you can go to a third party for support. Does this solve the inspection issue? Yes. You can examine the code. Does this encourage third-party "bazaar" effects? It depends. The author doesn't have to charge. Charging a small fee might allow *better* support by letting recover the costs of coordination from the users. Are you stuck if the vendor support is lousy but the product is not withdrawn? No. Everyone who owns the initial product can form a community and hack to their heart's content. > Publishing under a freely redistributable license does not > necessarily restrict the commercial success of your product, > and can enhance that success. This is a red herring, because you are talking about a different product. You guys don't sell software. You sell packaging and integration. That's fine when someone else is giving the software away for you to package, but kindly be honest enough to admit that your scheme only works because you have thousands of unpaid laborers. > To be clear: while having access to the source is useful, it is the > complete control the user gets when the source code is combined with > a license that allows the user to do whatever he wants with the > software that creates the "benefit" our customers appreciate when > they chose Linux over the industry standard, but proprietary, OS. I can get all that without paying anything to RedHat, using RedHat's own FTP site. The right question is why do I pay for the RedHat releases? (Which, by the way, I do, though RH 5.0 nearly convinced me to stop). Curiously, I usually buy the RedHat release *after* I download it and install it on a machine or two. So why do I buy it at all? 1. Payment for continuance of support. 2. Continuability of installation - the upgrade issue. I got tired of re-installing Slackware. [ This is where RH5.0 almost lost my future business. I lost several days to getting my network services working again in a post-PAM world with no PAM documentation worth mentioning. ] 3. Convenience when non-networked machines are involved. I work in a lot of places connected only by modems, and downloading the release in this circumstance is prohibitive. 4. Continuing tool investment. It's more than bug fixes; the RedHat folks keep enhancing their tool base in ways that I like. 5. Somebody tested that release. Mostly, they did a good job. 6. Somebody architected the change decisions with an eye toward upgrades that won't demolish my systems in place. Basically, it's all futures. Would it make a difference to me if I couldn't let other people use the CD? Not at these prices. shap From fsb-return-682-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 14:25:44 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA14027 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:25:43 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA22652 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:25:38 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 15706 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 12:25:54 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 15699 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 12:25:53 -0000 Received: from april.dnaco.net (root@207.238.206.9) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 12:25:53 -0000 Received: from picard.dnaco.net (kragen@picard.dnaco.net [207.238.206.4]) by april.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA22000; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:19:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from kragen@localhost) by picard.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.4) id IAA14397; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:24:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:24:40 -0400 (EDT) To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: [may be junkmail -pobox] Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804220444.AAA06477@earthlink.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) Status: R On Wed, 22 Apr 1998, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote: > The issue of source availability and support is not impeded by whether > the original vendor makes a profit. I should point out that Cygnus, which has written much of the GNU toolset, is making a handsome profit; RedHat, which has written and GPLed a significant part of what's on the RedHat CDs, is profitable (although I don't know how profitable; it doesn't appear to be publicly held); Crynwr Software, which wrote and GPLed a number of packet drivers a while back, made a nice profit on those -- I'm not sure what their current status is; Cyclic Software, which includes some of the most active developers of CVS, is quite profitable (and has their yearly reports published on their web site). Cobalt Microserver, which employs one of the primary authors of the Linux TCP/IP code, looks promising. Your argument appears to be theoretically sound, but in the real world, it doesn't seem to hold water. > The second issue is profit making *on the software*. On this issue it > is my opinion that the current open source terms suffer from all the > deficiencies of GPL. The essential problem lies in the fact that I > cannot charge you a royalty to redistribute my work. > > It's instructive to ask who can and cannot make money using this > model: > > the publishers can make money > the packagers can make money because the packaging is a > difficult to reproduce tangible good > the marketers and distributors can make money > > In fact, the ONLY party in this scheme who can NOT make money is the > party who makes the whole thing possible -- the original software > author. This is because the terms prevent the software author from > getting royalties. The software author can, in fact, make money; while theoretically, in a friction-free economy, you may be correct that this should not happen under GPL or other OSD-compliant licenses, the real world does not bear this analysis out. Also, it is not clear to me that the frictions that make it possible for Cygnus and Cyclic to make their money will disappear with improved technology. I think they may actually be inherent to the nature of software -- the people who write the software are in the best position to provide support (especially including bugfixes). I don't know about RedHat. > Weirder still: under the current terms the software author can charge > direct customers but not indirect customers for the code. When you > stop to think about it, this position is VERY odd, and flies in the > face of the nature and structure of traditional distribution channels. This has been commented on before. Suffice it to say that traditional distribution channels do not distribute "goods" that can be infinitely reduplicated with nearly zero effort. > As I have previously pointed out in this list, and everyone eventually > agreed, this model precludes getting early-stage investment to build > the initial product with. I don't think everyone eventually agreed. I heard some rather heated disagreement from Mike Tiemann at Cygnus, I believe, and I don't think anyone actually said, "Yes, I think you're right, John." Maybe you can forward me some email I forgot. > Here is an alternative model: > [deleted] Sounds interesting. Reminds me of the way Unix was licensed in the early '80s. 'Course, I wasn't around, so I might be wrong about that. > Are you stuck if the vendor support is lousy but the product is not > withdrawn? No. Everyone who owns the initial product can form a > community and hack to their heart's content. This may not be as true as you might think. If you *do* include the ability for licensees to exchange modified versions, modified versions might become the standard version -- for example, a Netscape without and without animated .gifs. Otherwise, the inconvenience of installing, patching, and building the source will likely restrict modified version use to a minority of customers. > > Publishing under a freely redistributable license does not > > necessarily restrict the commercial success of your product, > > and can enhance that success. > > This is a red herring, because you are talking about a different > product. You guys don't sell software. You sell packaging and > integration. I would like to point out that this is true of all software companies; in fact, it's almost an aphorism in the Silicon-Valley-pundit industry. > That's fine when someone else is giving the software away for you to > package, but kindly be honest enough to admit that your scheme only > works because you have thousands of unpaid laborers. Two prongs: One. Cygnus does the majority of development on the GNU toolchain. RedHat has done the majority of development on major parts of Linux. So it appears you are mistaken. Two. It doesn't appear likely that the "thousands of unpaid laborers" that built Linux are about to evaporate -- even without federal funding. > > To be clear: while having access to the source is useful, it is the > > complete control the user gets when the source code is combined with > > a license that allows the user to do whatever he wants with the > > software that creates the "benefit" our customers appreciate when > > they chose Linux over the industry standard, but proprietary, OS. > > I can get all that without paying anything to RedHat, using RedHat's > own FTP site. The right question is why do I pay for the RedHat > releases? (Which, by the way, I do, though RH 5.0 nearly convinced me > to stop). > > Curiously, I usually buy the RedHat release *after* I download it and > install it on a machine or two. So why do I buy it at all? > > 1. Payment for continuance of support. > > 2. Continuability of installation - the upgrade issue. I got > tired of re-installing Slackware. [ This is where RH5.0 almost > lost my future business. I lost several days to getting my > network services working again in a post-PAM world with no PAM > documentation worth mentioning. ] You can do this with the ftpable RedHat release, too. > 3. Convenience when non-networked machines are involved. I work > in a lot of places connected only by modems, and downloading > the release in this circumstance is prohibitive. You could burn your own CD, you know, or buy a $2 CheapBytes one instead of a $40 Official RedHat one. > 4. Continuing tool investment. It's more than bug fixes; the > RedHat folks keep enhancing their tool base in ways that I > like. They'll do that with someone else's money if you don't pay them, you know, and the difference your monetary contribution makes is minuscule -- perhaps half an hour of coding or debugging. > 5. Somebody tested that release. Mostly, they did a good job. True also of the ftpable one. > 6. Somebody architected the change decisions with an eye toward > upgrades that won't demolish my systems in place. True also of the ftpable one. > Basically, it's all futures. It sounds like it's probably #1, if it's anything on your list. Kragen From fsb-return-683-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 16:23:06 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id QAA14856 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:23:00 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA24840 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:22:57 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 18285 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 14:23:17 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 18278 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 14:23:16 -0000 Received: from lacrosse.redhat.com (root@207.175.42.154) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 14:23:16 -0000 Received: from bobster.redhat.com (root@bobster.redhat.com [207.175.43.4]) by lacrosse.redhat.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA29762; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:22:43 -0400 Received: from bobster.redhat.com (bob@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bobster.redhat.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA00844; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:23:18 -0400 Message-Id: <199804221423.KAA00844@bobster.redhat.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: <199804220444.AAA06477@earthlink.net> from "Jonathan S. Shapiro" on Wed, 22 Apr 1998 00:44:30 EDT. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:23:17 -0300 From: Bob Young Status: R > > > I have a big problem with saying "if you make a profit on a modified > > > version the author can't insist on a cut." > > > > Please don't confuse commercial with proprietary. > > Commercial was not the right word, but neither is proprietary. > > Proprietary is a negative, value-laden word. I do not think it is > appropriate for what I am talking about. Proprietary is not my word either. The current software funding model is based on VC's investing in the "intellectual property" that results from their investment. What is enabling us to succeed in competing with Microsoft (ok, ok, in a very small way ;-) is that we are playing by a different set of rules than those used by Microsoft, or IBM with OS/2, or SCO UNIX, or any other proprietary OS vendor. ... > The second issue is profit making *on the software*. This is a very artificial distinction, IMHO. > It's instructive to ask who can and cannot make money using this > model: > > the publishers can make money > the packagers can make money because the packaging is a > difficult to reproduce tangible good > the marketers and distributors can make money > > In fact, the ONLY party in this scheme who can NOT make money is the > party who makes the whole thing possible -- the original software > author. This is because the terms prevent the software author from > getting royalties. Again why the distinction? Why can't the author be the publisher, the packager, the marketer or distributor? > As I have previously pointed out in this list, and everyone eventually > agreed, this model precludes getting early-stage investment to build ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > the initial product with. Nope - no one agreed with this. We just agreed that it would not generate -as much- early stage finance as the current model seems to be doing. But some of us predicted that the current model was unlikely to last too much longer. > > Publishing under a freely redistributable license does not > > necessarily restrict the commercial success of your product, > > and can enhance that success. > > This is a red herring, because you are talking about a different > product. You guys don't sell software. You sell packaging and > integration. Again, why the distinction? Money is money. > That's fine when someone else is giving the software away for you to > package, but kindly be honest enough to admit that your scheme only > works because you have thousands of unpaid laborers. Now here is one of the dirty little secrets of our, and the free software community's, success: It is quite possible that the majority of the non-Red Hat contributors to Red Hat Linux are quite well paid for their labours. >From Linus Torvalds who went from being a starving Finnish undergrad to getting a (presumably) well-paid job in Silicon Valley -because- of his work with Linux, to Don Becker who earns a comfortable living building technology for NASA that ends up as contributions to the tools that he "borrows" from the free software community for his work, to C and C++ compilers from Cygnus, to O'Reilly's free software summit authors who make money off of the books they've published, most of (but definitely not all) the primary contributors I can think of earn some or all of their living off of the work that the Red Hat Linux OS benefits from. > > To be clear: while having access to the source is useful, it is the > > complete control the user gets when the source code is combined with > > a license that allows the user to do whatever he wants with the > > software that creates the "benefit" our customers appreciate when > > they chose Linux over the industry standard, but proprietary, OS. > > I can get all that without paying anything to RedHat, using RedHat's > own FTP site. The right question is why do I pay for the RedHat > releases? (Which, by the way, I do, though RH 5.0 nearly convinced me > to stop). > > Curiously, I usually buy the RedHat release *after* I download it and > install it on a machine or two. So why do I buy it at all? > > 1. Payment for continuance of support. > > 2. Continuability of installation - the upgrade issue. I got > tired of re-installing Slackware. [ This is where RH5.0 almost > lost my future business. I lost several days to getting my > network services working again in a post-PAM world with no PAM > documentation worth mentioning. ] > > 3. Convenience when non-networked machines are involved. I work > in a lot of places connected only by modems, and downloading > the release in this circumstance is prohibitive. > > 4. Continuing tool investment. It's more than bug fixes; the > RedHat folks keep enhancing their tool base in ways that I > like. > > 5. Somebody tested that release. Mostly, they did a good job. > > 6. Somebody architected the change decisions with an eye toward > upgrades that won't demolish my systems in place. > > Basically, it's all futures. To you, yes. But there are about 652 different reasons people buy free software from us (at last count - we haven't finished cataloging them) and there are a different "top 6" given by each customer we ask. > Would it make a difference to me if I couldn't let other people use > the CD? Not at these prices. The real attraction to the free software model to us and our customers is not a distaste for the proprietary model. It is simply that it works better. It frees the user from the huge overhead of managing the issues associated with someone else's ownership of the technology he is using. Having access to the source and a license that allows you to modify it - even if you cannot distribute those modifications - is certainly an improvement. It just is not as effective as the true freely redistributable model, for the purposes of our user base. The counter-intuitive rule we have come to rely on at Red Hat is that the harder we give our software away the better we do financially. Cheers, Bob. Red Hat Software, Inc.----------------------------------------- Phone 919-547-0012 x227 Fax 919-547-0024 P.O. Box 13588 email: bob@redhat.com Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 http://www.redhat.com From fsb-return-684-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 19:03:21 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA16685 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 19:03:19 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA28428 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 19:03:14 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 21328 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 17:03:41 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 21320 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 17:03:40 -0000 Received: from cascadia.a42.com (fyl@199.184.169.71) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 17:03:40 -0000 Received: (from fyl@localhost) by cascadia.a42.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA04934 for fsb@crynwr.com; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 03:10:46 -0700 From: Phil Hughes Message-Id: <199804221010.DAA04934@cascadia.a42.com> Subject: Re: open source definition To: fsb@crynwr.com Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 03:10:46 -0700 (PDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL32 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: R Bob Young said: > Proprietary is not my word either. The current software funding > model is based on VC's investing in the "intellectual property" that > results from their investment. Generally, this is what happens. Or, more specifically, an individual or a few individuals come up with a good idea, prototype a product and then Mr. VC comes in and gives them a piece of their action. In the case of Linux, that is the approach Linus could have taken. I think, however, we are all aware that it wouldn't have worked because: * if he had, there would not have been the level of cooperation from contributors to make it happen * no VC would have believed it could happen > What is enabling us to succeed in competing with Microsoft (ok, ok, > in a very small way ;-) is that we are playing by a different set of > rules than those used by Microsoft, or IBM with OS/2, or SCO UNIX, > or any other proprietary OS vendor. One thing missing here is that Linux is a better product. In a free market (which, of course, doesn't really exist) better products tend to get market share. What made Linux a better product was the thousands or tens of thousands of people who freely contributed to that effort. (By freely, I mean they contributed their work--writing code, testing, writing documentation, ...--with no strings attached.) > > It's instructive to ask who can and cannot make money using this > > model: > > > > the publishers can make money > > the packagers can make money because the packaging is a > > difficult to reproduce tangible good > > the marketers and distributors can make money > > > > In fact, the ONLY party in this scheme who can NOT make money is the > > party who makes the whole thing possible -- the original software > > author. This is because the terms prevent the software author from > > getting royalties. > > Again why the distinction? Why can't the author be the publisher, > the packager, the marketer or distributor? Let's look Linux again. Linus didn't want to be a publisher. He wanted to contribute Linux to the good of the community. His willingness to do this was a large contributing factor to the success of the Linux movememt. If, on the other hand, he had said he wanted 10% of the gross sales related to Linux ... (just a William dellaCroce phrase I picked up :-) ) he would have pissed off most everyone. On the other hand, few people are having a problem with Red Hat, S.u.S.E., Walnut Creek, Caldera, InfoMagic, ... selling packaged products. I think I lot of this gets back to people considering a CD and possible a book as a tangible piece of property and "raw software" as not being tangible. We all know this isn't right but the number of people that swipe software but don't swipe chewing gum tends to support this conclusion. > > > Publishing under a freely redistributable license does not > > > necessarily restrict the commercial success of your product, > > > and can enhance that success. > > > > This is a red herring, because you are talking about a different > > product. You guys don't sell software. You sell packaging and > > integration. > > Again, why the distinction? Money is money. I see an important distinction. The capital to develop a large software product needs to come from somewhere. In the case of Linux, it came from a cooperative effort of a huge team. If I go hang my shingle out as a C programmer, I get paid by the hour or project to do something. On the other hand, if I decide to rewrite UNIX I am electing to make a huge investment before I start receiving anything back. For example, look at the HURD. There is a large investment in it but is has never prduced income for anyone. > > That's fine when someone else is giving the software away for you to > > package, but kindly be honest enough to admit that your scheme only > > works because you have thousands of unpaid laborers. > > Now here is one of the dirty little secrets of our, and the free > software community's, success: It is quite possible that the > majority of the non-Red Hat contributors to Red Hat Linux are quite > well paid for their labours. > > From Linus Torvalds who went from being a starving Finnish undergrad > to getting a (presumably) well-paid job in Silicon Valley -because- > of his work with Linux, to Don Becker who earns a comfortable living > building technology for NASA that ends up as contributions to the > tools that he "borrows" from the free software community for his > work, to C and C++ compilers from Cygnus, to O'Reilly's free software > summit authors who make money off of the books they've published, > most of (but definitely not all) the primary contributors I can think > of earn some or all of their living off of the work that the Red Hat > Linux OS benefits from. Linus got the job because he is a great programmer. Donald had a job (at NSA) that didn't require him to write Ethernet drivers. ... They elected to give capital (their time) to make Linux happen. The fact that they were the lucky ones (as opposed to people like Orest Zabrowski who got to work at Microsoft working on print spoolers because he ported X to Linux) who get to work with what they love and get paid for it. I expect this is true of Cygnus people and book authors. It is certainly true for me and a large number of the people at SSC. In the case of Linux, there has been huge investment in making it what it is today. Red Hat has made investment, Linux Journal has made investment, programmers have made investment, ... This combination of investment is what has made Linux both a good product and caused it to get market recognition. (I have been told over and over that being able to take a copy of Linux Journal in to a supervisor has been what has made it possible for a techie to get Linux to infiltrate another commercial enterprise.) I see Linus, the Free Software Foundation and a bunch of programmers as the first-round capitalization of Linux. The second round was the Mark Ewing's, Patrick Volkerding's, Phil Hughes', ... If there is to be a third round, it certainly could be traditional VC firms. To me, what we all want to do is figure out how to make this model--the one where a bunch of people contribute for a long time without taking a piece of the action--work for other software projects. And I feel that we have to look at how to start an effort--not just wait for the next Linus Torvalds to come along and do it for us. We think that the way to do this is to have "Open Software". Whatever that is as we continue to argue about it. Maybe we need to back off and see what models work and don't work and use that to help with the definition of what we "are for". For example, why did Linux succeed commercially where FSF/GNU/the HURD did not? All that said, for Linux to continue to succeed, all the players need to cooperate. I think this will true in any situation where Open Software tries to compete in a commercial marketplace. For example, one Linux distribution vendor decides to try to distance themselves from the others it just fragments the community. My analogy in commercial software was when PageMaker was the best brochure program, Ventura Publisher was the best long document program and Quark was the best magazine program. Each product was clearly superior in its own market. Then they decided to tell their marketing departments to "get all the desktops". It wasn't pretty, a lot of users got confused and wasted a lot of time and we now see some seriously bloated products out there. -- Phil Hughes ++++ FYL ++++ fyl@a42.com ++++ Phone/FAX (360) 276-4232 P.O. Box X, Pacific Beach, Washington 98571 To find out about Pacific Beach, check out http://www.pacificbeachwa.com/ From fsb-return-685-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 20:23:18 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA16883 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:23:08 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA29580 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:23:06 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 22871 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 18:23:29 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 22864 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 18:23:27 -0000 Received: from mongoose.bsdi.com (HELO mongoose.bostic.com) (@205.230.230.129) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 18:23:27 -0000 Received: (from bostic@localhost) by mongoose.bostic.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA07737; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:21:15 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:21:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Keith Bostic Message-Id: <199804221821.OAA07737@mongoose.bostic.com> To: jsshapiro@earthlink.net, kragen@pobox.com Subject: Re: [may be junkmail -pobox] Re: open source definition Cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Status: R > From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) > > On Wed, 22 Apr 1998, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote: >> The issue of source availability and support is not impeded by whether >> the original vendor makes a profit. > > I should point out that Cygnus, which has written much of the GNU > toolset, is making a handsome profit; I don't believe you've refuted JS Shapiro's argument -- he states that "the Bazaar model works only when there is an artifact to start from and react to". Someone else created something that Cygnus could use. Had they needed to create gcc etc. from scratch, their initial funding model would have been much different. > RedHat, which has written and > GPLed a significant part of what's on the RedHat CDs, is profitable > (although I don't know how profitable; it doesn't appear to be publicly > held); Crynwr Software, which wrote and GPLed a number of packet > drivers a while back, made a nice profit on those -- I'm not sure what > their current status is; Cyclic Software, which includes some of the > most active developers of CVS, is quite profitable (and has their > yearly reports published on their web site). Cobalt Microserver, which > employs one of the primary authors of the Linux TCP/IP code, looks > promising. When this argument was floating a month or so ago, I challenged anyone to name a company that was writing software and then giving it away -- a company that sold software for a living, that is, not a company that sells support and packaging. Nobody answered that challenge. To my knowledge, there is not one single software company that plays the free software game. >> As I have previously pointed out in this list, and everyone eventually >> agreed, this model precludes getting early-stage investment to build >> the initial product with. > > I don't think everyone eventually agreed. I heard some rather heated > disagreement from Mike Tiemann at Cygnus, I believe, and I don't think > anyone actually said, "Yes, I think you're right, John." Maybe you can > forward me some email I forgot. My recollection is the same as Shapiro's -- certainly nobody was able to come up with an example of where anyone got early-stage investment to build a software product and then gave it away. >> That's fine when someone else is giving the software away for you to >> package, but kindly be honest enough to admit that your scheme only >> works because you have thousands of unpaid laborers. > > Two prongs: > > One. Cygnus does the majority of development on the GNU toolchain. > RedHat has done the majority of development on major parts of Linux. > So it appears you are mistaken. At one time, the only thing that made the scheme work was that people had created the product for RedHat and Cygnus to package/support. Once they start providing that packaging/support, yes, it's possible to redirect money into the development chain. So, I think you are both partially correct. Regardless, the initial development can't be funded using a free software model. Keith Bostic bostic@bostic.com From fsb-return-690-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:11:23 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA16919 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:11:18 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA00332 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:11:16 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 24625 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 19:11:43 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 24618 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 19:11:40 -0000 Received: from va.debian.org (qmailr@209.81.8.242) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 19:11:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 10200 invoked by uid 1002); 22 Apr 1998 19:11:06 -0000 Date: 22 Apr 1998 19:11:06 -0000 Message-ID: <19980422191106.10199.qmail@va.debian.org> From: bruce@va.debian.org To: bob@redhat.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Status: R From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" > Two separate issues conflated in GPL and also in Open Source: the > issue for source code and support and the issue of making a profit. > It had been my hope that the "open source" effort would finally > separate them. I am the primary author of the Open Source Definition and its predecessor, the Debian Free Software Guidelines. As far as I can tell, it's simply not _necessary_ for you to get royalties from the sale of the software you've written for us to achieve our goal of having a lot of good freely-redistributable software. There are a large contingient of people who write it regardless of whether they are paid in cash or not. As one of the authors, I find I am well paid in intangibles. I am flown around the world to talk about this software, and thus much of the cost of my vacations is paid for by the trade shows where I speak. I get to meet interesting people - for example last weekend I met the ex-president of Hati, and the ex-Prime-Minister of Canada, and some of the current cabinet of Israel. Publishers are banging on my door for me to write for them. Job offers arrive unsolicited. My hobby project has flown on the space shuttle because it's part of the Debian system. That sounds like sufficient payment to me. The intent of the software collections for which we formulated the OSD was to provide a base upon which anyone could add value (including non OSD programs) and sell the result without concern about royalty. > the publishers can make money Competitive forces limit this to a minimum profit - since anyone can sell the software, someone who charged too much would quickly bootstrap their own competition. One example is the Official Debian CD, for which I set the policies. Debian doesn't do its own manufacturing, they let anyone duplicate and sell our official CD. This has resulted in several manufacturers offering the 2-CD set for $4.99 . It would have cost me more to run a CD distribution program in house. > the packagers can make money because the packaging is a > difficult to reproduce tangible good Same as above - anyone can sell those packages, so the packager is kept from charging too much. > the marketers and distributors can make money Only as much as is reasonable for the convenience they offer. When you can get the software elsewhere for very little, they are restricted by competitive forces from charging too much. > In fact, the ONLY party in this scheme who can NOT make money is the > party who makes the whole thing possible -- the original software > author. But we get the benefit of having an excellent distribution system for our software without having to do the work of running that system. Thanks Bruce Perens From fsb-return-689-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:13:40 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA16908 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:52:46 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA29939 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:52:45 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 24081 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 18:53:12 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 24074 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 18:53:11 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 18:53:11 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA07251; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:50:55 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:50:55 -0400 Message-Id: <199804221550.LAA07251@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fyl@a42.com CC: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804221010.DAA04934@cascadia.a42.com> (message from Phil Hughes on Wed, 22 Apr 1998 03:10:46 -0700 (PDT)) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > For example, why did Linux succeed commercially where FSF/GNU/the > HURD did not? Linux predates the HURD by a lot. The right question is why did the free *BSD variants fail commercially. The answer is that the purveyors didn't grok packaging early enough and still don't. FSF/GNU didn't *try* to succeed commercially. It falls entirely outside the charter of the foundation. Cygnus succeeded commercially with GCC before much of the rest started succeeding. A lot of the recent snowball is that Linux was the missing link in the chain of platform technology. Until you built critical mass in the "free software" camp it was hard to sell applications that think different. People are now doing so. shap From fsb-return-687-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:13:41 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA16897 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:44:58 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA29837 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:44:57 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23656 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 18:45:23 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23649 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 18:45:23 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 18:45:23 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA07233; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:42:14 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:42:14 -0400 Message-Id: <199804221542.LAA07233@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: bob@redhat.com CC: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804221423.KAA00844@bobster.redhat.com> (message from Bob Young on Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:23:17 -0300) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > This is a very artificial distinction, IMHO.... > Again why the distinction? Why can't the author be the publisher, > the packager, the marketer or distributor? They certainly *can* be, if the have the necessary skills. The artificial distinction, however, is entirely *yours*. Why is it that somehow these other skills should be recognized as worthy of compensation while building and maintaing the software is not? You may argue that building and maintaining the software is considered payable under GPL, but I'm talking about building new systems, not enhancing old ones. My concern is being able to get new projects funded. > > This is a red herring, because you are talking about a different > > product. You guys don't sell software. You sell packaging and > > integration. > > Again, why the distinction? Money is money. The distinction is that what you actually sell isn't Open Source, it's boxes and books. RedHat makes money by side-stepping the socialist provisions of GPL. > > but kindly be honest enough to admit that your scheme only > > works because you have thousands of unpaid laborers. > > ... most of (but definitely not all) the primary contributors I can > think of earn some or all of their living off of the work that the > Red Hat Linux OS benefits from. I stand corrected; my claim was in adequately worded. I shall happily reword: Kindly be honest enough to admit that your company is only profitable because it gets a free ride from many other companies. You may hold that this is equitable given the development model. I probably agree. > The real attraction to the free software model to us and our > customers is not a distaste for the proprietary model. It is simply > that it works better. This is the best support for my point I have seen yet. The *reason* it works better, in my opinion, is source availability and supportability, not the fact that it is free. I recognize that this is an unsupported hypothesis. I think it's worth doing the experiment to find out if I'm right. shap From fsb-return-688-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:13:41 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA16905 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:51:36 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA29923 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:51:34 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23930 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 18:52:00 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23923 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 18:51:57 -0000 Received: from mongoose.bsdi.com (HELO mongoose.bostic.com) (@205.230.230.129) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 18:51:57 -0000 Received: (from bostic@localhost) by mongoose.bostic.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA08394; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:49:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:49:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Keith Bostic Message-Id: <199804221849.OAA08394@mongoose.bostic.com> To: bob@redhat.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Status: R > From: Bob Young > >> It's instructive to ask who can and cannot make money using this >> model: >> >> the publishers can make money >> the packagers can make money because the packaging is a >> difficult to reproduce tangible good >> the marketers and distributors can make money >> >> In fact, the ONLY party in this scheme who can NOT make money is the >> party who makes the whole thing possible -- the original software >> author. This is because the terms prevent the software author from >> getting royalties. > > Again why the distinction? Why can't the author be the publisher, > the packager, the marketer or distributor? They can. Let me rephrase your argument however: Authors should give away the books they write. However, that's okay, because they can be their own publishers and booksellers, and that is the way they should make money. >> As I have previously pointed out in this list, and everyone eventually >> agreed, this model precludes getting early-stage investment to build > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >> the initial product with. > > Nope - no one agreed with this. We just agreed that it would not > generate -as much- early stage finance as the current model seems to > be doing. But some of us predicted that the current model was > unlikely to last too much longer. Well, I certainly agreed with it, and I don't recall anyone having any counter examples. "As much"... hmmm. OK, does *anyone* know of *any company that got *any money to build software they were going to give away? Not a company selling the packaging/support of someone else's work, or selling hardware, who gave away the software they wrote along the way. A company that wanted to sell a piece of software and was going to make it "free". I've certainly asked this question before, and nobody has ever been able to give me a name. >>> Publishing under a freely redistributable license does not >>> necessarily restrict the commercial success of your product, >>> and can enhance that success. >> >> This is a red herring, because you are talking about a different >> product. You guys don't sell software. You sell packaging and >> integration. > > Again, why the distinction? Money is money. Because it requires a separate set of talents and often completely different capitalization and organization. > The real attraction to the free software model to us and our > customers is not a distaste for the proprietary model. It is simply > that it works better. It frees the user from the huge overhead of > managing the issues associated with someone else's ownership of the > technology he is using. Having access to the source and a license > that allows you to modify it - even if you cannot distribute those > modifications - is certainly an improvement. It just is not as > effective as the true freely redistributable model, for the purposes > of our user base. Although I disagree with some of the points you made along the way, I don't think that I disagree with your summation. However, as long as commercial software developers aren't allowed to eat at the "free software" table, there are going to be a large number of applications that will never be available to the "free software" world. It is conceivable to me that the company that owns Frame would release their source code and allow people to modify it and share those modifications. Netscape (admittedly buffeted by strong forces) has done this with Communicator. But the free software community is never going to have Frame as long as there's no middle ground to occupy between the software is completely proprietary and the software is free for any use. And that is what is in it for RedHat -- if you want to sell onto the desktop (which is where the money is, to paraphrase Willie Sutton), and you want to still give your customers a portion of the flexibility and utility that "free software" gives them, there's going to have to be a middle ground. > The counter-intuitive rule we have come to rely on at Red Hat is that > the harder we give our software away the better we do financially. Which is just dandy as long as you don't rely on software to make money. --keith From fsb-return-686-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:13:41 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA16889 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:37:20 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA29757 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:37:19 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23345 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 18:37:27 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23338 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 18:37:25 -0000 Received: from ppp-10.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.94.56) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 18:37:25 -0000 Received: (qmail 6018 invoked by uid 501); 22 Apr 1998 18:38:54 -0000 Received: (qmail 22604 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 18:08:01 -0000 Received: from rock.west.ora.com (207.25.97.8) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 18:08:01 -0000 Received: from isla.west.ora.com (isla.west.ora.com [207.25.97.16]) by rock.west.ora.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA23196; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:07:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tim@localhost) by isla.west.ora.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA23996; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:13:24 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804221813.LAA23996@isla.west.ora.com> From: tim@ora.com (Tim O'Reilly) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:13:24 PDT X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.0 10/31/90) To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: tim@oreilly.com, sara@oreilly.com Status: R On Apr 21, 11:48pm, Bob Young wrote: } >From Linus Torvalds who went from being a starving Finnish undergrad } to getting a (presumably) well-paid job in Silicon Valley -because- } of his work with Linux, to Don Becker who earns a comfortable living } building technology for NASA that ends up as contributions to the } tools that he "borrows" from the free software community for his } work, to C and C++ compilers from Cygnus, to O'Reilly's free software } summit authors who make money off of the books they've published, } most of (but definitely not all) the primary contributors I can think } of earn some or all of their living off of the work that the Red Hat } Linux OS benefits from. } This is a bit off-thread, but I've seen suggested a couple of times in various threads that the people who attended the "open source" summit that we held were just O'Reilly authors. As a matter of fact, the only person at the summit who has written a book for O'Reilly is Larry Wall. Eric Allman has his name on the sendmail book, but he was only peripherally involved. A couple of other people there have written books but not for O'Reilly. At this point, Larry definitely does make his living off Perl, since we pay his salary just to do interesting stuff and keep Perl going. He does also get royalties from the book. But for a long time, he, like a lot of free software authors, made his living with a day job, at which, thankfully, he was also able to do additional development on Perl. There's no question that free software prospers due to the tacit (or unknowing) support of many computer companies. But it's also true, as a number of the people at the summit remarked, that this grows old, and there's definitely a desire to look for some other model, which provides a hybrid of the wonderful energy and generosity of the free software model with some greater rewards. There's no question that in almost all cases, other people have reaped far more of the financial rewards from free software than the free software creators. As Larry has pointed out, I've made more money off perl than he has. Similarly, Sun Microsystems was built on the work of the Berkeley UNIX team, and almost all of the multi-billion dollar Internet opportunity came from the efforts of many volunteers. Some of those early volunteers (like Rick Adams of UUNET) did in fact make it big, but they are an exception. On the other hand, this is also true in many other fields. People make money on commercial development of ideas, not just the ideas themselves. 3M made a lot more money on post it notes than the guy who invented them. There are always examples of inventor- businessmen like Bell and Edison, but for every one who made a fortune and founded a company, there are hundreds who gave their brain-children to the world, sometimes not even getting recognition for it. Back to the somewhat dismissive suggestion that the people at the summit were just "O'Reilly authors"... I know there is a bit of animus in the free software community about who was invited and who wasn't, so maybe this is a good place to say something about the rationale. First, we did start out with what was primarily a local California group of people. Eric Raymond was the only original out of state-invitee. We wanted to keep the group small, with one or at most two representatives of each free software "tradition", figuring out we could expand the group later. Second, I really did want to get across the idea that free or open source software is much more widespread than just Linux and GNU. I think the free software community does itself a disservice by continuing this misconception. I tried to focus on software that corporate america could really start to see as mission critical, right under their noses, like sendmail and bind, but that they just take for granted. It's perhaps ironic that the mainstream press "got it" more readily than some of the people who like to think of themselves as the "free software community." This is perhaps over-broad, but I do think that there's a group that thinks that Linux and GNU is the only game in town when it comes to free software. In fact, there are dozens of IMPORTANT free/open source software traditions with a remarkably small amount of overlap. I think it's really important for these traditions to start sharing ideas and becoming more aware of each other. I'd love to talk to anyone who feels that their interests have not been represented by our efforts, and to see how we can bring more attention to all of the people who, by their generosity, have created so much of the value that we all rely on. -- Tim O'Reilly @ O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 101 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472 707-829-0515 ext 266, Fax 707-829-0104, tim@oreilly.com http://www.oreilly.com http://software.oreilly.com http://www.songline.com From fsb-return-691-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:36:53 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA16959 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:36:52 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA00711 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:36:51 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 25420 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 19:37:17 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 25412 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 19:37:15 -0000 Received: from ppp-28.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.94.41) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 19:37:15 -0000 Received: (qmail 6279 invoked by uid 501); 22 Apr 1998 19:12:03 -0000 Date: 22 Apr 1998 19:12:03 -0000 Message-ID: <19980422191203.6278.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com, sara@oreilly.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804221813.LAA23996@isla.west.ora.com> References: <199804221813.LAA23996@isla.west.ora.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q In fact, there are dozens of IMPORTANT free/open source > software traditions with a remarkably small amount > of overlap. I think it's really important for these > traditions to start sharing ideas and becoming more > aware of each other. To that end, I'll bet that it's time for a Free Software Business trade show. People are starting to recognize that there are good financial reasons for pursuing free software solutions. With interest from businesses comes money. The FSF ran one Freely-Redistributable Software Conference, but it seemed (to me) more like an academic conference than a trade show. The second one lost money big-time when attendence was insufficient even to bother running it (I was scheduled to give a qmail tutorial). Every summer my family attends the Friends General Conference, a gathering of Quakers. Quakers are a minority religion in the US and we are far-flung. We leave reconfirmed and refreshed in our beliefs, ready to face the world. There's no substitute for face to face time. I'll bet that a similar effect would result from getting hackers together. More than the Linux Expo, more than the Hacker's Conference (is it still running?), it would be for everyone working on free software. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-692-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:39:15 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA16964 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:39:15 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA00749 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:39:14 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 25644 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 19:39:41 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 25637 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 19:39:41 -0000 Received: from bourbon.cs.umd.edu (root@128.8.128.52) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 19:39:41 -0000 Received: from cs.umd.edu by bourbon.cs.umd.edu (8.8.5/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id PAA04715; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:39:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804221939.PAA04715@bourbon.cs.umd.edu> To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: bruce@va.debian.org's message of "22 Apr 1998 19:11:06 -0000." <19980422191106.10199.qmail@va.debian.org> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:39:08 -0400 From: "William C. Cheng" Status: R Bruce Perens wrote: >From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" >> the publishers can make money > >Competitive forces limit this to a minimum profit - since >anyone can sell the software, someone who charged too much would quickly ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >bootstrap their own competition. One example is the Official Debian CD,... Is that true? Let's say that company X made a product based on GPL'ed software and sold it to company Y for $100K. No one can get the source other than company Y. Company Y certainly won't publish the source because it just paid $100K for it. Part two of the question... Let's say that company Z pretends that it also wants to buy the product. It paid for the product and asked for the source and got the source. Then company Z says that it doesn't want it any more. It got a refund from company X. Can company Z publish the source (and now company X has to explain to company Y that the $100K is for support)? -- Bill Cheng // bill.cheng@acm.org From fsb-return-694-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:51:04 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA16977 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:51:03 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA00889 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:51:02 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 26215 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 19:51:29 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 26208 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 19:51:28 -0000 Received: from lacrosse.redhat.com (root@207.175.42.154) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 19:51:28 -0000 Received: from bobster.redhat.com (root@bobster.redhat.com [207.175.43.4]) by lacrosse.redhat.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA20335; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:50:50 -0400 Received: from bobster.redhat.com (bob@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bobster.redhat.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA02165; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:51:26 -0400 Message-Id: <199804221951.PAA02165@bobster.redhat.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: tim@ora.com (Tim O'Reilly), fsb@crynwr.com cc: sara@oreilly.com Subject: Summit (was Re: open source definition) In-reply-to: <199804221813.LAA23996@isla.west.ora.com> from tim@ora.com (Tim O'Reilly) on Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:13:24 PDT. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:51:25 -0300 From: Bob Young Status: R > Back to the somewhat dismissive suggestion that the > people at the summit were just "O'Reilly authors"... > I know there is a bit of animus in the free software > community about who was invited and who wasn't, so maybe > this is a good place to say something about the rationale. Tim, I fear I may have been a principal perpetrator of "a bit of animus in the free software community about who was invited and who wasn't" as a result of comments that I made on the li.org list and if so I apologize. The problem was that we handled a bunch of press inquiries asking questions like "There's this major free software summit that O'Reilly are organizing and I'm wondering why Red Hat wasn't invited?". The problem was that I had not been aware of your event at all at that time and as a result found it difficult to respond. Rest assured we did our best to respond in a positive way. You have every right to invite whoever you want to any event you want to organize. Just don't promote it as a free software "summit" in the national press without at least letting the other folks in the community know what you are up to. > I'd love to talk to anyone who feels that their > interests have not been represented by our efforts, > and to see how we can bring more attention to all > of the people who, by their generosity, have created > so much of the value that we all rely on. I'll second that. Cheers, Bob. Red Hat Software, Inc.----------------------------------------- Phone 919-547-0012 x227 Fax 919-547-0024 P.O. Box 13588 email: bob@redhat.com Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 http://www.redhat.com From fsb-return-695-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 21:54:39 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA16995 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:54:39 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA00936 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:54:37 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 26429 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 19:55:05 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 26421 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 19:55:04 -0000 Received: from ppp-28.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.94.41) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 19:55:04 -0000 Received: (qmail 6155 invoked by uid 501); 22 Apr 1998 18:56:32 -0000 Date: 22 Apr 1998 18:56:32 -0000 Message-ID: <19980422185632.6154.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804221821.OAA07737@mongoose.bostic.com> References: <199804221821.OAA07737@mongoose.bostic.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q When this argument was floating a month or so ago, I challenged anyone to > name a company that was writing software and then giving it away -- a > company that sold software for a living, that is, not a company that sells > support and packaging. Nobody answered that challenge. To my knowledge, > there is not one single software company that plays the free software game. Nonexistance is not disproof, of course. Just because someone hasn't had the courage or ability to attempt something doesn't mean that it can't be done. If there's a road on the front of the mountain, why climb up the back of it, particularly when the goal is just to get to the top? > At one time, the only thing that made the scheme work was that people had > created the product for RedHat and Cygnus to package/support. Once they > start providing that packaging/support, yes, it's possible to redirect > money into the development chain. So, I think you are both partially > correct. Regardless, the initial development can't be funded using a free > software model. Say "Hasn't been" or "is harder with", and I'll agree. Predictions of impossibility (if man was meant to fly....) are as reliable as predictions of the death of the net (.gifs at 11). Don Lancaster had an interesting observation in his Nuts & Volts column a few months ago. That is, that entrepreneurs exist to ameliorate risk. The more risk you reduce, the more money you stand to make. FSB's have sprung up to work with freed software once it has been created -- once the risk has been reduced. What is different about freed software is that the creator feels that his/her whole effort has been repaid by the act of creation and distribution. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-696-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 22:24:02 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA17013 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:24:01 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA01242 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:23:59 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 27076 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 20:24:26 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 27063 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 20:24:25 -0000 Received: from rock.west.ora.com (207.25.97.8) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 20:24:25 -0000 Received: from isla.west.ora.com (isla.west.ora.com [207.25.97.16]) by rock.west.ora.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA29911; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:23:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tim@localhost) by isla.west.ora.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id NAA24076; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:26:28 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804222026.NAA24076@isla.west.ora.com> From: tim@ora.com (Tim O'Reilly) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:26:27 PDT In-Reply-To: Russell Nelson "Re: open source definition" (Apr 22, 7:12pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.0 10/31/90) To: Russell Nelson , fsb@crynwr.com, sara@oreilly.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R We're thinking of doing a "workshop" (less than a trade show) the day after the next Perl Conference in august. We thought we could run two tracks--a real free for all town meeting kind of thing, and a tutorial track for outsiders, with talks on how the whole thing works... Then our thought was to expand this to a full conference next year. -- Tim O'Reilly @ O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 101 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472 707-829-0515 ext 266, Fax 707-829-0104, tim@oreilly.com http://www.oreilly.com http://software.oreilly.com http://www.songline.com From fsb-return-697-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 23:04:56 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA17047 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:04:56 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01626 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:04:54 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 28038 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 21:05:20 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 28031 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 21:05:19 -0000 Received: from runyon.cygnus.com (HELO cygnus.com) (205.180.230.5) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 21:05:19 -0000 Received: from localhost.cygnus.com (axon.cygnus.com [205.180.230.116]) by runyon.cygnus.com (8.8.7-cygnus/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA27728; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:57:45 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804222057.NAA27728@cygnus.com> To: Keith Bostic cc: bob@redhat.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:49:34 PDT." <199804221849.OAA08394@mongoose.bostic.com> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:57:45 -0700 From: Michael Tiemann Status: R OK, does *anyone* know of *any company that got *any money to build software they were going to give away? Not a company selling the packaging/support of someone else's work, or selling hardware, who gave away the software they wrote along the way. A company that wanted to sell a piece of software and was going to make it "free". First, let me say that some of the most venerable proprietary software was based on some package that existed in some prior form. Second, let me say that Guile was born because we found a company that wanted to pay us to build a freely redistributable applet interpreter that could be used for net gaming and commerce. Guile was based on the scm scheme interpreter and Tcl/Tk, but really it was a very strong case of Cygnus being paid a reasonable sum of money to create something new and free. I believe that building an internet applet execution platform based on free technology fits the criterion of what you are looking for (whereas adding features or ports to GNU tools does not). Guile was not commercially successful because it got underway about the same time that Java was released, and that supernova really stole the show. Furthermore, rms weighed in very heavily on the idea that all internet applications should be written in Guile source code, that Tcl/Tk and perl programs should be translated to Guile, and that Guile should not support bytecodes that exist to obscure source code. This position was so extreme that it undermined what little community we did develop around Guile. M From fsb-return-698-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 23:09:21 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA17055 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:09:21 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01662 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:09:20 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 28241 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 21:09:46 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 28234 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 21:09:45 -0000 Received: from freya.yggdrasil.com (207.214.120.52) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 21:09:45 -0000 Received: from adam.yggdrasil.com (adam.yggdrasil.com [207.214.120.50]) by freya.yggdrasil.com (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id OAA01326; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:09:00 -0700 From: "Adam J. Richter" Received: (from adam@localhost) by adam.yggdrasil.com (8.8.8/8.8.6) id OAA31871; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:09:00 -0700 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:09:00 -0700 Message-Id: <199804222109.OAA31871@adam.yggdrasil.com> To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R Keith Bostic writes: >OK, does *anyone* know of *any company that got *any money to build >software they were going to give away? Not a company selling the >packaging/support of someone else's work, or selling hardware, who >gave away the software they wrote along the way. A company that wanted >to sell a piece of software and was going to make it "free". One of the big efficiency advantages of free software businesses enjoy over proprietary ones is that of having solved the software recyling problem, so I think it's a little unrealistic to expect that a free software company would very often find itself in a situtation where the best engineering plan is "we're going to write everything from scratch" for a product as big as one that would require institutional venture capital from the outset. Besides, it's very rare for any software company, free or proprietary, to received even seed stage institutional venture capital prior to having any code written. Finally, there is the question of relevance. If, somehow or other, free software is being produced and is replacing proprietary software in more and more product categories at price points ranging from $2 to over $100k, and developers are making money through these more subtle business models that require an understanding of value of the good will (likelihood to buy) associated with a brand, then what is the problem? Are you predicting some kind of collapse of the free software model or failure to grow beyond a certain point? People have made such predictions that nobody would by free software at high price points, low price points, consumer sales, and business-to-business sales, vertical markets, etc., only to be proven wrong over time. I am curious, Keith, is there a market (defined by what people buy, not by how it is produced) that you believe will never be assimilated by free software? Adam J. Richter __ ______________ 4880 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 205 adam@yggdrasil.com \ / San Jose, California 95129-1034 +1 408 261-6630 | g g d r a s i l United States of America fax +1 408 261-6631 "Free Software For The Rest Of Us." From fsb-return-699-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 23:10:13 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA17060 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:10:12 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01666 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:10:11 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 28391 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 21:10:38 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 28381 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 21:10:37 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 21:10:37 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA07370; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:08:21 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:08:21 -0400 Message-Id: <199804221808.OAA07370@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: nelson@crynwr.com CC: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <19980422185632.6154.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> (message from Russell Nelson on 22 Apr 1998 18:56:32 -0000) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Keith Bostic writes: > > When this argument was floating a month or so ago, I challenged anyone to > > name a company that was writing software and then giving it away -- a > > company that sold software for a living, that is, not a company that sells > > support and packaging. Nobody answered that challenge. To my knowledge, > > there is not one single software company that plays the free software game. > > Nonexistance is not disproof, of course. Just because someone hasn't > had the courage or ability to attempt something doesn't mean that it > can't be done. If there's a road on the front of the mountain, why > climb up the back of it, particularly when the goal is just to get to > the top? Russell: Some of us on this list have started more than one commercial organization, and even more than one *successful* commercial organization. As I'm sure you know, the challenge is always finding the money. In some lucky circumstances, you can get funded by your customers. This generally works when the required initial investment is quite small (the common case), or when the customer perceives advantage in the result being non-proprietary (damn rare). Packet drivers are an example of something with a small initial investment. In really rare cases, you can do something as academic research. Developing a new word processor or operating system or command and control platform, however, doesn't generally fall into either category. The days when DARPA will sizably fund new OS work are over. To get money from other sources for such large projects you need to be able to show that there will be a revenue stream from which the investment will be recouped. To do that, it helps a lot to show that the users of the product will pay to use it. There are certainly a lot of products where such investments are not necessary. For the most part, I think such projects can successfully be pursued under "open source". It's very hard to sustain a company that way. Cygnus, for example, has been forced to shift into new markets twice after tapping out an existing market for "paid development services." For large-scale new work, though, I do not see how to get the work funded. Where a "seed version" of a perl or a web server or even a netnews can be built and then leveraged in Eric's bazaar approach in the course of a year's spare time by 2 or 3 people, this is not true of larger systems. Perhaps people are content with saying "this model doesn't work for something large and new, and that's okay with me." I'm not. You want people like me to give our software away. Hell, at some level *I* want to give my software away. I cannot rationally do that until I exhaust the profit-making options; there is just too much at stake. shap From fsb-return-701-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 23:14:54 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA17070 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:14:54 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01724 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:14:52 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 28728 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 21:15:20 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 28721 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 21:15:19 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 21:15:19 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA07398; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:13:05 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:13:05 -0400 Message-Id: <199804221813.OAA07398@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804222109.OAA31871@adam.yggdrasil.com> Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R Proposed "open source" slogan: Open Source -- better software through bankruptcy! Just kidding. shap From fsb-return-702-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 23:28:36 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA17097 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:28:35 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA01882 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:28:34 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 29173 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 21:29:00 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 29165 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 21:28:57 -0000 Received: from mongoose.bsdi.com (HELO mongoose.bostic.com) (@205.230.230.129) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 21:28:57 -0000 Received: (from bostic@localhost) by mongoose.bostic.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA14987; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 17:26:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 17:26:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Keith Bostic Message-Id: <199804222126.RAA14987@mongoose.bostic.com> To: tiemann@cygnus.com Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net Status: R > From: Michael Tiemann > > OK, does *anyone* know of *any company that got *any money to build > software they were going to give away? Not a company selling the > packaging/support of someone else's work, or selling hardware, who > gave away the software they wrote along the way. A company that wanted > to sell a piece of software and was going to make it "free". > > Guile was based on the scm scheme interpreter and Tcl/Tk, but really it > was a very strong case of Cygnus being paid a reasonable sum of money to > create something new and free. That's the closest example of which I'm aware. If you can say, what was Cygnus' investment in the project, i.e., man-months, and what was the initial investment? > I believe that building an internet > applet execution platform based on free technology fits the criterion of > what you are looking for (whereas adding features or ports to GNU tools > does not). Yes. There are still a couple of differences worth mention. First, this is the sugar-daddy approach to funding, where someone has a need they want filled and another fills it for a price. That model is different from the traditional software model, where you try and get a million people to each spend $1 on your word processor. Second, you had a base software object to start with. (This may not be a valid argument -- at this point, *every* project can start with some free software. I'd say if you put in 100 man-months your argument is good, if you put in 2, then it's not so good. :-) --keith From fsb-return-703-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 23:56:12 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA17140 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:56:12 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA02146 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:56:10 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 29629 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 21:56:37 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 29622 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 21:56:37 -0000 Received: from toad.com (140.174.2.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 21:56:37 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA28486; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:53:15 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804222153.OAA28486@toad.com> X-Authentication-Warning: toad.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, gnu@toad.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: <199804221542.LAA07233@earthlink.net> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:53:15 -0700 From: John Gilmore Status: R > Kindly be honest enough to admit that your company is only profitable > because it gets a free ride from many other companies. That is true of every company on the planet. The economy is very intertwined, and we all depend on each others' efforts in order to succeed. Written any software lately without electricity? Or without hardware? "Let us stand on each others' shoulders, not on each others' toes." (Seems to me like Escher should have worked this one up...) Oh, you aren't getting a free ride from the electric company because they make a profit? The people who write free software each do it for their own motivations -- some of them make a profit, some feel better about themselves, some learn that way, some make more friends that way. Who are you to judge whether those people or their companies are being exploited? They are free to vote with their feet (or fingers) whenever they think they're getting a raw deal. There seem to be rather more of them now than there were ten years ago, though. Jonathan, you're just a cynic about the benefits of mutual cooperation. That's OK, the rest of us can cooperate fine without your cooperation. You and Keith should start a nice proprietary company together... :-) John From fsb-return-704-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Wed Apr 22 23:58:29 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA17144 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:58:29 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA02183 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 23:58:27 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 29795 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 21:58:55 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 29788 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 21:58:54 -0000 Received: from toad.com (140.174.2.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 21:58:54 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA28504; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:56:39 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804222156.OAA28504@toad.com> X-Authentication-Warning: toad.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Keith Bostic cc: bob@redhat.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, gnu@toad.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: <199804221849.OAA08394@mongoose.bostic.com> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:56:38 -0700 From: John Gilmore Status: R > OK, does *anyone* know of *any company that got *any money to build > software they were going to give away? Not a company selling the > packaging/support of someone else's work, or selling hardware, who > gave away the software they wrote along the way. A company that wanted > to sell a piece of software and was going to make it "free". I'm sure you can gerrymander the definition well enough so that no company qualifies. Are you interested in learning how the world works, or in proving a point you've pre-decided? Cygnus got millions of dollars in venture capital to build software they were going to give away. John From fsb-return-705-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:13:43 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17172 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:13:43 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02368 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:13:42 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 30186 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:14:08 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 30179 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:14:07 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:14:07 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA12120; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:11:47 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:11:47 -0400 Message-Id: <199804221911.PAA12120@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: gnu@toad.com CC: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, gnu@toad.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu In-reply-to: <199804222153.OAA28486@toad.com> (message from John Gilmore on Wed, 22 Apr 1998 14:53:15 -0700) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Jonathan, you're just a cynic about the benefits of mutual cooperation. > That's OK, the rest of us can cooperate fine without your cooperation. > You and Keith should start a nice proprietary company together... :-) John: The personal jabs are unwarranted, and you have known me long enough to know that they are untrue, which makes them somewhat offensive to me. I'm not at all a cynic about the benefits of cooperation. I think cooperation is a fine idea. I think that everyone involved should be compensated in equitable fashion, and I'm prepared to believe that for many people "recognition" (or some such) is adequate compensation. What you consider compensatory is largely your business. My problem is that certain key parties in the free software community use the free software idea to bilk a large number of people into engaging in efforts whose value they do not comprehend. Worse, they have convinced a large body of people -- including yourself -- to proselytize the view that software should not be "property." You of all people know this is the logical conclusion of the free software position. In the final analysis, my problem with free software is not that it's free. My problem is my belief that it serves as a cover for one of the grander forms of systematic deceit I have observed in my lifetime. shap From fsb-return-706-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:16:36 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17177 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:16:30 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02407 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:16:29 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 30367 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:16:57 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 30360 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:16:56 -0000 Received: from va.debian.org (qmailr@209.81.8.242) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:16:56 -0000 Received: (qmail 12508 invoked by uid 1002); 22 Apr 1998 22:16:24 -0000 Date: 22 Apr 1998 22:16:24 -0000 Message-ID: <19980422221624.12507.qmail@va.debian.org> From: bruce@va.debian.org To: fsb@crynwr.com, william@cs.umd.edu Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R From: "William C. Cheng" > Is that true? Let's say that company X made a product based on GPL'ed > software and sold it to company Y for $100K. No one can get the source > other than company Y. Company Y certainly won't publish the source because > it just paid $100K for it. The point I was trying to make was that nobody else could make big bucks on _my_ work. Your example proposes someone else trying to make a big mark-up on _their_own_ work, which is a different issue. Let's take the example of my GPL-ed "Electric Fence" malloc() debugger, which is sold by Red Hat and others at a reasonable price. If I found out that somebody was selling _my_ software for $100K, I'd just advertise a $5 version of my own so that nobody else would be able to take a large mark-up on _my_ work. Thanks Bruce From fsb-return-707-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:18:42 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17182 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:18:42 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02445 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:18:39 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 30589 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:19:06 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 30582 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:19:03 -0000 Received: from mongoose.bsdi.com (HELO mongoose.bostic.com) (@205.230.230.129) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:19:03 -0000 Received: (from bostic@localhost) by mongoose.bostic.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA15619; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:18:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:18:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Keith Bostic Message-Id: <199804222218.SAA15619@mongoose.bostic.com> To: adam@yggdrasil.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Besides, it's very rare for any software company, free or > proprietary, to received even seed stage institutional venture > capital prior to having any code written. I agree with that statement as presented. If you consider a company that forks off a development group to design/implement software as "venture capital" for that group, however, then that model becomes the way it's usually done. And, that initial investment has to be recouped in some fashion. > Finally, there is the question of relevance. If, somehow > or other, free software is being produced and is replacing proprietary > software in more and more product categories at price points ranging from > $2 to over $100k, and developers are making money through these more > subtle business models that require an understanding of value of > the good will (likelihood to buy) associated with a brand, then what > is the problem? Are you predicting some kind of collapse of the > free software model or failure to grow beyond a certain point? People > have made such predictions that nobody would by free software at > high price points, low price points, consumer sales, and > business-to-business sales, vertical markets, etc., only to be > proven wrong over time. I am curious, Keith, is there a market (defined > by what people buy, not by how it is produced) that you believe will > never be assimilated by free software? I don't want to say "never" -- let me describe how I see the current marketplace, instead. I see no evidence that free software has even slightly penetrated the markets where the real money gets exchanged. Here are some *really* *really* grandiose statements, please take them that way. I'm not trying to argue the extent to which they are right, just presenting them as a way to look at the problem. All of the money in software in the next 10 years will come from two sources: The Five Applications and network appliances. The Five Applications are the ones that your Mom buys for her computer. Since there are many more folks like your Mom than folks like you and me, that's where the money is. The Five Applications are: word processor, spreadsheet, email reader, web browser and database. Of The Five, there are exactly 0 serious contenders that are "free". (This is based on my recollection that you can't resell the Netscape browser release commercially. Even if you can, the current release is pretty minimal -- an awful lot of proprietary 3rd party software got pulled to make it happen.) Next consider network appliances -- there are some serious bucks here, because big companies with lots of money will throw their checkbooks at problems. There is exactly 1 serious free contender here, the Linux/Apache web server combination. Frankly, I think I'm being a bit generous in saying this -- the bottom line is that Solaris (and some other folks) can seriously outperform Linux, which means that when the real money gets exchanged, it's going to go to Sun Microsystems. I know there are counter-examples in this area, simply because "network appliances" is an awfully big area to hand-wave about, but there aren't many. Note -- I'm going to include embedded systems in the network appliance case. My guess is that's not quite fair -- embedded systems have an enormous growth potential in the next ten years, and embedded systems tend to use a lot more free software than other folks do because they have the engineering groups to take full advantage of it. On the other hand, it may be more than fair -- remember the big fight over putting Windows into television cable boxes? That all said, don't take this negatively -- I'm excited about how well the free software market is doing, and I want to see it do better. But this is what I've been ranting about on this list for the last three months. If "free software" wants to play with the big boys, we're going to have to find ways to let traditional software companies join us, because I don't see the standard free software development model working well, if at all, in the big money software markets. --keith From fsb-return-709-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:22:12 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17191 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:22:12 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02468 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:22:11 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 30915 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:22:39 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 30908 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:22:38 -0000 Received: from toad.com (140.174.2.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:22:38 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA28633; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:22:06 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804222222.PAA28633@toad.com> X-Authentication-Warning: toad.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: fsb@crynwr.com, gnu@toad.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: <199804221813.OAA07398@earthlink.net> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:22:05 -0700 From: John Gilmore Status: R > Open Source -- better software through bankruptcy! Personally I like Open Sourceware -- the source of innovation John From fsb-return-710-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:35:12 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17204 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:35:11 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02622 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:35:09 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 31299 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:35:37 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 31292 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:35:35 -0000 Received: from mongoose.bsdi.com (HELO mongoose.bostic.com) (@205.230.230.129) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:35:35 -0000 Received: (from bostic@localhost) by mongoose.bostic.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA15788; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:33:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:33:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Keith Bostic Message-Id: <199804222233.SAA15788@mongoose.bostic.com> To: gnu@toad.com Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net Status: R > From: John Gilmore > >> OK, does *anyone* know of *any company that got *any money to build >> software they were going to give away? > > I'm sure you can gerrymander the definition well enough so that no > company qualifies. True; I've been trying not to do that, but in the heat of the discussion it's hard to avoid. > Are you interested in learning how the world works, > or in proving a point you've pre-decided? How the world works? John, I would say that "free software" qualifies as a noble experiment. The outcome is still in question. > Cygnus got millions of dollars in venture capital to build > software they were going to give away. Not in the context of this discussion they didn't. They got money because they were going to wrap a packaging and support organization around software that people wanted packaged and supported. You and I both know that nobody gave Cygnus money 'cause they were going to do really cool work on the GNU toolset and give it away. And feel free to prove me wrong -- all I ask is that you quote the paragraphs from the venture capital proposal that discuss all the great software Cygnus was going to write and then give away. :-) --keith From fsb-return-712-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:41:37 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17213 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:41:36 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02705 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:41:35 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 31672 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:42:03 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 31665 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:42:02 -0000 Received: from ppp-69.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (209.2.152.70) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:42:02 -0000 Received: (qmail 11046 invoked by uid 501); 22 Apr 1998 22:43:33 -0000 Date: 22 Apr 1998 22:43:33 -0000 Message-ID: <19980422224333.11045.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804221808.OAA07370@earthlink.net> References: <19980422185632.6154.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> <199804221808.OAA07370@earthlink.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q > Nonexistance is not disproof, of course. > For large-scale new work, though, I do not see how to get the work > funded. Has anyone tried it? It's easy to predict failure. Most new ventures are accompanies by predictions of failure. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-713-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:45:44 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17219 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:45:43 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02734 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:45:42 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 31880 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:46:10 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 31873 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:46:09 -0000 Received: from va.debian.org (qmailr@209.81.8.242) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:46:09 -0000 Received: (qmail 17082 invoked by uid 1002); 22 Apr 1998 22:45:33 -0000 Date: 22 Apr 1998 22:45:33 -0000 Message-ID: <19980422224533.17081.qmail@va.debian.org> From: bruce@va.debian.org To: gnu@toad.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu Status: R From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" > My problem is my belief that it serves as a cover for one of > the grander forms of systematic deceit I have observed in my lifetime. How much of this stuff have you written? As far as I can tell from my own experience, I'm taking advantage of the software distributors, etc., not the other way around. I could never package and distribute my own software this cheaply, or this well. The people who are doing the distribution are _not_ making a big profit out of my work, and if that ever becomes a problem I'll simply go into competition with them. Bruce From fsb-return-714-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:51:12 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17234 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:51:12 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02781 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:51:10 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 32104 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:51:37 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 32097 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:51:36 -0000 Received: from toad.com (140.174.2.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:51:36 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA28794; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:49:20 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804222249.PAA28794@toad.com> X-Authentication-Warning: toad.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: <199804221911.PAA12120@earthlink.net> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:49:20 -0700 From: John Gilmore Status: R I apologise for posting what you felt as a personal jab. I'm trying to break that old, destructive habit. > My problem is that certain key parties in the free software community > use the free software idea to bilk a large number of people into > engaging in efforts whose value they do not comprehend. Not sure what you're saying here. That if people like Linus or Larry Wall or Eric Allman had comprehended what value they were creating, they would have done something different? Maybe worked harder at it? For me, when I'm aware that I have a lever that long, I do take more care about what directions I shove the Earth in. Sitting at the top of the GDB distribution pipeline was a heady experience, but it also involved taking a lot of responsibility. Some of my employees haven't understood the value that their work was creating. If they had, they might have used that knowledge to start their own company rather than work for me. Was I bilking them by paying them wages and benefits they found acceptable? In a sense, that's why good CEOs get paid so much -- their job *is* to understand the value that the company creates, and if they do it well, the company gets very good at creating value. Is a good CEO bilking their entire company by knowing more about that value than every other employee? Reductio ad absurdum. By analogy, is Richard Stallman bilking the world by knowing more about the global societal value of free software than the average hacker? > Worse, they > have convinced a large body of people -- including yourself -- to > proselytize the view that software should not be "property." You of > all people know this is the logical conclusion of the free software > position. You must be confusing me with Richard. He and I are fellow travelers down the free software road, but we part company right about there. My stance is that if I write software, I own it. I make my software freely available because I want to, not because I have to. I think it benefits me to do so. Others who disagree are free to do something different. There's a separate issue of how well copyrights can actually work in the 21st or 22nd century world, and if they won't work, what economic model to replace them with. But if you attribute *that* to me, you'd be confusing me with a couple of other friends, John Perry Barlow and Esther Dyson. John From fsb-return-715-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 00:52:07 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA17239 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:52:06 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA02794 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:52:05 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 32267 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 22:52:33 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 32258 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 22:52:32 -0000 Received: from va.debian.org (qmailr@209.81.8.242) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 22:52:32 -0000 Received: (qmail 17177 invoked by uid 1002); 22 Apr 1998 22:51:54 -0000 Date: 22 Apr 1998 22:51:54 -0000 Message-ID: <19980422225154.17176.qmail@va.debian.org> From: bruce@va.debian.org To: adam@yggdrasil.com, bostic@bsdi.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Of The Five, there are exactly 0 serious contenders that are "free". This argument was made for operating systems a while back. It will be made for other things until they are all written. Word processors exist (lyx) and more are being developed. The others will come. > (This is based on my recollection that you can't resell the Netscape > browser release commercially. Sorry, that's incorrect, you can sell it, you just can't call it "Netscape Navigator". They explicitly conform to my definition of Open Source, that was part of the mission statement for their new license. Bruce From fsb-return-716-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 01:01:57 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA17252 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:01:57 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA02994 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:01:55 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 32622 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 23:02:22 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 32615 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 23:02:22 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 23:02:22 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id PAA12280; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:59:52 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:59:52 -0400 Message-Id: <199804221959.PAA12280@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: bruce@va.debian.org CC: gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu In-reply-to: <19980422224533.17081.qmail@va.debian.org> (bruce@va.debian.org) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R Bruce: > How much of this stuff have you written?... There are a number of people, occasionally including myself, who have given away their software in full knowledge of what they were giving away. I don't have any quarrel with that. I'm sure your path to hell is terrific, but I already have one I'm happy with. :-) Convincing a bunch of fairly naive college and high school students that there is some great moral good in giving away the fruits of their efforts -- deliberately undermining their attempts to make a competent assessment of value in the process -- is, in my opinion, deceitful. I'm reminded of the Hare Krishna scene in the movie Airplane. I've always been sympathetic to O.J. in that scene. The argument that there is economic benefit to free software is fairly new, and may have merit. It has the significant advantage that it can be quantitatively evaluated. shap From fsb-return-717-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 01:05:49 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA17256 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:05:48 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA03032 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:05:47 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 94 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 23:06:15 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 86 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 23:06:14 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 23:06:14 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA12307; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:03:53 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:03:53 -0400 Message-Id: <199804222003.QAA12307@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: gnu@toad.com CC: gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu In-reply-to: <199804222249.PAA28794@toad.com> (message from John Gilmore on Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:49:20 -0700) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > > Worse, they > > have convinced a large body of people -- including yourself -- to > > proselytize the view that software should not be "property." You of > > all people know this is the logical conclusion of the free software > > position. > > You must be confusing me with Richard. He and I are fellow travelers > down the free software road, but we part company right about there. My recollection was that you've done your share of public supporting. If that recollection was incorrect, I apologize for the personal attribution. The rest of the issue is still a valid concern, I think. shap From fsb-return-718-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 01:08:54 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA17261 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:08:53 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA03061 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:08:52 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 303 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 23:09:19 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 293 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 23:09:19 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 23:09:19 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA12314; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:07:04 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:07:04 -0400 Message-Id: <199804222007.QAA12314@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: nelson@crynwr.com CC: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <19980422224333.11045.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> (message from Russell Nelson on 22 Apr 1998 22:43:33 -0000) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Has anyone tried it? It's easy to predict failure. Most new ventures > are accompanies by predictions of failure. Russ: The first questions out of a conventional investor's mouth concern revenue, followed closely by an examination of your supporting data for how you will generate it. The latter often takes weeks. In this environment, it doesn't take rocket science to predict that allowing others to give the stuff away won't make your case. ROI is the name of the game, and it's hard to predict ROI when you lack control of the distribution channel. Hell, it's hard enough to predict it when you *have* control of the distribution channel. This is not so much a prediction of failure as an experience-driven observation about incompatible assumptions. There may be other kinds of investors who will invest in such things. People donate to all sorts of worthy causes. It doesn't fit the worldview of the conventional investor. shap From fsb-return-719-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 01:14:06 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA17267 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:14:06 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA03106 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:14:05 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 511 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 23:14:31 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 504 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 23:14:30 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 23:14:30 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id QAA12339; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:12:06 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:12:06 -0400 Message-Id: <199804222012.QAA12339@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: bruce@va.debian.org CC: adam@yggdrasil.com, bostic@bsdi.com, fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <19980422225154.17176.qmail@va.debian.org> (bruce@va.debian.org) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R I've been arguing a different point of view pretty vehemently here. I just wanted to stop and say that even if it doesn't fit what I want to do on my current project, I think there is a lot of goodness in the Open Source idea. I also think there are a lot of places where it works (both commercial and otherwise), and I'm glad that some very effective people are investing effort in this. I've said that before, but it seemed worth repeating. [ Just watch -- I bet somebody will argue with that! :-) ] shap From fsb-return-720-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 01:29:29 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id BAA17287 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:29:27 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA03287 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 01:29:26 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 831 invoked by alias); 22 Apr 1998 23:29:55 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 824 invoked by uid 0); 22 Apr 1998 23:29:54 -0000 Received: from toad.com (140.174.2.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 22 Apr 1998 23:29:54 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA28987; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:29:15 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804222329.QAA28987@toad.com> X-Authentication-Warning: toad.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: bruce@va.debian.org, adam@yggdrasil.com, bostic@bsdi.com, fsb@crynwr.com, gnu@toad.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: <199804222012.QAA12339@earthlink.net> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 16:29:14 -0700 From: John Gilmore Status: R > [ Just watch -- I bet somebody will argue with that! :-) ] No I won't! ;-) Seriously, I think we should give it up for today. I don't see any minds changing. We can take up the discussion someday, after Cygnus employees cash in their stock and retire, and after Cygnus releases ten more pieces of brand-new free software. With nothing left to prove, I might even take the side that says it's impossible, just for fun. John From fsb-return-722-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 02:55:15 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA17410 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 02:55:15 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id CAA06005 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 02:55:13 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 3115 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 00:55:41 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 3108 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 00:55:40 -0000 Received: from ppp-67.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (209.2.152.68) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 00:55:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 14131 invoked by uid 501); 23 Apr 1998 00:57:13 -0000 Date: 23 Apr 1998 00:57:13 -0000 Message-ID: <19980423005713.14130.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804222007.QAA12314@earthlink.net> References: <19980422224333.11045.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> <199804222007.QAA12314@earthlink.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q > Has anyone tried it? It's easy to predict failure. Most new ventures > > are accompanies by predictions of failure. > This is not so much a prediction of failure as an experience-driven > observation about incompatible assumptions. In other words, you have reason to predict failure. Everyone who predicts failure has reason to do so. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-723-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 03:08:23 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id DAA17415 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 03:08:22 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id DAA06181 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 03:08:20 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 3438 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 01:08:46 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 3431 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 01:08:45 -0000 Received: from mescaline.gnu.org (158.121.106.21) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 01:08:45 -0000 Received: from melange.gnu.org by mescaline.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id VAA14461; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:07:15 -0400 Received: (burley@localhost) by melange.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id VAA00807; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:07:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:07:14 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804230107.VAA00807@melange.gnu.org> From: Craig Burley To: jsshapiro@earthlink.net CC: bruce@va.debian.org, gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu In-reply-to: <199804221959.PAA12280@earthlink.net> (jsshapiro@earthlink.net) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R >Convincing a bunch of fairly naive college and high school students >that there is some great moral good in giving away the fruits of their >efforts -- deliberately undermining their attempts to make a competent >assessment of value in the process -- is, in my opinion, deceitful. IMO, that's an *extremely* obnoxious statement. Teaching people to do good things, e.g. what most religions, ethics courses, and so on, do, is *not* "deliberately undermining their attempts to make a competent assessment of value in the process". In my experience, it often has the opposite effect -- the person who's encouraged to give away stuff is implicitly or explicitly encouraged to *value* that "stuff", whatever it is, greatly, especially as it benefits others. (That's certainly the case for my church.) The people who do what you claim, that is, encourage the naive to give their stuff away because it *isn't* valuable, are fairly easily defended against, with the question "if it isn't valuable, why should I give it away to anyone, and thus add to their burden of worthless junk?" >I'm reminded of the Hare Krishna scene in the movie Airplane. I've >always been sympathetic to O.J. in that scene. Why is it that anti-free-software zealots seem to inevitably end up claiming those of us who support the free-software model necessarily are akin to cults hypnotizing hordes of naive masses? For my part, nobody told *me* that the result of my taking employment with various proprietary-software-creating organizations would be that all the clever software (usually tools, sometimes OS work and later compiler work) would end up unavailable to me to share with friends, neighbors; show to new potential employers; improve as I felt necessary; and so on, especially, but not *necessarily*, once I was employed by that some company. Why is it that the recruiters, who hire naive college students to come work for them but don't educate *their* targets about the real value their work will have to the organization and their inability to access and leverage that value beyond doing *exactly* what the corporation asks, aren't labeled cult leaders as well? Of course, one of the reasons must be that they *aren't* hypnotizing anybody a la cults, any more than rms or other free-software luminaries do anyway. (Not that cult-like thinking doesn't permeate some elements of the proprietary world; I have a relative working for Microsoft, heck, I remember how *I* used to think about software decades ago.) What *is* certain is that, when rms asked me to write g77, he didn't say "your work won't be valuable, so you might as well spend several years doing it and give it away". I asked him how I could help on the project, he suggested g77 (in so many words; the name came later, but, trust me, he *was* capable of pronouncing the word "Fortran" without gagging ;-), so off I went. No cult leadership here, and as far as my perception of the value of what I do and what I've done, it's gone only further and further upward, which is why I turn more and more work down offered at greater and greater dollar amounts, getting paid, now, a fairly decent amount for pretty tiny amounts of part-time work. >The argument that there is economic benefit to free software is fairly >new, and may have merit. It has the significant advantage that it can >be quantitatively evaluated. It's not a new argument. And it certainly has merit. The big question has been, and always will be, centered on what the market demands. That's *demand*-side, not supply-side. As long as users don't care about having source, it's hard to show much economic benefit to providing it, because its advantages aren't evident, and competing against non-source systems requires high costs just to overcome the fund-raising advantages of keeping stuff secret. But, if/when the user base begins requiring source code for lots of software (and that might have started already), the situation *will* change in terms of assessing the merit of source software. For myself, given my knowledge of how proprietary and free-software organizations actually work, how pretty much all the tools work, how things like license managers and copy-protection schemes work, how much time and effort must be spent to keep things secret vs. simply publishing them, and the directions most of these areas are headed as things like the Internet and an increasingly inter-dependent global economic and social community progress, it's *quite* clear to me that there are *substantial* economic benefits to free software. But as long as people are willing to shell out $$$ for individual copies of software without source, there will be enough $$$ to fund the overcoming of the disadvantages of proprietary software and still beat out free software in the relevant areas. If people become unwilling to do that, however, all the arguments about how free software can't succeed will end, because it's not the VCers, the programmers, the suits, the marketers, that count -- it's the end users who *pay* for the stuff. They might someday decide they want local, contract, yellow-pages-lookup- style maintenance for their software, just like they already have for their cars, their kitchens, their pets, their children, their teeth, and so on. All those other things count only as long as there's a balance in this one big area of userdom. Before, the balance was tipped too far against free software for them to matter. Now, it's probably in the grey area where those other things count. Someday it might tip too far in the other area, at which point proprietary software will be, basically, dead. In the meantime, I don't mind writing proprietary software if someone pays me enough to do it. That takes a *lot* of money, because I greatly value my contribution to a product when the end result is going to be that I can't maintain or improve it, show the source to my friends or future potential employers, and so on. Occasionally someone pays me enough money for that for a short period, then they want me to do much greater works for them and I bow out, knowing they can't afford my asking price. And that's pretty much all because I wrote g77; there's been extremely little, if any, cross-pollination among my proprietary-software-authoring contracts, but the last two or three big ones have stemmed directly from my visibility doing g77. I guess this missive makes me another cult leader, eh? :) tq vm, (burley) From fsb-return-724-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 03:16:13 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id DAA17423 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 03:16:11 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id DAA06255 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 03:16:09 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 3721 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 01:16:38 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 3714 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 01:16:37 -0000 Received: from mescaline.gnu.org (158.121.106.21) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 01:16:37 -0000 Received: from melange.gnu.org by mescaline.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id VAA15304; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:15:54 -0400 Received: (burley@localhost) by melange.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id VAA00834; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:15:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:15:53 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804230115.VAA00834@melange.gnu.org> From: Craig Burley To: burley@gnu.org CC: jsshapiro@earthlink.net, bruce@va.debian.org, gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu In-reply-to: <199804230107.VAA00807@melange.gnu.org> (message from Craig Burley on Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:07:14 -0400 (EDT)) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R >I was employed by that some company. ^ [no longer] (Really got to get out of the habit of sending an email without editing it just because my wife came home and wanted to talk, and I don't always trust auto-save.) tq vm, (burley) From fsb-return-725-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 03:32:08 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id DAA17433 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 03:32:07 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id DAA06356 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 03:32:05 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 4108 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 01:32:30 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 4101 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 01:32:29 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 01:32:29 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id SAA20853; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:29:25 -0400 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:29:25 -0400 Message-Id: <199804222229.SAA20853@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: burley@gnu.org CC: bruce@va.debian.org, gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu In-reply-to: <199804230107.VAA00807@melange.gnu.org> (message from Craig Burley on Wed, 22 Apr 1998 21:07:14 -0400 (EDT)) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Teaching people to do good things, e.g. what most religions, > ethics courses, and so on, do, is *not* "deliberately undermining > their attempts to make a competent assessment of value in the > process". Observation: the difference between "teaching morals" and "brainwashing" is both context- and perspective- dependent. I prefer to deal in ethics, which is predicated on questions rather than on beliefs. Whether free software is a sound value is very much a matter of opinion at this point. I do think that the experiment to discover this is worthwhile. My observation of a limited sample of free software advocacy discussions (four to five hundred or so) is that I do not often see free software advocates encouraging their students to question the value proposition that free software entails. On the contrary, the key to the presentation usually seems to be questioning everyone else's values, but not the free software values. This is hardly unique to the topic of free software. > Why is it that anti-free-software zealots seem to inevitably end > up claiming those of us who support the free-software model > necessarily are akin to cults hypnotizing hordes of naive masses? Perhaps because the parallels are so obvious. Like cults, some highly visible members of the free software community are trying to convince people to subordinate their rights and values to those of a specialized community. Like cults, those visible leaders often seem to benefit financially or personally from that subordination. Like cults, the larger world finds these values slightly daft. Like cults, the free softwareists tend to assert that actually it is the larger world that is daft. As to being an anti-zealot, I've consistently maintained in this discussion that for somethings the Open Source model works and is appropriate. I've held that position for over a decade now. > But as long as people are willing to shell out $$$ for individual > copies of software without source... If I didn't agree that source was important, I wouldn't be putting forward an alternative position here. > I guess this missive makes me another cult leader, eh? :) Does the shoe fit? shap From fsb-return-726-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 03:39:37 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id DAA17438 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 03:39:36 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id DAA06447 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 03:39:34 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 4317 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 01:40:02 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 4310 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 01:40:01 -0000 Received: from runyon.cygnus.com (HELO cygnus.com) (205.180.230.5) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 01:40:01 -0000 Received: from localhost.cygnus.com (axon.cygnus.com [205.180.230.116]) by runyon.cygnus.com (8.8.7-cygnus/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA15872; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:38:55 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804230138.SAA15872@cygnus.com> To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:29:25 PDT." <199804222229.SAA20853@earthlink.net> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 18:38:55 -0700 From: Michael Tiemann Status: R Like cults, some highly visible members of the free software community are trying to convince people to subordinate their rights and values to those of a specialized community. This is fsb, not gnu.misc.discuss. They might be happier to take the bait. Me, I agree with Gilmore...give it a rest. M From fsb-return-727-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 04:24:39 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id EAA17518 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 04:24:38 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id EAA06738 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 04:22:01 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 5186 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 02:22:28 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 5179 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 02:22:25 -0000 Received: from april.dnaco.net (root@207.238.206.9) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 02:22:25 -0000 Received: from picard.dnaco.net (kragen@picard.dnaco.net [207.238.206.4]) by april.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id WAA21161; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:16:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from kragen@localhost) by picard.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.4) id WAA18933; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:20:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:20:47 -0400 (EDT) To: Craig Burley cc: jsshapiro@earthlink.net, bruce@va.debian.org, gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804230107.VAA00807@melange.gnu.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) Status: R On Wed, 22 Apr 1998, Craig Burley wrote: > Why is it that anti-free-software zealots seem to inevitably end > up claiming those of us who support the free-software model > necessarily are akin to cults hypnotizing hordes of naive masses? Well, certain people -- not any from gnu.org that I know of -- tend to be extremely nasty about proprietary software and to proprietary software developers. Go read the comments on any article on slashdot.org if you don't know what I'm talking about. Chances are, at least one out of ten comments will boil down to "Windows sucks", "proprietary software is useless", etc. Sometimes it's more like nine out of ten. This seems to give non-proprietary software a bit of a bad name among people who are just starting to encounter it, much as Jimmy Swaggart and Robinson Crusoe give Christians a bad name among those who are just starting to learn about Christianity. I'm guilty of a bit of this myself, actually -- which is why Mr. Shapiro is on this list in the first place, because I tried to talk him into GPLing EROS. He responded with the objections we've all read thirty posts about today. > What *is* certain is that, when rms asked me to write g77, > . . . No cult leadership here, and as far as my > perception of the value of what I do and what I've done, it's > gone only further and further upward, which is why I turn more > and more work down offered at greater and greater dollar amounts, > getting paid, now, a fairly decent amount for pretty tiny amounts > of part-time work. Can you elaborate? The more concrete an example is, the better for convincing skeptics. It would also be interesting to hear what proprietary-software firms you've worked for, and what copyright rights you signed over, if you're free to give that information. > For myself, given my knowledge of how proprietary and free-software > organizations actually work, how pretty much all the tools work, > how things like license managers and copy-protection schemes work, > how much time and effort must be spent to keep things secret vs. > simply publishing them, and the directions most of these areas > are headed as things like the Internet and an increasingly > inter-dependent global economic and social community progress, > it's *quite* clear to me that there are *substantial* economic > benefits to free software. Mr. Shapiro is proposing giving source to all licensees, while still retaining copyright control over the software, kind of like the early years of Unix academic licensing. If your users have source, you could still use flexlm or whatever, but it would be easy for your users to disable it, so there would be little point. Kragen From fsb-return-730-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 06:06:35 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA17706 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:06:35 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA25281 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 06:06:33 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 8610 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 04:07:00 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 8602 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 04:06:59 -0000 Received: from bourbon.cs.umd.edu (root@128.8.128.52) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 04:06:59 -0000 Received: from cs.umd.edu by bourbon.cs.umd.edu (8.8.5/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id AAA06845; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:06:27 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804230406.AAA06845@bourbon.cs.umd.edu> To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "22 Apr 1998 22:16:24 -0000." <19980422221624.12507.qmail@va.debian.org> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 00:06:26 -0400 From: "William C. Cheng" Status: R Bruce wrote: | From: "William C. Cheng" | > Is that true? Let's say that company X made a product based on GPL'ed | > software and sold it to company Y for $100K. No one can get the source | > other than company Y. Company Y certainly won't publish the source because | > it just paid $100K for it. | | The point I was trying to make was that nobody else could make big bucks | on _my_ work. Your example proposes someone else trying to make a big | mark-up on _their_own_ work, which is a different issue. | | Let's take the example of my GPL-ed "Electric Fence" malloc() debugger, | which is sold by Red Hat and others at a reasonable price. If I found out | that somebody was selling _my_ software for $100K, I'd just advertise a | $5 version of my own so that nobody else would be able to take a large | mark-up on _my_ work. Company X can pay $5 to get your source code, add a few things to it and call it "Planetary Defense Grid" and sell it for $100K. Unless you pay $100K to them, you won't know what they added. -- Bill Cheng // bill.cheng@acm.org From fsb-return-737-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 14:45:37 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA21065 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:45:36 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA02876 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:45:33 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 19145 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 12:45:53 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 19138 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 12:45:52 -0000 Received: from bourbon.cs.umd.edu (root@128.8.128.52) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 12:45:52 -0000 Received: from cs.umd.edu by bourbon.cs.umd.edu (8.8.5/UMIACS-0.9/04-05-88) id IAA08922; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 08:45:19 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804231245.IAA08922@bourbon.cs.umd.edu> To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: jsshapiro@earthlink.net's message of "Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:59:52 EDT." <199804221959.PAA12280@earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 08:45:19 -0400 From: "William C. Cheng" Status: R Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote: > Convincing a bunch of fairly naive college and high school students > that there is some great moral good in giving away the fruits of their > efforts -- deliberately undermining their attempts to make a competent > assessment of value in the process -- is, in my opinion, deceitful. > > ... > > The argument that there is economic benefit to free software is fairly > new, and may have merit. It has the significant advantage that it can > be quantitatively evaluated. Hmm... Sounds like someone is thinking about writing a book about freed software business and sell it to millions of college and high school students! This makes me think of the following parallel... What some people in the freed software business do is that they take a bunch of freed software, understand it, add to it and package it and sell the new package. What some people in the book writing business do is that they gather a bunch of information (and ideas), understand it, add to it and package it and sell the new package. I can't remember if it's Richard Stallman who said that software should be like ideas, free of ownerships. Although I have never seen a copylefted book! :) -- Bill Cheng // bill.cheng@acm.org From fsb-return-739-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 14:59:01 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA21109 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:59:00 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA03144 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:58:55 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 19663 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 12:59:23 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 19656 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 12:59:22 -0000 Received: from ppp-67.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (209.2.152.68) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 12:59:22 -0000 Received: (qmail 25721 invoked by uid 501); 23 Apr 1998 13:01:01 -0000 Received: (qmail 17249 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 11:01:08 -0000 Received: from ordago.gsyc.inf.uc3m.es (163.117.137.150) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 11:01:08 -0000 Received: from gsyc.inf.uc3m.es (jgb@hola.gsyc.inf.uc3m.es [163.117.137.173]) by ordago.gsyc.inf.uc3m.es (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA24514; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 12:58:18 +0200 Received: (from jgb@localhost) by gsyc.inf.uc3m.es (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA00710; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 12:59:25 +0200 Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 12:59:25 +0200 Message-Id: <199804231059.MAA00710@gsyc.inf.uc3m.es> From: "Jesus M. Gonzalez" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" Cc: fyl@a42.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804221550.LAA07251@earthlink.net> References: <199804221010.DAA04934@cascadia.a42.com> <199804221550.LAA07251@earthlink.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid Status: R Jonathan S. Shapiro writes: > > For example, why did Linux succeed commercially where FSF/GNU/the > > HURD did not? > > Linux predates the HURD by a lot. The right question is why did the > free *BSD variants fail commercially. The answer is that the > purveyors didn't grok packaging early enough and still don't. > FreeBSD has had a packaging system from the very beggining. In fact, before Debian and RedHat, I should say that the FreeBSD packaging system was better than Linux counterparts. In my opinion *BSD have failed (if we can use that name) becasue of a combination of problems: . Development of 386BSD was in a very strange state during about one year, because its creator was "missing". This caused at least a delay fo one year and much frustration. . Several splits of the *BSD community. To begin with, there were 386BSD and BSDI. Later on we saw NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD. . In some of these systems, binary packaging was not a priority during to much time. . For any reason unknown to me, Linux was able of quickly evolving into a large collaborative community. Contributors to *BSD (to my knowledge) have from the very beggining be much less people. In fact, the *BSD model of devepmoment has been based in relatively little people, with little distinction between kernel development and packages development (a distintinction clearly stated in the Linux world). However, for me it is still a mistery why FreeBSD has not been accepted by the users as the free OS of choice... They even had early financing!!! (from the company which sold "official" CDROMs). Jesus. -- Jesus M. Gonzalez Barahona | Grupo de Sistemas y Comunicaciones tel +3491 624 9458, fax +3491 624 9430 | Departamento de Informatica jgb@gsyc.inf.uc3m.es, jgb@computer.org | Universidad Carlos III de Madrid http://www.gsyc.inf.uc3m.es/~jgb | c/ Butarque, 15, 28911 Leganes, Spain From fsb-return-741-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 15:04:42 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA21128 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 15:04:27 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA03291 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 15:04:24 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 20015 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 13:04:46 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 20008 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 13:04:45 -0000 Received: from ppp-67.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (209.2.152.68) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 13:04:45 -0000 Received: (qmail 25748 invoked by uid 501); 23 Apr 1998 13:06:24 -0000 Received: (qmail 18919 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 12:30:29 -0000 Received: from pike.cdrom.com (204.216.28.222) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 12:30:29 -0000 Received: from pike.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by pike.cdrom.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id FAA06372; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 05:30:18 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rab@pike.cdrom.com) Message-Id: <199804231230.FAA06372@pike.cdrom.com> To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: fyl@a42.com, fsb@crynwr.com, rab@pike.cdrom.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:50:55 EDT." <199804221550.LAA07251@earthlink.net> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 05:30:18 -0700 From: "Robert A. Bruce" Status: R "Jonathan S. Shapiro" said... >> For example, why did Linux succeed commercially where FSF/GNU/the >> HURD did not? > >Linux predates the HURD by a lot. The right question is why did the >free *BSD variants fail commercially. The answer is that the >purveyors didn't grok packaging early enough and still don't. No. The answer is that they did NOT fail commercially. Our FreeBSD CDROM is the most successful product that we have ever produced. Our 1997 FreeBSD sales were up nearly 50% over 1996, and so far we are seeing a similar rise in 1998. We recently published a new edition of our 1700 page book on FreeBSD, and sold out the first printing in 90 days. Surveys and market research that we have done show that FreeBSD has about 20% of the users that Linux does in the US, a little less in Europe, but much more in Japan. In Japan, FreeBSD is more popular than Linux. A fully localized Japanese FreeBSD is available, and more than 10 books on FreeBSD have been published in Japanese. Linux is more widely known and recognized. We haven't had much problem getting Linux products into major retailers like CompUSA and Best Buy. We have had a much harder time getting FreeBSD in there, partly because their buyers have never heard of it. But I think that will change. FreeBSD doesn't have as many users as Linux (yet), but that certainly doesn't make it a failure. -bob From fsb-return-746-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 21:48:13 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA01611 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 21:48:11 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA10832 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 21:48:10 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 27116 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 19:48:36 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 27101 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 19:47:10 -0000 Received: from roatan.ucs.indiana.edu (HELO indiana.edu) (129.79.10.65) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 19:47:10 -0000 Received: from poverty.bloomington.in.us (root@dial-126-140.ucs.indiana.edu [156.56.126.140]) by indiana.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/1.16IUPO) with ESMTP id OAA23882; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:46:27 -0500 (EST) Received: from poverty.bloomington.in.us (scott@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by poverty.bloomington.in.us (8.7.3/8.7.3/poverty) with ESMTP id OAA24118; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:46:18 -0500 Message-Id: <199804231946.OAA24118@poverty.bloomington.in.us> To: bruce@va.debian.org cc: bob@redhat.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "22 Apr 1998 19:11:06 GMT." <19980422191106.10199.qmail@va.debian.org> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:46:16 -0500 From: Scott Goehring Status: R "bruce" == bruce writes: bruce> As one of the authors, I find I am well paid in intangibles. I bruce> am flown around the world to talk about this software, and thus bruce> much of the cost of my vacations is paid for by the trade shows bruce> where I speak. I get to meet interesting people - for example bruce> last weekend I met the ex-president of Hati, and the bruce> ex-Prime-Minister of Canada, and some of the current cabinet of bruce> Israel. Publishers are banging on my door for me to write for bruce> them. Job offers arrive unsolicited. My hobby project has flown bruce> on the space shuttle because it's part of the Debian bruce> system. That sounds like sufficient payment to me. But it wouldn't be for me. Neither my landlord nor the grocery store accept any of the above commodities in exchange for rent or food. The foregoing attitude toward compensation limits open software development to people who are (a) sufficiently wealthy to be able to live off portfolio income (b) sufficiently lucky to have employment which leaves them with adequate time to pursue free software _as a hobby_, or (c) funded by a third party (parents or government). (a) encompasses a vanishingly small portion of the populations; (b) is certainly not a large part of it. Most open software authors are (c), with the third party largely being the government, in the form of student loans. (Happens to be where I am, as well.) From fsb-return-750-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Thu Apr 23 23:15:30 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA01954 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 23:15:29 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA12022 for ; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 23:15:27 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 29776 invoked by alias); 23 Apr 1998 21:15:53 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 29769 invoked by uid 0); 23 Apr 1998 21:15:41 -0000 Received: from belize.ucs.indiana.edu (HELO indiana.edu) (129.79.10.64) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 23 Apr 1998 21:15:41 -0000 Received: from poverty.bloomington.in.us (root@dial-126-140.ucs.indiana.edu [156.56.126.140]) by indiana.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/1.16IUPO) with ESMTP id QAA31730; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 16:13:29 -0500 (EST) Received: from poverty.bloomington.in.us (scott@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by poverty.bloomington.in.us (8.7.3/8.7.3/poverty) with ESMTP id QAA24335; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 16:13:24 -0500 Message-Id: <199804232113.QAA24335@poverty.bloomington.in.us> To: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) cc: Craig Burley , jsshapiro@earthlink.net, bruce@va.debian.org, gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu Subject: Proprietary softare (was Re: open source definition) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:20:47 -0400." Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 16:13:22 -0500 From: Scott Goehring Status: R "Kragen" == Kragen writes: Kragen> Well, certain people -- not any from gnu.org that I know of -- Kragen> tend to be extremely nasty about proprietary software and to Kragen> proprietary software developers. Go read the comments on any Kragen> article on slashdot.org if you don't know what I'm talking Kragen> about. Chances are, at least one out of ten comments will Kragen> boil down to "Windows sucks", "proprietary software is Kragen> useless", etc. Sometimes it's more like nine out of ten. On the thread of proprietary software, WilberWorks has recently been approached by someone who wants us to help him develop a proprietary extension to the GIMP to solve a particular business problem of his. The dilemma I'm faced with here is that this guy is offering us quite a bit for this (but, notably, not cash, and that's part of the reason I'm going to turn him down, but that's a separate issue), but he seems quite insistent that the technology he and we develop be kept proprietary and not released. This is permissible under the GPL: he's going to use this in-house, so he'll have no incentive to release it publically. However, many of the modifications that would be required to fulfill his needs have broader application to a variety of users. I, personally, do not want to deprive the community of these features solely in the interest of our profit. But I don't think we can rule out doing proprietary work altogether. So the question becomes, what is a good enough reason for a FSB to "go proprietary" for a client? I think compliance with preexisting patent licensing terms is, when doing so represents the only way to add an obviously desired feature (both Roxen and Apache went this route to deal with SSL, and we will probably cross that bridge with Pantone). But the instant case is not such a case. It's a case where the client is asking for a proprietary solution solely for economic reasons. I really want to say "No, we won't do that as a proprietary solution, but we will do as an open source solution" but I expect if I do that we'll lose the sale. (He's also trying to hire off my programmers, which is rather hard because I pay them squat; they're not doing this for the pay.) Has anyone else dealt with this sort of problem? What resolutions did you come to? From fsb-return-758-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Fri Apr 24 05:04:24 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id FAA02658 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 05:04:23 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id FAA01928 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 05:04:21 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 4772 invoked by alias); 24 Apr 1998 03:04:49 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 4765 invoked by uid 0); 24 Apr 1998 03:04:47 -0000 Received: from ppp-19.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.94.32) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 24 Apr 1998 03:04:47 -0000 Received: (qmail 3073 invoked by uid 501); 24 Apr 1998 03:06:30 -0000 Date: 24 Apr 1998 03:06:30 -0000 Message-ID: <19980424030630.3072.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: Proprietary softare (was Re: open source definition) In-Reply-To: <199804232113.QAA24335@poverty.bloomington.in.us> References: <199804232113.QAA24335@poverty.bloomington.in.us> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q I, personally, do not want to deprive the community of these > features solely in the interest of our profit. But I don't think > we can rule out doing proprietary work altogether. The problem with doing proprietary work is what do you do if someone else pays you to do the same thing? Or pays you to do the work and specifically wants it to be freed? How do you reimplement without a cleanroom team? The answer is, if you want to stay out of copyright trouble, you don't. > So the question becomes, what is a good enough reason for a FSB to > "go proprietary" for a client? Depends on what "go proprietary" means. I've licensed packet drivers for proprietary copying. I've never written any proprietary packet driver code, for the reasons given above. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-760-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Fri Apr 24 05:54:30 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id FAA02717 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 05:54:29 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id FAA04985 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 05:54:27 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 5842 invoked by alias); 24 Apr 1998 03:54:55 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 5828 invoked by uid 0); 24 Apr 1998 03:54:54 -0000 Received: from rubricsoft.com (HELO dealer.rubricsoft.com) (209.0.80.130) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 24 Apr 1998 03:54:54 -0000 Received: from beavis ([10.1.1.15]) by dealer.rubricsoft.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.5) with SMTP id 377; Thu, 23 Apr 1998 20:54:16 -0700 Message-Id: <3.0.2.32.19980423205249.00b3da50@mail.well.com> X-Sender: ztech@mail.well.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.2 (32) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 20:52:49 -0700 To: Russell Nelson From: Chris Maeda Subject: Re: Proprietary softare (was Re: open source definition) Cc: fsb@crynwr.com In-Reply-To: <19980424030630.3072.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> References: <199804232113.QAA24335@poverty.bloomington.in.us> <199804232113.QAA24335@poverty.bloomington.in.us> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: R This seems like a tractable legal issue. Just have a standard contract where you retain ownership of residuals. At 03:06 AM 4/24/98 -0000, Russell Nelson wrote: >The problem with doing proprietary work is what do you do if someone >else pays you to do the same thing? Or pays you to do the work and >specifically wants it to be freed? How do you reimplement without a >cleanroom team? The answer is, if you want to stay out of copyright >trouble, you don't. From fsb-return-761-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Fri Apr 24 07:24:55 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA02896 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:24:54 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA05770 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:24:52 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 7283 invoked by alias); 24 Apr 1998 05:25:18 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 7274 invoked by uid 0); 24 Apr 1998 05:25:16 -0000 Received: from va.debian.org (qmailr@209.81.8.242) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 24 Apr 1998 05:25:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 5490 invoked by uid 1002); 24 Apr 1998 05:24:42 -0000 Date: 24 Apr 1998 05:24:42 -0000 Message-ID: <19980424052442.5489.qmail@va.debian.org> From: bruce@va.debian.org To: bruce@va.debian.org, jsshapiro@earthlink.net Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, gnu@toad.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu Status: R From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" > Convincing a bunch of fairly naive college and high school students > that there is some great moral good in giving away the fruits of their > efforts -- deliberately undermining their attempts to make a competent > assessment of value in the process -- is, in my opinion, deceitful. It's actually the opposite of the way you see it. The free software crowd is the _first_ group to actually place value on a young person's work and invite them to be team members - these young people aren't getting jobs yet, and they have a lot of frustration because there aren't good outlets for their creative energy - that's why some of them turn to computer crime. We give them the belief that their work is valuable and that they are appreciated by their colleauges. We give them the thrill of seeing their software get used in ways and places they never dreamed. We give them experience that they'll use in their employment later on. Thanks Bruce From fsb-return-762-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Fri Apr 24 07:29:18 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA02905 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:29:18 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA05789 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:29:16 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 7502 invoked by alias); 24 Apr 1998 05:29:45 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 7495 invoked by uid 0); 24 Apr 1998 05:29:44 -0000 Received: from va.debian.org (qmailr@209.81.8.242) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 24 Apr 1998 05:29:44 -0000 Received: (qmail 5555 invoked by uid 1002); 24 Apr 1998 05:29:12 -0000 Date: 24 Apr 1998 05:29:12 -0000 Message-ID: <19980424052912.5554.qmail@va.debian.org> From: bruce@va.debian.org To: bruce@va.debian.org, scott@poverty.bloomington.in.us Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net Status: R From: Scott Goehring > Neither my landlord nor the grocery store > accept any of the above commodities in exchange for rent or food. Then, it's _not_time_ for you to be giving away your work. You don't sound very different from me, so I'm sure you will have time to do that later on. Thanks Bruce From fsb-return-763-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Fri Apr 24 07:31:49 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA02910 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:31:49 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA05811 for ; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:31:47 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 7701 invoked by alias); 24 Apr 1998 05:32:15 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 7694 invoked by uid 0); 24 Apr 1998 05:32:14 -0000 Received: from va.debian.org (qmailr@209.81.8.242) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 24 Apr 1998 05:32:14 -0000 Received: (qmail 5579 invoked by uid 1002); 24 Apr 1998 05:31:41 -0000 Date: 24 Apr 1998 05:31:41 -0000 Message-ID: <19980424053141.5578.qmail@va.debian.org> From: bruce@va.debian.org To: bruce@va.debian.org, scott@poverty.bloomington.in.us Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, jsshapiro@earthlink.net Status: R From: Scott Goehring > Neither my landlord nor the grocery store > accept any of the above commodities in exchange for rent or food. Just as an aside, I have a number of "I got this good job because of your encouragement and the chance to work on Debian" letters. Thanks Bruce From fsb-return-766-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 00:01:50 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA09516 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 00:01:38 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA20359 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 00:01:36 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23147 invoked by alias); 24 Apr 1998 22:01:58 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23135 invoked by uid 0); 24 Apr 1998 22:01:52 -0000 Received: from ppp-44.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.94.24) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 24 Apr 1998 22:01:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 16246 invoked by uid 501); 24 Apr 1998 22:03:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 19391 invoked by uid 0); 24 Apr 1998 17:39:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO locke.ccil.org) (esr@192.190.237.102) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 24 Apr 1998 17:39:17 -0000 Received: (from esr@localhost) by locke.ccil.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id OAA17710; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 14:06:22 -0400 (EDT) From: "Eric S. Raymond" Message-Id: <199804241806.OAA17710@locke.ccil.org> Subject: Re: open source definition To: gnu@toad.com (John Gilmore) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 14:06:21 -0400 (EDT) Cc: jsshapiro@earthlink.net, gnu@toad.com, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu In-Reply-To: <199804222249.PAA28794@toad.com> from "John Gilmore" at Apr 22, 98 03:49:20 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: R John Gilmore writes: > You must be confusing me with Richard. He and I are fellow travelers > down the free software road, but we part company right about there. > My stance is that if I write software, I own it. I make my software > freely available because I want to, not because I have to. I think it > benefits me to do so. Others who disagree are free to do something > different. This is precisely my position as well, and kudos to John for stating it well. In the evangelism I am doing now (for example, in the recent Science Friday segment on NPR) I am being very careful to emphasize that one need *not* have any position hostile to IPR to believe that the open-source model is a good thing. The open-source model justifies itself by its downstream results in better software and increased profits for savvy producers. -- >>esr>> From fsb-return-767-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 00:40:56 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA09607 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 00:40:55 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA20692 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 00:40:51 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23885 invoked by alias); 24 Apr 1998 22:41:17 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23877 invoked by uid 0); 24 Apr 1998 22:41:14 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 24 Apr 1998 22:41:14 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA23972; Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:39:50 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804242239.SAA23972@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 18:39:50 -0400 In-Reply-To: "Eric S. Raymond"'s message as of Apr 24, 14:06 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: "Eric S. Raymond" , gnu@toad.com (John Gilmore) Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: jsshapiro@earthlink.net, bob@redhat.com, esr@thyrsus.com, fsb@crynwr.com, shap@eros.cis.upenn.edu Status: R Hi all, [ Eric Raymond wrote: ] . . . > In the evangelism I am doing now (for example, in the recent Science Friday > segment on NPR) I am being very careful to emphasize that one need *not* have > any position hostile to IPR to believe that the open-source model is a good > thing. The open-source model justifies itself by its downstream results in > better software and increased profits for savvy producers. I smell rough consensus in the air! I've had to hold off participating in this thread for a variety of reasons, including sheer overwork, NDA or contractual constraints and the fact that I have an investment closing next week, but I'd like to say a couple of things. 1) Bunyip has in the past given away code on a freeware, or even public domain basis, where we thought it in our interests to do so. In addition, we've invested heavily in such activities as participation in the IETF. I think there might be a little too much emphasis on the source code issue. There are other ways people can cooperate for long term mutual gain and some of them are more acceptable to some traditional business people. Funding someone to write an RFC is perhaps as important giving away source. 2) Bunyip has now secured an investment with a business plan that includes, in part, the development of some software under the free software model. There's the existance proof someone asked for a few days ago. It can be done. Some may want to disqualifie us because we don't promise to give away *everything* we produce, but the point is that we've closed the deal and our investors accept that it is sometimes in their interest for us to write freeware. Using the funding models we propose, we've convinced them that their investment can be protected and the company will be better off if we do it. 3) Bunyip has studied what Netscape has done with Mozilla and we like what we see so far. Like Netscape, we're not going to give away everything we write (at least right away), but believe that sometimes, writing code is not a development cost, it's a marketing cost, and sometimes our value-added is not in the code, but elsewhere. In such cases we can justify giving source away and will do so. We're seriously thinking about using the Mozilla Public License for our own releases, and currently are planning several extensions to Mozilla that we need and will probably MPL them, although we haven't made the final decision yet and are still studying this issue. 4) For me, I want to give away source sometimes, but not others. I believe this should be my decision. 5) We believe that the free software model offer definitely possibilities for helping us address the continual shortage of skilled development staff, (especially those willing to come endure Montreal's winters!) because if we're willing to commission certain components and leverage freeware we can both speed development and limit bottlenecks. Consequently, Bunyip will shortly be commisioning software modules or stand-alone programs as work for hire, and plan that a number of them will subsequently be released under some form of freeware license. Again, not all, but a significant number of them. 6) We believe can do this and make money. I'm not able or willing to go into great detail on all aspects of our business plan on this, but wanted to add my voice to this thread. I think this is an important trend and I hope we can do some significant things with it over the next couple of years. What the purists should accept is that not everyone will give away everything, but that shouldn't disqualify collaboration with us. - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-769-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 17:48:36 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA11438 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 17:48:35 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA16444 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 17:48:33 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 5264 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 15:48:59 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 5257 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 15:48:59 -0000 Received: from kansas.pn.com (204.96.36.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 15:48:59 -0000 Received: from battleship (auntiem.wv.com [205.136.66.19]) by kansas.pn.com (8.8.8/8.8.0) with ESMTP id LAA05360; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 11:48:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: (bb@localhost) by battleship (8.8.5/8.6.12) id LAA30763; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 11:53:55 -0400 Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 11:53:55 -0400 Message-Id: <199804251553.LAA30763@battleship> From: Brian Bartholomew To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > sometimes, writing code is not a development cost, it's a marketing > cost, and sometimes our value-added is not in the code, but > elsewhere I think this disqualifies your situation as an existance proof of profitable free software development. There are lots of existing business models that use code as advertising - cdrom production, book writing, consulting, etc. In each case the code is an expense, not a profit center. To be an existance proof, the money has to be made from the code itself. A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/lpf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew - bb@wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA From fsb-return-770-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 18:19:30 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA11506 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 18:19:29 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA16671 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 18:19:27 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 5813 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 16:19:50 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 5806 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 16:19:47 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 16:19:47 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA26167; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:18:20 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804251618.MAA26167@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:18:19 -0400 In-Reply-To: Brian Bartholomew's message as of Apr 25, 11:53 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: Brian Bartholomew , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R [ You wrote: ] > > sometimes, writing code is not a development cost, it's a marketing > > cost, and sometimes our value-added is not in the code, but > > elsewhere > > I think this disqualifies your situation as an existance proof of > profitable free software development. There are lots of existing > business models that use code as advertising - cdrom production, book > writing, consulting, etc. In each case the code is an expense, not a > profit center. To be an existance proof, the money has to be made > from the code itself. But that's not what was asked for: > > From: Keith Bostic . . . > > From: John Gilmore > > > >> OK, does *anyone* know of *any company that got *any money to build > >> software they were going to give away? > > > > I'm sure you can gerrymander the definition well enough so that no > > company qualifies. > > True; I've been trying not to do that, but in the heat of the > discussion it's hard to avoid. Bunyip received venture capital money for code we will be giving away. We will be charging for other code, and other things, but we can and will, with investor permission, be giving away several projects and yes, we will in exchange expect to make money elsewhere, using other activities which are themselves promoted by that code. But isn't that fair game? After all, if you don't make money *somewhere* you're not in business, you're doing charity work. To return to *your* point, is this profitable free software development? Well, we could play with the definitions, but keep in mind that we don't pretend to be trying to "do free software development". We're trying to *run a profitable company*, and see free software development as one component of our strategy to reach that goal. We're doing it for several reasons, including that we think we can make money, we think we can address our skillset shortages and we think it's a good to do for the health of the net, but now we're talking motives, not actions. The bottom line is, we're going to pay a number of people to write a number of programs, which we will then release to the net under some form of public license. We've convinced investors to help us to this, and we think we will make money doing it. The free software component of our plan is not millions of dollars worth of development, but it's not peanuts, either. Final thought. For us, this debate is not about free software as an end in itself. Perhaps that's what distinguished people like us (and others who believe it's okay to own the work output of software development and that it's okay to sometimes *not* give it away) from those who hive to a more purist approach. - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-771-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 19:29:11 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA11703 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:29:10 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA17064 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:29:08 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 6703 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 17:29:32 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 6696 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 17:29:31 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 17:29:31 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA01882; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:26:50 -0400 Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:26:50 -0400 Message-Id: <199804251426.KAA01882@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: peterd@Bunyip.Com CC: bb@wv.com, fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804251618.MAA26167@mocha.bunyip.com> (peterd@Bunyip.Com) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Bunyip received venture capital money for code we will be > giving away. We will be charging for other code... > things, but we can and will, with investor permission, be > giving away several projects and yes, we will in exchange > expect to make money elsewhere, using other activities > which are themselves promoted by that code. But isn't that > fair game? After all, if you don't make money *somewhere* > you're not in business, you're doing charity work. >From a strictly business perspective, there are two ways I could look at this. The first is that the code you are giving away is a marketing loss leader. In that case, provided it isn't costing too much, you are doing something that's business-wise sound, and I'm not surprised that the investors bought in to it. The second is that you are engaging in a form of transfer-cost financing, taxing one (profitable) organization to prop up another (unprofitable) organization. The organizations can be the same people; the business principle is that everything must stand or fall on its own. There is no problem in principle with doing this, but there is a long list of practical difficulties that such a practice invites, and it is almost universally discouraged as a managment practice. In the context of this discussion, though, I think Bunyip's situation is not relevant to the intent of the question. Your investors are paying for a large bundle of stuff. Some (I infer small) fraction of that is being given away as a loss leader. This is very different from the investor investing in a product that will be given away as a whole. Investors are willing to accept some threshold of distracting activity. They are actively delighted to see sensible marketing strategies. Don't confuse yourself into thinking they invested in the free stuff; they invested *in spite of* the free stuff. shap From fsb-return-772-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 19:47:37 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA11781 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:47:37 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA17150 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:47:35 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 7065 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 17:48:02 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 7058 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 17:48:02 -0000 Received: from runyon.cygnus.com (HELO cygnus.com) (205.180.230.5) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 17:48:02 -0000 Received: from localhost.cygnus.com (axon.cygnus.com [205.180.230.116]) by runyon.cygnus.com (8.8.7-cygnus/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA27654; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:46:55 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804251746.KAA27654@cygnus.com> To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" cc: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:26:50 PDT." <199804251426.KAA01882@earthlink.net> Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:46:54 -0700 From: Michael Tiemann Status: R Investors are willing to accept some threshold of distracting activity. They are actively delighted to see sensible marketing strategies. Don't confuse yourself into thinking they invested in the free stuff; they invested *in spite of* the free stuff. Once upon a time, there were companies that sold computer hardware the way that Grumman sold jet engines. The people who bought them paid a lot of money, then they paid even more money to "program" these machines. Over time, these computer hardware companies added more and more "software" to their machines, which not only made them easier for their customers to use, but it also made it easier to show how "useful" these machines could be, thereby expanding their market opportunities in two dimensions at once. Still, there were (as there always will be) a few staunch curmudgeons who thought that this "software" was really just a distraction from the real business of making computers. I don't think you can separate free software from a software business plan and call it a "distraction" any more intelligently then you can say that software in general is a "distraction" for hardware companies. The fact that hardware companies often don't have the first clue about software in no way refutes my point: software is a necessary component of the computer analogy, and the companies that treat it as a "distraction" invariably do worse than those who actually try to make it good. Similarly, software companies that can intelligently couple their plans to the free software community will find much better world-wide acceptance than those who treat these internet freaks as "distractions". M From fsb-return-773-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 19:49:09 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA11786 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:49:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA17157 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:49:02 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 7225 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 17:49:30 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 7218 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 17:49:29 -0000 Received: from abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (141.20.103.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 17:49:29 -0000 Received: (from bfox@localhost) by abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (8.8.6/8.8.6) id TAA18226; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:48:50 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:48:50 +0200 (MET DST) From: Brian J Fox Message-Id: <199804251748.TAA18226@abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de> To: jsshapiro@earthlink.net CC: peterd@Bunyip.Com, bb@wv.com, fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804251426.KAA01882@earthlink.net> (jsshapiro@earthlink.net) Subject: Re: open source definition Reply-to: bfox@ua.com Status: R Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:26:50 -0400 From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" > Bunyip received venture capital money for code we will be > giving away. We will be charging for other code... The first is that the code you are giving away is a marketing loss leader. In that case, provided it isn't costing too much, you are doing something that's business-wise sound, and I'm not surprised that the investors bought in to it. This is another angle on the razor-and-blades approach in business. I have personally used this approach (as has Cygnus) in my writing of freed software -- the money isn't made in the software, but in the consultation fees using the tool. The wide availability of the software tool is aided by its freeness; this in turn creates opportunity for people to make money supporting it, using it, etc. In Europe, (and in other parts of the world), there is no cost associated with receiving a phone call, just in making one. This is true for all phones, including busines and cellular. This system makes it desirable to have a phone; after all, you can get phone calls from your friends, right? The fact that it costs more to call a cell phone than to call a home phone does not prevent the wide dissemination of cell phones. Brian From fsb-return-774-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 20:51:32 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA11917 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 20:51:24 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA17517 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 20:51:22 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 8038 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 18:51:48 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 8031 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 18:51:47 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 18:51:47 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA04670; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 11:49:09 -0400 Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 11:49:09 -0400 Message-Id: <199804251549.LAA04670@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: tiemann@cygnus.com CC: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804251746.KAA27654@cygnus.com> (message from Michael Tiemann on Sat, 25 Apr 1998 10:46:54 -0700) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > I don't think you can separate free software from a software business > plan and call it a "distraction"... I don't think I did that. I was trying to say that there are a number of reasons I can imagine investors accepting some amount of giveaway development. One is as a marketing strategy. It sounds to me like this was the case with Bunyip. Another is that the investors might *perceive* it as a distraction (whether you do or not), acknowledge potential value in the effort, and conclude that the level of distraction in light of the potential benefit was small enough not to make an issue about. > Once upon a time, there were companies that sold computer > hardware... The analogy doesn't hold up. First, the hardware manufacturers were making money selling hardware. Second, a lot of hardware manufacturers who tried to make the jump failed. Most of the companies that decided not to move were *right,* in the sense that they could not have done so successfully. In many cases moving into software *would* have been a distraction from their core business. Most of the hardware vendors didn't (and still don't) grok software. Many who saw the opportunity did indeed get distracted and flounder. Most of those went under. Software can be a great business and still be an utter distraction to a hardware company. If I could make a strong case [remember: there was no proof, only a strong case] to you that there was a huge, growing market in building generic embedded systems hardware modules, would it make sense for Cygnus to move into this business? Probably not. At the very least it would be a major change of direction requiring a total restructuring of the company. You might well decide that it made more sense to stick with what you do well. shap From fsb-return-775-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 21:40:35 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA11974 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 21:40:34 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA17797 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 21:40:31 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 8703 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 19:40:56 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 8696 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 19:40:53 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 19:40:53 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA26539; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 15:39:10 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804251939.PAA26539@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 15:39:10 -0400 In-Reply-To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro"'s message as of Apr 25, 10:26 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: bb@wv.com, fsb@crynwr.com Status: R [ You wrote: ] . . . > >From a strictly business perspective, there are two ways I could look > at this. . . . > In the context of this discussion, though, I think Bunyip's situation > is not relevant to the intent of the question. Your investors are > paying for a large bundle of stuff. Some (I infer small) fraction of > that is being given away as a loss leader. This is very different > from the investor investing in a product that will be given away as a > whole. Actually, no the coding work is not a small fraction of the plan. We're still debating the final percentage of the code to be released, but the decision will be based upon the parts we think provide true-value added. > Investors are willing to accept some threshold of distracting > activity. They are actively delighted to see sensible marketing > strategies. Don't confuse yourself into thinking they invested in the > free stuff; they invested *in spite of* the free stuff. Actually, the part they liked was how it addressed the skillset shortage, which is seen as one of the major impediments to growth (certainly in Canada) right now. It was definitely not "in spite of". I did have to assure them that I thought it was okay to have some proprietary material, and that would be focused in areas of high value-added, but I used Netscape as an example. Browsers started free, Netscape generated O($100M)/year for a couple of years, Netscape releases source. It's a software lifecycle model they could identify with. Personally, I like to think of parallel activity with synergy between free and retrained, which I think will fly like a lead ballon with most people on this list, but as I said before we don't "do fre software". Free software is part of business strategy toolkit. And BTW, I don't see this as a marketing ploy, since we do have alternative plans to generate revenue from that code base, including "certified versions", bundling with proprietary code, etc. We just plan to have a free version, as well. Final thought - people have asked on this list for viable models for free software development, but seem to actually want to be told the pure model can and does work. I'm offering a testimonial that using it in a mixed strategy works (at least up to the investment stage). In addition, we've always offered "something back" although in the past it's been more support for the IETF, ISOC, etc. So it's not pure software altruism. It's worked for us for over six years... - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-776-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 21:41:48 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA11982 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 21:41:47 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA17806 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 21:41:46 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 8864 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 19:42:13 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 8857 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 19:42:12 -0000 Received: from ppp-44.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.94.24) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 19:42:12 -0000 Received: (qmail 31088 invoked by uid 501); 25 Apr 1998 19:44:16 -0000 Date: 25 Apr 1998 19:44:16 -0000 Message-ID: <19980425194416.31087.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804251553.LAA30763@battleship> References: <199804251553.LAA30763@battleship> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q > sometimes, writing code is not a development cost, it's a marketing > > cost, and sometimes our value-added is not in the code, but > > elsewhere > > I think this disqualifies your situation as an existance proof of > profitable free software development. There are lots of existing > business models that use code as advertising - cdrom production, book > writing, consulting, etc. In each case the code is an expense, not a > profit center. To be an existance proof, the money has to be made > from the code itself. People are wondering if traditional software production can work with freely copyable software. It seems to me that, as people put forth evidence that it can, more and more restrictions are being put on what is meant by traditional software production. First it was whether VC's would invest in freed software. Then Cygnus said "yes". Now people are saying that the freed software has to be sold on its own. Makers of proprietary software add value to the code in many ways -- through cdrom production, book writing, support, advertising, sales, and marketing. I don't think it's reasonable to expect someone to have to neglect those adds when producing freely copyable software. No one thing is responsible for the profit of a software company. Neither is it clear (to me anyway, but sometimes I'm pretty dense) that proprietary code is the most significant thing. John Gilmore has pointed out repeatedly that Cygnus customers really don't care if the software is freed or proprietary. In fact, customers don't want the software. They don't want the computers it runs on either. They just Want Their Problem Solved. The purpose of a business is to solve customer's problems, and get part of the benefit to the customer in return. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-778-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 21:47:39 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA11993 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 21:47:39 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA17831 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 21:47:37 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 9225 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 19:48:05 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 9218 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 19:48:04 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 19:48:04 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA09194; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:45:24 -0400 Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 12:45:24 -0400 Message-Id: <199804251645.MAA09194@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804251939.PAA26539@mocha.bunyip.com> (peterd@Bunyip.Com) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Actually, no the coding work is not a small fraction of > the plan.... Peter: Thanks for expanding. If you are able to say, I (and I think others) would be interested to hear more about the negotiating process you went through with the investors to get them to agree to this. What were the concerns they raised, and how did you respond? From your note, clearly the skillset shortage helped your case. Also, your use of the Netscape example leads me to ask if you built in a time delay between release of your product and unrestricted redistribution of the source code? shap From fsb-return-779-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 22:10:40 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA12027 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 22:10:35 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA17997 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 22:10:27 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 9747 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 20:10:53 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 9734 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 20:10:51 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 20:10:51 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA26680; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 16:09:22 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804252009.QAA26680@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 16:09:22 -0400 In-Reply-To: Russell Nelson's message as of Apr 25, 19:44 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: Russell Nelson , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R Hi, [ You wrote: ] > . . . In fact, > customers don't want the software. They don't want the computers it > runs on either. They just Want Their Problem Solved. The purpose of > a business is to solve customer's problems, and get part of the > benefit to the customer in return. Thanks Russ. This puts it perfectly. People buy holes, not drill bits. To the extent that free software is successful in providing better business solutions, it will be funded. It should be seen as an implementation mechanism, not a goal in and of itself. The business community is more receptive of the idea than it was in the past. This is not because we're going communist but because we think it can work well in certain circumstances. To insist that it should be done because it provides better software, or is morally superior, wont cut it with venture capitalists. Frankly, since I have to sign the company's tax returns each year, and get up in front of an AGM to explain our results, it wont cut it with me, either. Now charging for copies, books about software, certified copies, customization, support or anything else is implementation. What matters is "are you solving a problem for the customer?" For years IBM never sold computers at all. They leased equipment and provided support. I'm leasing my current automobile. I don't care if I own the machine, I just want to be able to get in and drive at the lowest cost and best performance possible. Several events, of which the release of Mozilla is only a fortutious happenstance, have combined to allow us to try freeware much more than we did in the past. Those who support the freeware model should say "great", not "well, that's not really freeware since you're treating the development costs as a marketing expense". If you want a viable business model for releasing source then using it as one component of your overall strategy is going to be an easier sell than always giving away everything. - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-780-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 22:48:13 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA12060 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 22:48:12 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA18213 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 22:48:08 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 10293 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 20:48:34 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 10286 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 20:48:32 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 20:48:32 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA26833; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 16:47:01 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804252047.QAA26833@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 16:47:00 -0400 In-Reply-To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro"'s message as of Apr 25, 12:45 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R [ You wrote: ] . . . > Thanks for expanding. If you are able to say, I (and I think others) > would be interested to hear more about the negotiating process you > went through with the investors to get them to agree to this. What > were the concerns they raised, and how did you respond? From your > note, clearly the skillset shortage helped your case. Actually, the negotiating process was long and incredibly painful, but that had absolutely nothing to do with what we plan to do with source code on projects and mostly to do with revamping ourselves to be the kind of company VCs invest in. BTW, please take all of the following with a caveat that parts may not apply in the States, which is I think farther along in understanding the Internet and it's impact on business practices. The first major hurdle we faces was that we were perceived as a custom code and service shop wanting to move over into products and Quebec VC firms are leery of these. Their experience is that it's a different mindset and requires skills that code shops don't have. And they're right. I lost a lot of my development staff as I engineered changes that I'd wanted for a long time and which had been resisted. I think some people felt we were "selling out to the suits" and some good people moved on. To my surprise, this didn't seem to bother the VCs, who seemed to feel that Also, although we had (by now) six years of business experience, we have never sold ourselves using the traditional nice offices, suits and marketing team approach and we had problems convincing them we were "real". That was basically done over a period of time as we made predictions and they came true, as they became familiar with our track record and standing in the industry, etc. Once we did that, we had to show the viability of our business plan to generate revenue. We did that in parallel basically by continuing to work on the plan as we negotiated and continuing to hit every milestone. Once we'd acquired a critical mass of the predicted contracts they came on board. I remember telling one of them a couple of months ago that if he waited much longer we'd have profits rolling in. he joked "well, we'll wait until then" and I replied "and at that point, we wont be willing to take your money". It may be a coincidence, but we got a settlement shortly after! :-) this process was not easy, for them or for us, but I found that convincing them that we were a real company was the biggest challenge, and I freely admit that we had to change our focus and presentation of ourselves considerably to do that. The main reason we succeeded was that we'd a considerable track record of technology innovation and a pretty good name and kept hitting milestones. Anyone starting from scratch should focus on showing you recognize the need for, and have (or can acquire) the full team. That doesn't mean programmers (who are actually seen as a commodity) but: - a functional and experienced Board of Directors - experience working with business professionals (auditors, legal advisors, etc) - delegating responsibility amongs a management team (eg. production, marketing, administration, etc) - preferably experience working with outside shareholder If you can't do this, expect to have the needed skills parachuted in. I have a friend who has run his own company for 10 years, has had decent revenue and now has a pretty good product prototype and he thought financing would be a shoe-in. But he doesn't have a Board, uses a small accounting firm for his audits, obviously can't delegate responsibility. He never wanted shareholders and thought he should only have to give up a small portion of the company for the million he wanted because he was "done" and had only to market the product. He didn't get the money and I doubt he will until he fundamentally changes his attitude to partners and teams. For, free software issue was basically a non-issue. We explained that we will be doing certain things to make money and as part of that, we'd be seeding the market with some free software as this was common on the Internet. Because we could show initial contracts in hand and we'd addressed their concerns about business strategy they've left this decision entirely in our hands. They believe we want to make money as much as they do. I'm sure if I'd insisted that all code be freed it would *not* have worked. But I don't believe that's appropriate, either. > Also, your use of the Netscape example leads me to ask if you built in > a time delay between release of your product and unrestricted > redistribution of the source code? Nope. We plan to seed the market with certain programs and generate revenue for our actual product in doing so. some components of the actual product (or in some cases stripped down versions of such components) will be released. We recognize that our value is in the packaging of those modules into specific products. As such products age, we better have follow-on products. Thus, showing we could keep innovation going was more important than showing that we'd never release source. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-781-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 22:56:19 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA12073 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 22:56:19 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA18281 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 22:56:16 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 10556 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 20:56:44 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 10549 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 20:56:42 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 20:56:42 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA11114; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 13:54:08 -0400 Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 13:54:08 -0400 Message-Id: <199804251754.NAA11114@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804252047.QAA26833@mocha.bunyip.com> (peterd@Bunyip.Com) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R Peter: Part of your note got truncated. Can you fill in the blank: > ... some good people moved on. To my surprise, > this didn't seem to bother the VCs, who seemed to feel > that ???? From fsb-return-782-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sat Apr 25 23:14:50 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA12151 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 23:14:45 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA18379 for ; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 23:14:42 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 10983 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 1998 21:15:03 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 10976 invoked by uid 0); 25 Apr 1998 21:15:00 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 25 Apr 1998 21:15:00 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA26956; Sat, 25 Apr 1998 17:13:22 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804252113.RAA26956@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 17:13:21 -0400 In-Reply-To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro"'s message as of Apr 25, 13:54 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R [ You wrote: ] > Peter: > > Part of your note got truncated. Can you fill in the blank: > > > ... some good people moved on. To my surprise, > > this didn't seem to bother the VCs, who seemed to feel > > that ???? Sorry about that. I lost my link while I was still typing and when I logged back on noticed that the message was despatched. Here's the finished version. The above sentence was cut, but read "who seem to feel that loosing some programmer during the transition was normal and in some cases would be desireable". - peterd ---------------------------------------- [ You wrote: ] . . . > Thanks for expanding. If you are able to say, I (and I think others) > would be interested to hear more about the negotiating process you > went through with the investors to get them to agree to this. What > were the concerns they raised, and how did you respond? From your > note, clearly the skillset shortage helped your case. Actually, the negotiating process was long and incredibly painful, but that had absolutely nothing to do with what we plan to do with source code on projects and mostly to do with revamping ourselves to be the kind of company VCs invest in. BTW, please take all of the following with a grain of salt, as parts may not apply in the States, which is I think farther along in understanding the Internet and it's impact on business practices. The first major hurdle we faces was that we were perceived as a custom code and service shop wanting to move over into products and Quebec VC firms are leery of these. Their experience is that it's a different mindset and requires skills that code shops don't have. And they're right. I have always thought of us as a self-finance software developer who leveraged from project to project, but admit that we have never dealt in volume sales and that this demands skills we didn't have and would need to acquire as part of the project. In short, we had to show we could engineer needed changes and attitudes. Anyone starting from scratch would have the same challenge. As one example, complaining you spend half your time on "business crap" wouldn't cut much ice, as recognition of the value of that half is what's usually missing from would-be entrepreneurs. Also, although we had (by now) six years of business experience, we have never sold ourselves using the traditional "nice offices, suits and marketing team approach" and we had problems convincing them we were "real" (ths is more of a non-Silicon Valley thing. I wear a lot more ties than I used to because until we started this I tended to work almost entirely outside Quebec). We basically gained credibility over time as we made predictions and they came true, as they became familiar with our track record and standing in the industry. We also had to show the ability of our business plan to generate revenue. We did that in parallel basically by continuing to work on the plan as we negotiated and continuing to hit every milestone. Once we'd acquired a critical mass of the predicted contracts they came on board. I remember telling one of them a couple of months ago that if he waited much longer we'd have profits rolling in. he joked "well, we'll wait until then" and I replied "and at that point, we wont be willing to take your money". It may be a coincidence, but we got a settlement shortly after! :-) This process was not easy, for them or for us, but I found that convincing them that we were a real company was the biggest challenge, and I freely admit that we had to change our focus and presentation of ourselves considerably to do that. Anyone starting from scratch should focus on showing that you recognize the need for, and have (or can acquire) the full business team. That doesn't mean programmers (who are actually seen as a commodity) but: - a functional and experienced Board of Directors - experience working with business professionals (auditors, legal advisors, etc) - delegating responsibility amongs a management team (eg. production, marketing, administration, etc) - preferably experience working with outside shareholder If you can't do this, expect to have the needed skills parachuted in. If you don't think these are important, I urge you not to start a company... I have a friend who has run his own company for 10 years, has had decent revenue and now has a pretty good product prototype and he thought financing would be a shoe-in. But he doesn't have a Board, uses a small accounting firm for his audits (which he only does because his bank requires them for an overdraft) and he obviously can't delegate responsibility (he has noone higher than manager in his firm). He never wanted other shareholders and thought he should only have to give up a small portion of the company for the million he wanted because he was "done" and had only to market the product. He didn't get the money and I doubt he will until he fundamentally changes his attitude to partners and teams. As I trust you all see for us the question of producing free software was basically a non-issue. We explained that we will be doing certain things to make money and as part of that, we'd be seeding the market with some free software as this was common on the Internet. Because we could show experience in the field, initial contracts in hand and we'd addressed their concerns about business strategy they've left this decision entirely in our hands. They believe we want to make money as much as they do. I'm sure if I'd insisted that all code be freed it would *not* have worked. But I don't believe that's appropriate, either and wouldn't recommend it. > Also, your use of the Netscape example leads me to ask if you built in > a time delay between release of your product and unrestricted > redistribution of the source code? Nope. We plan to seed the market with certain programs and generate revenue for our actual product in doing so. Some components of the actual product (or in some cases stripped down versions of such components) will be released. We recognize that our value is in the packaging of those modules into specific products and in on-going innovation. Thus, showing we could keep innovation going was more important than showing that we'd never release source. - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-783-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 05:22:29 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id FAA12993 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 05:22:28 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id FAA07383 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 05:22:26 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 16043 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 03:22:54 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 16036 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 03:22:52 -0000 Received: from ppp-44.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.94.24) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 03:22:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 2392 invoked by uid 501); 26 Apr 1998 03:25:01 -0000 Date: 26 Apr 1998 03:25:01 -0000 Message-ID: <19980426032501.2391.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804252113.RAA26956@mocha.bunyip.com> References: <199804252113.RAA26956@mocha.bunyip.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q We also had to show the ability of our business plan to > generate revenue. We did that in parallel basically by > continuing to work on the plan as we negotiated and > continuing to hit every milestone. Once we'd acquired a > critical mass of the predicted contracts they came on > board. I remember telling one of them a couple of months > ago that if he waited much longer we'd have profits > rolling in. he joked "well, we'll wait until then" and I > replied "and at that point, we wont be willing to take > your money". It may be a coincidence, but we got a > settlement shortly after! :-) This is exactly what Don Lancaster was talking about in http://www.tinaja.com/glib/riskdown.pdf, summarized as: The "real" way to "invent" something is to become a purveyor of risk reduction instead. Using and understanding the idea mortality curve. Getting paid. Mining fallout. Two examples. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-784-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 06:06:48 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA13057 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 06:06:47 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA10313 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 06:06:46 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 17069 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 04:07:12 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 17062 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 04:07:12 -0000 Received: from kansas.pn.com (204.96.36.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 04:07:12 -0000 Received: from battleship (auntiem.wv.com [205.136.66.19]) by kansas.pn.com (8.8.8/8.8.0) with ESMTP id AAA09003; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 00:06:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: (bb@localhost) by battleship (8.8.5/8.6.12) id AAA30882; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 00:12:12 -0400 Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 00:12:12 -0400 Message-Id: <199804260412.AAA30882@battleship> From: Brian Bartholomew To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > People are wondering if traditional software production can work > with freely copyable software. It seems to me that, as people put > forth evidence that it can, more and more restrictions are being put > on what is meant by traditional software production. Picture a world like the one in Neil Stephenson's _Diamond Age_: Every manufactured object has the cost properties of software. Big up front cost to design the first one, nearly zero cost to print out copies. This is the world I want my profitable free software development plan to work in. I call this the Star Trek economy problem. Basing a business's revenue on old-fashioned, hard-to-reproduce things like cdroms, books, or consulting hours, is a perfectly fine and moral thing to do. But it doesn't answer the question I'm interested in. A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/lpf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew - bb@wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA From fsb-return-785-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 14:25:57 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA13720 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:25:55 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA12481 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:25:53 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23372 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 12:26:20 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23365 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 12:26:19 -0000 Received: from pike.cdrom.com (204.216.28.222) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 12:26:19 -0000 Received: from pike.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by pike.cdrom.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) with ESMTP id FAA15326; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 05:26:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rab@pike.cdrom.com) Message-Id: <199804261226.FAA15326@pike.cdrom.com> To: Brian Bartholomew cc: fsb@crynwr.com, rab@pike.cdrom.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 26 Apr 1998 00:12:12 EDT." <199804260412.AAA30882@battleship> Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 05:26:47 -0700 From: "Robert A. Bruce" Status: R Brian Bartholomew said... >Picture a world like the one in Neil Stephenson's _Diamond Age_: Every >manufactured object has the cost properties of software. Big up front >cost to design the first one, nearly zero cost to print out copies. >This is the world I want my profitable free software development plan >to work in. I call this the Star Trek economy problem. > >Basing a business's revenue on old-fashioned, hard-to-reproduce things >like cdroms, books, or consulting hours, is a perfectly fine and moral >thing to do. But it doesn't answer the question I'm interested in. We sell most of our CDROMs for $39. The replication cost is less than 40 cents, or about 1% of the retail price. If the replication cost was zero it would make little difference to my business. A company based on free software can't make money by restricting distribution of the software. So we must find some other way to get a competitive advantage, such as better marketing, packaging, support, etc. You seem to be saying that this means we aren't really software companies. By this circular logic it is impossible, even in theory, for a "real" free software company to exist. There are quite a few profitable companies that develop free software. Some make their software free out of alturism, but for most, freeing the software is an essential part of their strategy. If my company tried to make our free software non-free, our customers would abandon us, our sales would plummet, and we would go out of business. -bob From fsb-return-787-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 15:44:48 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA13818 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:44:48 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA12830 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:44:46 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 24438 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 13:45:14 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 24431 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 13:45:13 -0000 Received: from april.dnaco.net (root@207.238.206.9) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 13:45:13 -0000 Received: from picard.dnaco.net (kragen@picard.dnaco.net [207.238.206.4]) by april.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA13074; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:40:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from kragen@localhost) by picard.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.4) id JAA03888; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:45:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:45:23 -0400 (EDT) To: Brian Bartholomew cc: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804260412.AAA30882@battleship> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) Status: R On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Brian Bartholomew wrote: > Basing a business's revenue on old-fashioned, hard-to-reproduce things > like cdroms, books, or consulting hours, is a perfectly fine and moral > thing to do. But it doesn't answer the question I'm interested in. Consulting hours don't sound like old-fashioned, hard-to-reproduce things. They sound like something that will remain salable even in the Diamond Age. Kragen From fsb-return-788-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 16:23:26 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id QAA13873 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:23:25 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA13050 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:23:23 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 25135 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 14:23:47 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 25122 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 14:23:45 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 14:23:45 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA28487; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 10:21:52 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804261421.KAA28487@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 10:21:52 -0400 In-Reply-To: Russell Nelson's message as of Apr 26, 3:25 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: Russell Nelson , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R [ You wrote: ] . . . > This is exactly what Don Lancaster was talking about in > http://www.tinaja.com/glib/riskdown.pdf, summarized as: The "real" way > to "invent" something is to become a purveyor of risk reduction > instead. Using and understanding the idea mortality curve. Getting > paid. Mining fallout. Two examples. I agree 100 percent. Understanding the risk/reward ratio is, to me, the heart of business. I realized early on in the process that I had a tremendous amount in common with the VCs. I am confronted every week by someone with an idea that, if only I would make available my company's resources, could make this person rich. They offer me participation, but of course they'd have to be in complete control of the process, because I don't understand their technology. Such people seem to think that all the value is in the idea, and I should be happy to hand over the keys to the car so they could take it for a spin. And why should I ask for so much in return, since implementation is "boring business crap"? After all, any drone can do that stuff. The idea's the thing! If I invest energy in such proposals, I generally take the technology as a given at the beginning. I assess such proposals by looking at the person and the team. I assess the risks. And I look to see how it complements what we're already doing. If I'm still interested, I then do the due diligence on the technology. Most of the time, I conclude that such people don't have a company, and most don't even have a product. They have an idea, and little concept of the true costs (and risks) of taking that idea to market. Final thought. I am usually disappointed when I do job interviews to see how few applications address the issue of why *I* should want to hire *them*. I get a lot about how they need the money, or like certain kinds of work, or wont put up with certain restrictions. All of which is fine, but irrelevant. In a field which is short of skilled workers, there has grown up an arrogance that masks the basic point of the employee/omployer relationship. An employer hires because they want certain things done to build the company. I love to hire people who want to help me do that. In exchange I will endeavour to provide interesting work, I will be loyal and I will share the fruits of our labour proportional to me responsibilities to the other stake-holders. With one or two wording changes, this is the identical compact the VC makes with the entrepreneur. You may be an entrepreneur because you were abandoned as a child, or you may be an entrepreneur because you want to build a new form of industry, but to the VC that's what you do with your share of the profits. They do it to make a decent ROI and if you don't respect that you shouldn't be surprised if they don't want to play with you. To return to my point about people who bring me ideas - Few such would-be entrepreneurs bother to try and show how their idea fits into my plans. They assume I'll be so blown away by the idea that I'll put aside ten years of work and the next two years of effort to focus on their idea. Rare indeed is the idea that would persuade me to do that. I haven't seen one yet... - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-789-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 17:22:52 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA13952 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 17:22:51 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA13404 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 17:22:49 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 25909 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 15:23:15 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 25902 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 15:23:15 -0000 Received: from kansas.pn.com (204.96.36.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 15:23:15 -0000 Received: from battleship (auntiem.wv.com [205.136.66.19]) by kansas.pn.com (8.8.8/8.8.0) with ESMTP id LAA11992; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 11:22:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: (bb@localhost) by battleship (8.8.5/8.6.12) id LAA30982; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 11:28:17 -0400 Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 11:28:17 -0400 Message-Id: <199804261528.LAA30982@battleship> From: Brian Bartholomew To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > A company based on free software can't make money by restricting > distribution of the software. I'm willing to let a company restrict distribution for a year or two, while a company manufactures enough scarcity to get their investment and a profit back. > You seem to be saying that this means we aren't really software > companies. That's exactly what I'm saying. You are in the business of producing and distributing cdroms, not writing software. You could put some other variety of useful free bits on your disks besides software, such as satellite pictures, and your business model wouldn't change. > By this circular logic it is impossible, even in theory, for a > "real" free software company to exist. On one hand you have a company capable of writing new software. On the other hand you have users willing to pay something for that new software. The challenge is to invent terms in the middle that minimize free rider problems. The purest form of the company I'm describing would manufacture and sell only things with software cost properties: High initial cost to create and nearly no cost to copy. Software writing would be a profitable activity, and they would look for more software to write to increase their revenue. They would deliver everything in easy-to-copy digital forms, instead of copy-protected physical objects. A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/lpf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew - bb@wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA From fsb-return-790-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 19:05:43 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA14124 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 19:05:42 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA14002 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 19:05:39 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 27383 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 17:06:05 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 27376 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 17:06:02 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 17:06:02 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA28851; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:04:02 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804261704.NAA28851@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:04:01 -0400 In-Reply-To: Brian Bartholomew's message as of Apr 26, 0:12 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: Brian Bartholomew , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R [ You wrote: ] . . . > Picture a world like the one in Neil Stephenson's _Diamond Age_: Every > manufactured object has the cost properties of software. Big up front > cost to design the first one, nearly zero cost to print out copies. > This is the world I want my profitable free software development plan > to work in. I call this the Star Trek economy problem. > > Basing a business's revenue on old-fashioned, hard-to-reproduce things > like cdroms, books, or consulting hours, is a perfectly fine and moral > thing to do. But it doesn't answer the question I'm interested in. We are not the first generation to see this phenomenon in a business setting. It matches perfectly the description of the recorded music industry (among others). Rare, skilled workers produce an easily manufactured product. Not many people call for a boycott of charging for records and few people think of themselves as being in the "Vinyl record business" or the "free music business". Sorry, but I don't see why software is inherently different... - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-791-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 19:27:30 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA14197 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 19:27:29 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA14122 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 19:27:26 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 27800 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 17:27:54 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 27793 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 17:27:51 -0000 Received: from april.dnaco.net (root@207.238.206.9) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 17:27:51 -0000 Received: from picard.dnaco.net (kragen@picard.dnaco.net [207.238.206.4]) by april.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA18280; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:23:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from kragen@localhost) by picard.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.4) id NAA04701; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:27:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:27:57 -0400 (EDT) To: Peter Deutsch cc: Brian Bartholomew , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804261704.NAA28851@mocha.bunyip.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) Status: R On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Peter Deutsch wrote: > We are not the first generation to see this phenomenon in > a business setting. It matches perfectly the description of > the recorded music industry (among others). Rare, skilled > workers produce an easily manufactured product. Not many > people call for a boycott of charging for records and few > people think of themselves as being in the "Vinyl record > business" or the "free music business". Sorry, but I don't > see why software is inherently different... Music doesn't require testing, maintenance, or bug-fixes, it doesn't need to be updated to keep up with the times, and there is, as of yet, no `compulsory licensing' for software, the way there is for music. And while there may not be many people calling for a boycott of charging for records, the overwhelming majority of people in the US have made copies of music and given them to their friends. I assume this is true elsewhere too. This indicates to me that people generally don't buy into the value system the copyright law on music promotes. Also, people generally don't depend on music to fly planes, run nuclear reactors, run radiotherapy machines, figure their taxes, etc. They just listen to it for entertainment. But maybe this discussion is of the type that Adam Richter was complaining about. Perhaps we *ought* to start another mailing list -- Free Software Debate, or something. Russ, could you host it? Kragen From fsb-return-792-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 19:58:38 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA14235 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 19:58:38 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA14311 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 19:58:35 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 28251 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 17:59:01 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 28241 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 17:58:59 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 17:58:59 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA28969; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:56:53 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804261756.NAA28969@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 13:56:52 -0400 In-Reply-To: Kragen's message as of Apr 26, 13:27 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: Brian Bartholomew , fsb@crynwr.com Status: R I think I agree this debate should be moved elsewhere, but there are still tenuous links to business issues, so here's one more reply: [ You wrote: ] . . . > > business" or the "free music business". Sorry, but I don't > > see why software is inherently different... > > Music doesn't require testing, maintenance, or bug-fixes, it doesn't > need to be updated to keep up with the times, and there is, as of yet, > no `compulsory licensing' for software, the way there is for music. Actually, it does need to be updated. I remember a fascinating program on the CBC (local PBS-like) radio station one night on the way home. They were doing a play-by-play comparision of how conductor's styles have evolved this century. They started with a piece recorded in the late '20s, then the same piece in the '50s, etc. It was always the same composer, but different conductors and orchestras, to show how musical tastes and styles have evolved from a rigid formalistic interpretation in the '30s to a more relaxed style today. Because of this change in styles, we continue to need "updates" of our music. I have two kids, so I've had to think about what I'd like them to start hearing. Do you have "any" idea how many versions of "Peter and the Wolf" there are out there!?!? Even Sting did one... And there are bugs, to fix too. I remember when I worked for the Australian Ballet, we had John Lanchberry in as a guest conductor. He told a great story about how a choreographer had created one piece, using a tape of the score for rehearsal and practice. When they arrived in the theatre to begin working with the live orchestra, they did a first run-through and lo and behold, a critical "boom" from the kettle drum was missing. A check of the score and the recording showed that the tape was simply in error. The kettle drummer had simply hit a false note, which was preserved. The "bug fix" in this case was apparently to put the missing not into the score. The choreaographer insisted... And as for the licensing, there is nothing compulsory about it from the creator's perspective. If you want to create a piece of music and release it without charging royalties, you are free to do so. What you can't do it use it without the creator's permission. > And while there may not be many people calling for a boycott of > charging for records, the overwhelming majority of people in the US > have made copies of music and given them to their friends. I assume > this is true elsewhere too. This indicates to me that people generally > don't buy into the value system the copyright law on music promotes. Well, some piracy exists, but given the amount of money flowing through the industry, I'd conclude there was greater buy-in they you claim. I don't mind composers, authors and musicians owning their work output. - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-793-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 21:50:28 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA14368 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 21:50:27 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA14928 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 21:50:24 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 31348 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 19:50:49 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 31340 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 19:50:48 -0000 Received: from april.dnaco.net (root@207.238.206.9) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 19:50:48 -0000 Received: from picard.dnaco.net (kragen@picard.dnaco.net [207.238.206.4]) by april.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA21615; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:46:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from kragen@localhost) by picard.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.4) id PAA05022; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:50:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:50:54 -0400 (EDT) To: Peter Deutsch cc: Kragen , Brian Bartholomew , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804261756.NAA28969@mocha.bunyip.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) Status: R On Sun, 26 Apr 1998, Peter Deutsch wrote: > And as for the licensing, there is nothing compulsory > about it from the creator's perspective. If you want to > create a piece of music and release it without charging > royalties, you are free to do so. What you can't do it use > it without the creator's permission. In the US, there is a compulsory license for sound recordings. If you write a song, record it, and release it, your recording is pretty much under your control copyrightwise. However, if someone else wants to record the song and release their recording of it (also known as `covering' your song), you are required to sell them a license to do so. I'm not sure what terms you're required to license it under, but it is indeed compulsory. Kragen From fsb-return-794-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 21:59:26 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA14377 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 21:59:26 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA15007 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 21:59:24 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 31604 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 19:59:52 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 31597 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 19:59:51 -0000 Received: from ppp-44.canton.northnet.org (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.94.24) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 19:59:51 -0000 Received: (qmail 11008 invoked by uid 501); 26 Apr 1998 20:02:08 -0000 Date: 26 Apr 1998 20:02:07 -0000 Message-ID: <19980426200207.11007.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: References: <199804261704.NAA28851@mocha.bunyip.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q But maybe this discussion is of the type that Adam Richter was > complaining about. Perhaps we *ought* to start another mailing list -- > Free Software Debate, or something. Russ, could you host it? I'm still not convinced it's necessary. Reconsider advising people that any one kind of Free Software can't be done, because such advice is as likely to be wrong as it is to be useful. If you think it can be done, you should go out and do it. Yoda says: Talk not. Do. If you need help doing, come to fsb. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-795-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 22:01:18 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA14385 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 22:01:18 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA15022 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 22:01:14 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 31775 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 20:01:39 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 31768 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 20:01:38 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 20:01:38 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA23436; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 12:58:57 -0400 Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 12:58:57 -0400 Message-Id: <199804261658.MAA23436@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: (kragen@pobox.com) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > In the US, there is a compulsory license for sound recordings.... > if someone else wants to record the song and release their recording > of it (also known as `covering' your song), you are required to sell > them a license to do so. I'm not sure what terms you're required to > license it under, but it is indeed compulsory. Sound recordings are covered by the same copyrights as paper works, and also by additional rights known as performance and replay rights. What Kragen is referring to, I believe, are the licensing terms used by BMI and ASCAP. These organizations came into existence as enforcement vehicles in response to rampant copyright infringement. The deal is that if you register with them and assign your copyright to them, they will undertake enforcement (the means used by the two companies differ). One of them uses random radio sampling, for example. When you hear about a bar being sued for having a band play a top-10 song without licensing, it's BMI or ASCAP who is usually the plaintiff. Part of the deal, however, is that the second and subsequent recordings carry very low royalties. This means that if the first recording is a bust and the second goes platinum the songwriter is pretty well screwed. The catch is that unless you are prepared to do your own enforcing, a music copyright for a published work doesn't mean much in practice. On the other hand, the fact that sampling-based enforcement has been made to work is a good counterargument to the proposition that copyright on intangible goods is unenforceable. shap From fsb-return-796-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 22:19:15 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA14412 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 22:19:14 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA15132 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 22:19:12 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 32140 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 20:19:39 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 32133 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 20:19:38 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 20:19:38 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA29300; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:17:33 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804262017.QAA29300@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:17:33 -0400 In-Reply-To: Kragen's message as of Apr 26, 15:50 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) Subject: Re: open source definition Cc: Brian Bartholomew , fsb@crynwr.com Status: R [ You wrote: ] . . . > In the US, there is a compulsory license for sound recordings. If you > write a song, record it, and release it, your recording is pretty much > under your control copyrightwise. However, if someone else wants to > record the song and release their recording of it (also known as > `covering' your song), you are required to sell them a license to do > so. I'm not sure what terms you're required to license it under, but > it is indeed compulsory. That's true, although there is one small (but significant) loophole. I gather you get " first release" rights, so no one can cover your song until you've released your version. As one apochryphal example, I think it was Bob Dylan who recorded a particular song, someone prepared their cover version, but since Dylan decided in the end to never release, the second version never appeared either. Your point that the IP can be accessed in specified ways in exchange for the protection of IP law is perfectly valid and I acknowledge it. - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-797-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 22:56:52 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA14493 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 22:56:51 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA15307 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 22:56:49 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 32655 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 20:50:35 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 32648 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 20:50:35 -0000 Received: from mescaline.gnu.org (158.121.106.21) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 20:50:35 -0000 Received: from melange.gnu.org by mescaline.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id QAA00635 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:38:53 -0400 Received: (burley@localhost) by melange.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id QAA16638; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:38:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:38:51 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804262038.QAA16638@melange.gnu.org> From: Craig Burley To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804261756.NAA28969@mocha.bunyip.com> (peterd@Bunyip.Com) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R There's something else about music that's importantly different from software. In fact, it's what makes software inappropriate for coverage under copyright law in an "ideal" world: Software is functional. Music is a creative, artistic expression. Copyright law is fundamentally designed to promote creating unique works. It does that by providing a dis-incentive for copying, or building on, someone else's work. That's not ideal for functional expressions, i.e. in the sciences rather than the art, where it is generally recognized that, ideally, building on someone else's work should be "incentivized", or at least given neutral status vis-a-vis creating a whole new work. (No question software includes artistic expression, or that art includes functional elements; I'm not talking about the exotic fringe stuff, because that's not what people care about in either instance.) I no longer believe putting software under copyright, instead of some new body of law designed specifically to protect functional expressions of technical concepts, was a bad move. It was an efficient, easy one, and, if the software industry as a whole suffered from it, it's hard to see how it did so horribly. Anyway, because software isn't art, but is functional, it's easy to understand why these other important differences exist: - It's trivial to reverse-engineer art. It's very difficult to reverse-engineer software. - It's fairly easy to memorize art, and enjoy the memory. It's very difficult to derive anything remotely close to the same value from a *memory* of how a piece of software works. - Art is generally more appreciated the simpler it is, because it's designed to meet the expectations of individual human beings. Software is generally more appreciated the more complicated it is, because it's designed to convince as many human beings as possible that they could not possibly have participated constructively in its creation. - It's easy to experiment with one's own copy of art, to see how the changes affect the overall work, so as to learn that mode of art better. Unless you've got the source code, that's very hard with software. - As you're learning about art, most interested people would appreciate it if you'd do something new and different. As you're learning about software, most interested people would appreciate it if you'd do something similar and compatible. - When you die, your art likely becomes worth quite a bit more. By the end of next week, your software likely becomes worth quite a lot less. Semi- ;-) on some of the above. Anyway, if you think about how the above elements might relate to some of our collective preconceptions about how we view software, art, and the various laws, practices, and expectations we have, you might notice that the fundamental difference between function vs. form does really seem to explain most of the other differences we see blossoming from the basics. tq vm, (burley) From fsb-return-798-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 23:12:46 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA14524 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 23:12:45 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA15463 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 23:12:42 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 870 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 21:13:06 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 863 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 21:13:03 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 21:13:03 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA29393; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 17:10:57 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804262110.RAA29393@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 17:10:57 -0400 In-Reply-To: Craig Burley's message as of Apr 26, 16:38 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: Craig Burley , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R g'day, [ You wrote: ] > There's something else about music that's importantly different > from software. In fact, it's what makes software inappropriate > for coverage under copyright law in an "ideal" world: > > Software is functional. Music is a creative, artistic expression. I thought about composing a long, reasoned reply to this, but decided that my disagreement is rather simple and fundamental. Suffice to say, I disagree with your point of view. The creation of software *is* a creative act. Some aspects of the mechanics are not creative, but imagining and bringing into existance software, to me, is most certainly a creative, artistic endeavour. I'm sorry you don't see the beauty and art involved. > Copyright law is fundamentally designed to promote creating unique > works. It does that by providing a dis-incentive for copying, or > building on, someone else's work. . . . I refer back to the point about allowing others to reproduce a song. Joe Cocker's version of "House of the Rising Sun" is seminal, but it's certainly not the only one. In fact, it wasn't even the first. Some of the things rappers do With "deejay" effects, combining existing songs, etc clearly build new boides of work from old. Sorry, my disagreement with you is fundamental on this point. Since I disagree with your axiom, I shouldn'shall not go into your conclusions... - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-799-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Sun Apr 26 23:43:22 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA14559 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 23:43:21 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA15650 for ; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 23:43:19 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 1491 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 21:43:36 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 1484 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 21:43:35 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 21:43:35 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA23603; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:40:42 -0400 Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 14:40:42 -0400 Message-Id: <199804261840.OAA23603@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804262038.QAA16638@melange.gnu.org> (message from Craig Burley on Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:38:51 -0400 (EDT)) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > There's something else about music that's importantly different > from software. In fact, it's what makes software inappropriate > for coverage under copyright law in an "ideal" world: > > Software is functional. Music is a creative, artistic expression. I could go into a lengthy disagreement. Suffice it to say that there is more art than science in software, and that I disagree strongly with this suggestion and many of the following "supporting distinctions." shap From fsb-return-800-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 00:13:21 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id AAA14639 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:13:19 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA15859 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:13:11 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 2114 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 1998 22:13:39 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 2107 invoked by uid 0); 26 Apr 1998 22:13:38 -0000 Received: from wave.altrasoft.com (weiner@206.13.40.192) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 26 Apr 1998 22:13:38 -0000 Received: (from weiner@localhost) by wave.altrasoft.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA21320; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:12:53 -0700 Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:12:53 -0700 From: Bob Weiner Message-Id: <199804262212.PAA21320@wave.altrasoft.com> To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804262038.QAA16638@melange.gnu.org> (message from Craig Burley on Sun, 26 Apr 1998 16:38:51 -0400 (EDT)) Subject: How complexity in software helps (Was: Re: open source definition) Status: R >>>>> "CB" == Craig Burley writes: CB> - Art is generally more appreciated the simpler it is, because CB> it's designed to meet the expectations of individual human CB> beings. Software is generally more appreciated the more CB> complicated it is, because it's designed to convince as many CB> human beings as possible that they could not possibly have CB> participated constructively in its creation. I would give a different reason for why complex software can be appreciated. The complexity if architected properly greatly reduces the complexity of using the software. People can then appreciate how they could not do the work efficiently without support from the software. This also supports the notion that good software will continue to be expensive to produce relative to its reproduction and distribution costs. This leads me to believe that the needs for large infusions of up-front capital in the many software industries will continue to grow. Drug companies are a good model from which trends could be derived. Regards, Bob From fsb-return-801-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 05:55:47 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id FAA15422 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 05:55:46 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id FAA07309 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 05:55:44 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 7695 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 03:56:10 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 7688 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 03:56:09 -0000 Received: from kansas.pn.com (204.96.36.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 03:56:09 -0000 Received: from battleship (auntiem.wv.com [205.136.66.19]) by kansas.pn.com (8.8.8/8.8.0) with ESMTP id XAA17068; Sun, 26 Apr 1998 23:55:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: (bb@localhost) by battleship (8.8.5/8.6.12) id AAA31150; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:01:14 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:01:14 -0400 Message-Id: <199804270401.AAA31150@battleship> From: Brian Bartholomew To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > Not many people call for a boycott of charging for records After much complaint, there were US laws passed to legalize taping TV shows for replay at home. I think there was a similar law to allow taping songs off the radio for home replay. There is usually a loud protest objecting to copy protection mechanisms when a new audio or video recording media is introduced. Endemic casual illegal copying could be considered a personal boycott. > few people think of themselves as being in the "Vinyl record > business" or the "free music business" That's a habit encouraged by the middlemen in the music business, not a description of fundamentals. The IP laws are a set of arbitrary policies by humans. We can rebalance them to embrace the lowered cost of bitwise duplication and distribution if we so choose. > I don't see why software is inherently different... It isn't. But as a consumer, if I can figure out a way to buy music with more rights delivered to me, fewer middlemen, lower costs, and a lower markup, I'm interested. A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/lpf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew - bb@wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA From fsb-return-802-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 10:50:11 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA16767 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:50:02 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA10386 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:49:59 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 11606 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 08:50:22 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 11599 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 08:50:21 -0000 Received: from abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (141.20.103.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 08:50:21 -0000 Received: from coltrane.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (bfox@coltrane.wiwi.hu-berlin.de [141.20.103.51]) by abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (8.8.6/8.8.6) with ESMTP id KAA25885; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:49:43 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from bfox@localhost) by coltrane.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA27135; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:48:41 +0200 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:48:41 +0200 Message-Id: <199804270848.KAA27135@coltrane.wiwi.hu-berlin.de> From: "Brian J. Fox" To: bb@wv.com CC: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804270401.AAA31150@battleship> (message from Brian Bartholomew on Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:01:14 -0400) Subject: Re: open source definition Reply-to: bfox@ua.com Status: R Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:01:14 -0400 From: Brian Bartholomew > few people think of themselves as being in the "Vinyl record > business" or the "free music business" I am in the "free music business" and it is hard going. In order to sell the *making* of music to the world, you must have great packaging, no matter what type of music it is. Many extremely talented musicians do not make it in the music world exactly because they see themselves solely as talent -- an idea which doesn't even work for studio musicians. Having been one I can tell you -- I got hired to do jobs because 1) I showed up on time, 2) I had transportation and quality equipment, 3) I had the prerequisite basic skills, including the ability to read music, 5) I looked and smelled nice, and 4) I played well. That is exactly the priority ordering required by people who hire musicians; I no longer go to auditions for bands with younger people in them because they invariably can't get past the fact that I'm 38 now (Dude, really? You don't look any older than 32! But, we were looking for someone younger -- I mean, someone who can go on the road...). > I don't see why software is inherently different... It isn't. But as a consumer, if I can figure out a way to buy music with more rights delivered to me, fewer middlemen, lower costs, and a lower markup, I'm interested. Hire bands, or see live music, and buy your CD's direct from the band. More and more bands are specifically making a living from self-pressed CD sales. Brian From fsb-return-803-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 14:02:41 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA18667 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:02:40 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA14319 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:02:25 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 14695 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 12:02:43 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 14688 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 12:02:42 -0000 Received: from april.dnaco.net (root@207.238.206.9) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 12:02:42 -0000 Received: from picard.dnaco.net (kragen@picard.dnaco.net [207.238.206.4]) by april.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id HAA10340; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 07:58:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from kragen@localhost) by picard.dnaco.net (8.8.5/8.8.4) id IAA07921; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 08:02:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 08:02:54 -0400 (EDT) To: Brian Bartholomew cc: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804270401.AAA31150@battleship> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: kragen@pobox.com (Kragen) Status: R On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Brian Bartholomew wrote: > > Not many people call for a boycott of charging for records > > After much complaint, there were US laws passed to legalize taping TV > shows for replay at home. Actually, the Supreme Court ruled 4-5 that existing copyright laws didn't make it illegal, on the grounds that making it illegal would invade people's privacy. Afraid I don't remember the name of the case. Kragen From fsb-return-804-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 14:35:44 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA18995 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:35:40 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA14826 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:35:25 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 16016 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 12:35:47 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 16009 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 12:35:47 -0000 Received: from belize.ucs.indiana.edu (HELO indiana.edu) (129.79.10.64) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 12:35:46 -0000 Received: from poverty.bloomington.in.us (root@dial-126-131.ucs.indiana.edu [156.56.126.131]) by indiana.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/1.16IUPO) with ESMTP id HAA13720 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 07:35:12 -0500 (EST) Received: from poverty.bloomington.in.us (scott@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by poverty.bloomington.in.us (8.7.3/8.7.3/poverty) with ESMTP id HAA19309 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 07:35:08 -0500 Message-Id: <199804271235.HAA19309@poverty.bloomington.in.us> To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:01:14 -0400." <199804270401.AAA31150@battleship> Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 07:35:06 -0500 From: Scott Goehring Status: R "Brian" == Brian Bartholomew writes: Brian> After much complaint, there were US laws passed to legalize Brian> taping TV shows for replay at home. Actually, that's case law, not statute; the Supreme Court held (in Sony v. CBS, if my memory does not fail me) that the right to tape television programs in their entirety for the purpose of "time shifting" does not constitute an infringement, but falls within the scope of Section 107 "fair use". From fsb-return-805-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 15:39:03 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA19398 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:38:58 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA16023 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:38:48 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 17274 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 13:39:08 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 17267 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 13:39:07 -0000 Received: from mescaline.gnu.org (158.121.106.21) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 13:39:07 -0000 Received: from melange.gnu.org by mescaline.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id JAA15070 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:38:35 -0400 Received: (burley@localhost) by melange.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id JAA09375; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:38:33 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:38:33 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804271338.JAA09375@melange.gnu.org> From: Craig Burley To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804262110.RAA29393@mocha.bunyip.com> (peterd@Bunyip.Com) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R >> There's something else about music that's importantly different >> from software. In fact, it's what makes software inappropriate >> for coverage under copyright law in an "ideal" world: >> >> Software is functional. Music is a creative, artistic expression. > >I thought about composing a long, reasoned reply to this, >but decided that my disagreement is rather simple and >fundamental. Suffice to say, I disagree with your point of >view. > >The creation of software *is* a creative act. Some aspects >of the mechanics are not creative, but imagining and >bringing into existance software, to me, is most certainly >a creative, artistic endeavour. I'm sorry you don't see >the beauty and art involved. (I guess it's impossible to post anything reasonable on the Internet without *somebody* claiming he knows what's going in your brain.) For the rest of you who can *think* about what I actually wrote, I hope it's clear enough that I never said *anything* about there being no beauty or art in the *act* of creating software. What *wasn't* quoted from my original post was this: >>(No question software includes >>artistic expression, or that art includes functional elements; I'm >>not talking about the exotic fringe stuff, because that's not >>what people care about in either instance.) (I think it was plenty clear that, by "people", I meant those actively interested in exchanging goods and services for the ability to obtain, especially copy, software. Certainly I, and many others, care about artistic expression when we *write* software, but that's not when we're considering how much to pay for someone else's software. Nor, if we're going to expect to have a clue about how much our software is worth to someone else, is it when we're considering how much to *charge* for our own software.) There's also beauty and art in the act of human procreation. If any of you think the *product* of that act, and hence the reasons billions of creatures engage in it every day, is fundamentally "to produce art" as much as painting on a canvas or composing a new tune, rather than "to produce offspring" (human, animal, whatever), feel free to chime in -- I could use a good laugh right about now. The reason I posted my points was to get people *thinking*. Peter chose not to do so, IMO, instead just decided to react and claim I couldn't see the beauty and art involved in creating software. Look, I've been writing software *and* playing music since I was in the 4th grade. I.e. around 9 years old. I know *everything* there is to know about the *fundamentals* (hardly all the skills) of what it takes to do both, plus I'm (slowly) getting a handle on composing music. If anything, I know more about software than about music. (I didn't do much of anything else, including dating, until I was in my late '20s. So I don't mean "I did some occasional programming and toodling of a sax starting at age 9"; I mean "I pretty much was a software and music nerd with little else that distracted me from age 9 through about 28". :) So I know first-hand how much creativity and artistic expression goes into writing software; and how much "functional" stuff goes into composing. (I've probably got a fair mixture of both, but my lack of functional composing skills prevents me from enjoying actually undertaking that activity; I compose plenty of new music in my head lots of the time, but don't yet have the ability to efficiently write it down, nor to play it on any instrument. When it comes to programming, I try to keep my very strong creative and artistic urges in check, at least for most of the sorts of work I'm doing for others.) *The* reason software copyright issues are so widely and heatedly discussed; *the* reason you can get federal prison time for making 10 or more copies of a floppy containing Microsoft Excel; *the* reason people pay so much more for a *single* copy of a really important piece of software than they will have for their entire, largish collection of CDs is: Becuse 99.5% (or so ;-) of the people who buy software care not one *whit* for the creative and artistic elements that went into its *creation* -- they care almost *exclusively* about whether the software *does its job for them*. And that job is almost entirely functional, one they need or want to have done, and are willing to pay some serious money for. I know what I'm talking about. I've been working mostly on Fortran compilers for more than ten years now, and getting paid quite a bit for some of it (the rest of the time, I'm volunteering). Nobody has *ever* asked me how creative I am in this work, or gathered some info on my artistic abilities, or commented on how graceful my code is; they pay me because I get the job done. (Yes, *I* think Fortran has a certain inherent beauty deep in its soul...kind of like Barbara Bush...but that's not why most people pay big money for Fortran and related iron!) Now, with the fairly notable exception of the MacOS and stuff like games, few people give the creative and artistic elements more than about .5% consideration before plonking down a huge amount of money to buy software. Yet, somehow, when it comes to auditioning to sing in a chorus or some such thing, my artistic sensibilities are *so* much more of an issue, even though functional things (like the degree to which I'm able to sight-sing new music) are still involved to a degree. Why do you think that difference exists? *I* think it's pretty obvious: that people paying me to write software just care a lot less about how artistically I do it than people paying me (well, I'm an amateur, so really "allowing me to take up some time in a public performance they'll be putting on") to sing. The end product in the former case is not fundamentally an artistic one; in the latter case, it is. I know you disagree with that, Peter, even though I think it's as plain as the nose on one's face, so can *you* explain why I so *consistently* experience these distinctions between software-programming and singing "auditions", if it's not due to any big difference between software and music as regards the importance of artistic expression in the final product? IMO, it's all that *money* going into the hands of *software* producers on a per-copy basis that drives VCs and other investors to be willing to provide the capital to spend more and more money up front to design and deliver a huge, expensive software package that then must have its "security" defended by a vast array of laws (mostly copyright and patent), lawyers, and other enforcement mechanisms to make sure that all that planned-upon income from the software actually materializes, assuming people really want to run it in enough numbers. If it *wasn't* for that, I'd probably not have gone into writing software, but into composing music (probably not performing, I don't find it that rewarding, although that's about the limit of my current involvement these days) -- not just because of all the money that comes from this mechanism, but because I'm so much more certain that lots of people will "enjoy" (get good work done using) my programming efforts than I fear would enjoy my compositional efforts, since they're spending so much more money for good bits of software than they do for good bits of music. The same mechanism governs a *small* portion of the arts, e.g. the pop-music industry. Due to the fact that art is *not* functional in any important way, people just don't expect to pay $500 for a CD containing the latest Gloria Estefan album, despite all the *incredible* technical effort that might have gone into it. (Any unusually high prices people are willing to pay are almost certainly going to be for one-of-a-kind, or artificially constrained, cases, where even copies made by the recipient, if legally distributable, would not have nearly as much value; few people want to spend a lot more for a *software* product on the basis that "then I'll be one of the few who owns a copy of Prototyper 3.0".) I've yet to see *any* proposal that comes close to preventing me from doing what I regularly do: hear a pop song on the radio or TV a few times, and, without making any purchase, listen to it whenever I like (too often, when I'd rather not ;-) from memory. They can't keep people like me from doing that, so they don't bother going to a lot of trouble (and expense) trying to make songs difficult to reverse-engineer, which, in today's terms, means, at least, delivering software without source code, but usually involves more active mechanisms (like copy protections or software/hardware license-dongles). Nor can I recall getting any important work done using an in-my-head copy of Emacs. This helps explain why it's comparatively rare for capital to be deployed in the creation of a large-scale new artistic work, say a new symphony, in the art world; whereas it's relatively frequent for the equivalent thing to be done in the software world. (And if you look at enough actual examples of large-scale funding of new, long-time-in-creating, art, you'll probably notice that most of it is very caught up in being functional, such as new buildings designed by a novel architect. In such a case, copying is almost not worth worrying about!) >> Copyright law is fundamentally designed to promote creating unique >> works. It does that by providing a dis-incentive for copying, or >> building on, someone else's work. . . . > >I refer back to the point about allowing others to >reproduce a song. Joe Cocker's version of "House of the >Rising Sun" is seminal, but it's certainly not the only >one. In fact, it wasn't even the first. Some of the things >rappers do With "deejay" effects, combining existing >songs, etc clearly build new boides of work from old. What people do in fringe cases is interesting, but not what I was talking about. Though, it's exactly those fringe cases in which art becomes correspondingly more like software in terms of how the copyright and licensing issues are worked out; and vice versa, I suspect, for fringe cases of software that is more like art. Bach was happily copying, and modifying Vivaldi before copyright law came around. I find Bach's version of Vivaldi's Concert for Four Violins preferable (Bach uses harpsichords). Copyright law and licensing did *not* enable the sort of building-upon-other- works activity you go on about; in fact its purpose is to provide a dis-incentive for it, by transferring some of the necessary incentive to the "owner" of the original work, who tends to prefer *not* having people freely copy his stuff (that is, without some sort of recompense he gets to agree upon). If you think software and music are so much alike, and you think it's great for people to be able to freely put out new versions of existing tunes, then you'd be all for getting rid of copyright law entirely, since that's how it *used* to work. My points gave some bases for why that would be a *bad* thing for software- creating; but it'd be great for music-making. (It'd be bad for people on the music-buying end, though, because it'd get to where everybody and his brother would "write" stuff like Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and sell it. Copyright law, with revolting stuff like DAT tax and other impediments to technical merit in the equipment, is quite well-suited to music, IMO; it's not ideal for software, but it's probably much better than nothing.) >Sorry, my disagreement with you is fundamental on this >point. Since I disagree with your axiom, I shouldn'shall >not go into your conclusions... Maybe if you *think* about the distinctions I was making more, you'll realize your only disagreement is with what you *thought* I wrote, instead of what I actually did write. I've reviewed my original points carefully and still cannot see anything at all wrong with them. In fact, that was, IMO, one of the best things I've written in quite a long time. (I've spent a number of years as a technical writer as well. If you want to get into an *informed* discussion about the distinctions between creative and artistic *activity* vs. the *product* of that activity, technical writing being a much better example of the subtlety of those distinctions than programming, you can contact me via private email; I doubt the discussion would be of much interest here. In summary, tech writing is paid for on bases not unlike games or the MacOS, in that artistic qualities are often most effectively included in a subtle way, while functionality is still highly important and the essential governing element in deciding the purchase price.) Remember, the foundation of the discussion *I* came into was, IIRC, how, why, and from where *money* came into the picture when it came to free software, possible ways to raise money to write it, to license it, and so on. I believe I provided some excellent points as to why the money- raising, licensing, and IP picture is so different between software and music. I really wasn't intending to get into a discussion about all the creativity and artistic sensibilities that might go into the *act* of creating a work, because, AFAIK, sewer workers do some pretty nice ballet moves underground, but I don't *think* our tax dollars are paying them for that. My points focused primarily on the differences at the *paying end* of the process, i.e. the consumer, including consumers who might someday want to become producers. tq vm, (burley) From fsb-return-806-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 15:59:34 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA19725 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:59:34 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id PAA16382 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:59:29 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 17881 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 13:59:55 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 17874 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 13:59:55 -0000 Received: from mescaline.gnu.org (158.121.106.21) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 13:59:55 -0000 Received: from melange.gnu.org by mescaline.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id JAA15895 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:59:23 -0400 Received: (burley@localhost) by melange.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id JAA09412; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:59:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 09:59:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804271359.JAA09412@melange.gnu.org> From: Craig Burley To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804262212.PAA21320@wave.altrasoft.com> (message from Bob Weiner on Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:12:53 -0700) Subject: Re: How complexity in software helps (Was: Re: open source definition) Status: R >>>>>> "CB" == Craig Burley writes: > > CB> - Art is generally more appreciated the simpler it is, because > CB> it's designed to meet the expectations of individual human > CB> beings. Software is generally more appreciated the more > CB> complicated it is, because it's designed to convince as many > CB> human beings as possible that they could not possibly have > CB> participated constructively in its creation. > >I would give a different reason for why complex software can be appreciated. >The complexity if architected properly greatly reduces the complexity of >using the software. People can then appreciate how they could not do >the work efficiently without support from the software. Oh, I agree; I hope you gathered that my point was somewhat tongue- in-cheek above (see the sentence at the end of the list of points in the original email). I believe having a proper interface between the human end user and the software means have an interface that includes a fair amount of artistic consideration and, ideally (though it's not the case for the interfaces I'm aware of today, but is for the ones I've been designing in my head), that *supports* creative and artistic expression *by* the end user in a fashion relating somewhat usefully to the underlying productive reason for using the software. And, lo and behold, people who *really* care about that stuff have, at least in the past, chosen the Mac OS over the Wintel offerings, when making the relevant purchase decisions. (But many more people care more about "does it run all the software I'm likely to want to use? do lots of people support it?", and so on, so no surprise where the money goes.) >This also supports the notion that good software will continue to be >expensive to produce relative to its reproduction and distribution costs. >This leads me to believe that the needs for large infusions of up-front >capital in the many software industries will continue to grow. Drug >companies are a good model from which trends could be derived. I know so little about drug companies that I can't include the last sentence, but otherwise I agree completely. That's why I still see the problem of making money by writing GPL'ed software as a largely unsolved puzzle, even though I'm pretty hard to convince that, somehow, in the roughly 20-year history of the dominance of proprietary software, every possible avenue for making money writing GPL'ed (or similarly free) software has been tried and has failed. (Specifically, since capital is strongly attracted to writing proprietary software, as you essentially point out, it's harder to find ways to get enough to pay people from the same talent pool to help create GPL'ed software, etc.) tq vm, (burley) From fsb-return-807-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 16:14:14 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id QAA19811 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:14:14 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA16704 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:14:10 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 18373 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 14:14:28 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 18366 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 14:14:27 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 14:14:27 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA01491; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:11:59 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804271411.KAA01491@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:11:58 -0400 In-Reply-To: Craig Burley's message as of Apr 27, 9:38 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: Craig Burley , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R Oh dear, [ You wrote: ] > >> There's something else about music that's importantly different > >> from software. In fact, it's what makes software inappropriate > >> for coverage under copyright law in an "ideal" world: > >> > >> Software is functional. Music is a creative, artistic expression. > > > >I thought about composing a long, reasoned reply to this, > >but decided that my disagreement is rather simple and > >fundamental. Suffice to say, I disagree with your point of > >view. > > > >The creation of software *is* a creative act. Some aspects > >of the mechanics are not creative, but imagining and > >bringing into existance software, to me, is most certainly > >a creative, artistic endeavour. I'm sorry you don't see > >the beauty and art involved. > > (I guess it's impossible to post anything reasonable on the Internet > without *somebody* claiming he knows what's going in your brain.) I apologize for having offended you. I did not intend to misrepresent your view, nor to pretend to know what's going on in your brain. (Sometime, I doubt I know what's going on in my onw! ;-) The line I was responding to ("software is functional. Music is a creative...") seemed (to me) to imply that you didn't think software was a creative, artistic expression. I extrapolated out to talk about the creation of software, and thus perhaps missed your point. In any event, if we agree that the creation of software is an artistic endeavour, then we arrive at the question of whether IP (such as music, software, etc) can and should be "owned". I'm sure there are any number who don't agree, but I take it as an axiom. Starting with this axiom, you end up at the "implementation details" - to wit, what is the "best" mechanisms for promoting the creation and distribution of IP? (and if you don't buy this argument, you've already taken a different fork in the road at this point). So, we now have a thread discussing the intricacies of music copyright and how it applies (or can apply) to the software industry. And we then recall that this thread started out discussing whether it is possible to interest the VC community in the free software model, and I replied "yes, if you realize they don't care about the free software model at all, but want investments in firms with good ROI and a commitment to profits". In such cases, they don't care if you use the free software model or not. This goes against some of the supposition I saw go by, which is why I posted. One final comment: > If you think software and music are so much alike, and you think > it's great for people to be able to freely put out new versions > of existing tunes, then you'd be all for getting rid of copyright > law entirely, since that's how it *used* to work. Actually, I didn't say I think people should be able to freely put out new versions of existing tunes. As I tried to make clear above, I believe in the concept of intellectual property. I want to encourage rights holders to permit othrs to build upon their work, but recognize their right to say "no" to reuse. - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-808-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 16:51:23 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id QAA20355 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:51:08 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA17370 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:50:39 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 19231 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 14:50:56 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 19224 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 14:50:55 -0000 Received: from mescaline.gnu.org (158.121.106.21) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 14:50:55 -0000 Received: from melange.gnu.org by mescaline.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) with ESMTP id KAA17789 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:50:23 -0400 Received: (burley@localhost) by melange.gnu.org (8.8.5/8.6.12GNU) id KAA09539; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:50:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:50:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804271450.KAA09539@melange.gnu.org> From: Craig Burley To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804271411.KAA01491@mocha.bunyip.com> (peterd@Bunyip.Com) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R >The line I was responding to ("software is functional. >Music is a creative...") seemed (to me) to imply that you >didn't think software was a creative, artistic expression. >I extrapolated out to talk about the creation of software, >and thus perhaps missed your point. Ok. What I try to do, when responding, is, if I feel motivated to react negatively to a line someone has written, to try and closely examine the surrounding content and see if the author might have been trying to say something different. (Not that I always do it, or, that it's always reliable anyway; I used to, and probably still do, have this amazing (dis)ability to write a paragraph that "clearly" says what I intended it to mean and yet can be validly interpreted to say the exact opposite, though I don't think I made that bad a mistake this time! :) >In any event, if we agree that the creation of software is >an artistic endeavour, then we arrive at the question of >whether IP (such as music, software, etc) can and should >be "owned". I'm sure there are any number who don't agree, >but I take it as an axiom. I take the idea of the works we're talking about, in general, as constituting "expressions" as an axiom, indeed, and I think you probably can deduce from the rest of my previous email that I certainly support the idea that it's reasonable for government to "intrude" upon our "natural" freedoms by creating and enforcing the concept of IP. I avoid saying "artistic expressions" or "creative expressions" mainly to avoid the endless silliness of "yes, but is it art?" and "yes, but is it music?". Also, I believe IP laws themselves use the simple term "expression", or "creation". >Starting with this axiom, you end up at the >"implementation details" - to wit, what is the "best" >mechanisms for promoting the creation and distribution of >IP? (and if you don't buy this argument, you've already >taken a different fork in the road at this point). > >So, we now have a thread discussing the intricacies of >music copyright and how it applies (or can apply) to the >software industry. Well, I'm not sure it's gotten that intricate per se. The original question was (in essence, and I forget whether it was you who posed it), "what is the difference between software and music?" I took that as "if music and software are so much alike, why are they handled so differently as regards funding and licensing?" People have different ways of trying to find order in chaos (a valid definition of "intelligence"). One of my pet favorites is what I call "examine the deltas". That is, reason very honestly about, and look very carefully at, the differences between things that seem similar in some other ways. (An alternate approach is to "simplify" by hand-waving the differences, but I feel this too-often leads to seeing chaos as, well, still pretty chaotic.) The result of that exercise is often that I gain (what seems like, anyway) a great deal of insight into why things that seem outwardly similar behave, or are treated, differently. In this case, I think the differences I pointed out probably might well explain most of the outward differences we see between the music and software industries. (That's why I pointed them out; I felt it was worth just talking about the differences between the two without having to legitimize each one from the standpoint of whether it supported a particular point of view regarding free software. I'd still like to know just which of them are incorrect, and exactly how they're incorrect, because they *still* look perfectly reasonable to me.) But, sometimes, "examining the deltas" also gives plenty of ammunition to concluding that most of the differences in treatment or behavior aren't truly justified. That might end up being the case here; I just don't think I've seen any evidence to counter my earlier conclusion that the differences between the industries is explained largely by the differences between the motivations for purchasing the respective products and the ways those products are used every day, instead of (say) that the industries "happened" to pick different licensing arrangements, or got their "big start" at different times in history (though the latter surely plays *some* role). >And we then recall that this thread started out discussing >whether it is possible to interest the VC community in the >free software model, and I replied "yes, if you realize >they don't care about the free software model at all, but >want investments in firms with good ROI and a commitment >to profits". In such cases, they don't care if you use the >free software model or not. This goes against some of the >supposition I saw go by, which is why I posted. Ah, okay. BTW, I'm pretty sure I've agreed with pretty much all you posted on that topic, though, I tend to lose track of who said what, especially when the debate seems informative and above-board, in which case I care much less about distinguishing between those who I agree with and those who I don't. >One final comment: > >> If you think software and music are so much alike, and you think >> it's great for people to be able to freely put out new versions >> of existing tunes, then you'd be all for getting rid of copyright >> law entirely, since that's how it *used* to work. > >Actually, I didn't say I think people should be able to >freely put out new versions of existing tunes. As I tried >to make clear above, I believe in the concept of >intellectual property. I want to encourage rights holders >to permit othrs to build upon their work, but recognize >their right to say "no" to reuse. Thanks for clearing that up. It's important for people, in general, to remember that, without IP laws, "I want to encourage rights holders to permit others to build upon their work" would be a somewhat silly statement as regards music, but a much more substantial one as regards software. But that's just in this day and age, when we have the technology to fairly easily record and reverse-engineer music, but not software, and in which selling merely the opportunity to *use* (but not receive any copy of) software is so much more reasonable than selling merely the opportunity to *hear* (again, receiving no copy of) music. (Years ago, only people like Mozart could go to a concert, listen to a piece, and then reproduce it in sufficient detail to "build upon it" without the composer's permission; radio didn't broadcast the concert to many more people, recordings didn't repeat it, and even the music itself was very difficult to copy, especially if the composer "hoarded" the orchestral score, in which case the only copies in "lots" of hands were distinct copies of individual parts.) See the French movie "Diva" for an enjoyable, slightly offbeat illustration of what the kind of "music hoarding" I'm talking about requires in this day and age. See, for example, , and a wide variety of other sites, for plenty of examples of software lots of people use every day (and could be asked, if they aren't already in some cases, to pay to do so) but don't own any copies of. The point being, encouraging people to allow others to build upon their music does not really require IP laws today, but it certainly does when "music" is replaced by "software", as explained by some of the points I've been making -- the IP laws are needed to encourage dissemination of software in a form suitable for improvement. Similar to how patent laws are needed in the matter-transforming sciences. I'm still not sure, or have probably lost track of, just how my theses here relate back to the issue of making money by writing free software, but it seemed worthwhile to offer my perspective on the question about the differences between software and music, which I find fascinating (probably because I'm a big fan of using, and creating, both). That way, I can hopefully add to this discussion and then sit back and watch the rest of you somehow use my input in your ongoing quest to solve the larger problem of funding free software. :) tq vm, (burley) From fsb-return-809-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 17:20:34 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA20553 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:20:33 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA18068 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:20:31 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 19898 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 15:20:57 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 19891 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 15:20:56 -0000 Received: from kansas.pn.com (204.96.36.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 15:20:56 -0000 Received: from battleship (auntiem.wv.com [205.136.66.19]) by kansas.pn.com (8.8.8/8.8.0) with ESMTP id LAA25859; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:20:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: (bb@localhost) by battleship (8.8.5/8.6.12) id LAA31304; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:26:00 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:26:00 -0400 Message-Id: <199804271526.LAA31304@battleship> From: Brian Bartholomew To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > I am in the "free music business" That would mean that after a time, you release your digitally-encoded music bits to the world for use, copying, and distribution without charge. Is that the case? A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/lpf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew - bb@wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA From fsb-return-810-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 17:44:41 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA20785 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:44:41 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id RAA18520 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:44:33 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 20433 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 15:44:57 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 20426 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 15:44:56 -0000 Received: from abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (141.20.103.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 15:44:56 -0000 Received: (from bfox@localhost) by abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (8.8.6/8.8.6) id RAA27913; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:44:01 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 17:44:01 +0200 (MET DST) From: Brian J Fox Message-Id: <199804271544.RAA27913@abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de> To: bb@wv.com CC: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804271526.LAA31304@battleship> (message from Brian Bartholomew on Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:26:00 -0400) Subject: Re: open source definition Reply-to: bfox@ua.com Status: R Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:26:00 -0400 From: Brian Bartholomew > I am in the "free music business" That would mean that after a time, you release your digitally-encoded music bits to the world for use, copying, and distribution without charge. Is that the case? No, I don't think that is what it means. That would be the "free music distribution business." What I said means that I don't stop people from copying my music. Brian From fsb-return-811-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 18:00:11 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA20981 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:00:06 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA18932 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:00:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 20919 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 16:00:19 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 20912 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 16:00:17 -0000 Received: from kansas.pn.com (204.96.36.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 16:00:17 -0000 Received: from battleship (auntiem.wv.com [205.136.66.19]) by kansas.pn.com (8.8.8/8.8.0) with ESMTP id LAA27159; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:59:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: (bb@localhost) by battleship (8.8.5/8.6.12) id MAA31340; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:05:24 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:05:24 -0400 Message-Id: <199804271605.MAA31340@battleship> From: Brian Bartholomew To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > That would mean that after a time, you release your digitally- > encoded music bits to the world for use, copying, and distribution > without charge. Is that the case? | No, I don't think that is what it means. That would be the "free | music distribution business." | | What I said means that I don't stop people from copying my music. I recognize that copying and distribution isn't free, it's only cheap, and that you don't give away distribution services. But I think we're in agreement about the important part, which are the lack of strings attached to a copy of your music to fund your work. So in practice your fans could host a web site with freely- redistributable downloadable MP3's of your music, and you would never, ever, ever sell another copy of anything you've recorded ever again? And you can make a (difficult) living like this? How does that work? Or does your business model depend on friction in the marketplace? A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/lpf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew - bb@wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA From fsb-return-812-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 18:37:38 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA21501 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:37:37 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA19664 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:37:35 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 21631 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 16:38:02 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 21624 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 16:38:01 -0000 Received: from abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (141.20.103.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 16:38:01 -0000 Received: (from bfox@localhost) by abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA28222; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:37:01 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:37:01 +0200 (MET DST) From: Brian J Fox Message-Id: <199804271637.SAA28222@abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de> To: bb@wv.com CC: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804271605.MAA31340@battleship> (message from Brian Bartholomew on Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:05:24 -0400) Subject: Re: open source definition Reply-to: bfox@ua.com Status: R From fsb-return-813-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 18:46:50 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA21555 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:46:49 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA19814 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:46:47 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 21923 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 16:47:14 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 21916 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 16:47:13 -0000 Received: from abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (141.20.103.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 16:47:13 -0000 Received: (from bfox@localhost) by abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de (8.8.6/8.8.6) id SAA28269; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:46:13 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:46:13 +0200 (MET DST) From: Brian J Fox Message-Id: <199804271646.SAA28269@abulifa.wiwi.hu-berlin.de> To: bb@wv.com CC: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804271605.MAA31340@battleship> (message from Brian Bartholomew on Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:05:24 -0400) Subject: Re: open source definition Reply-to: bfox@ua.com Status: R Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:05:24 -0400 From: Brian Bartholomew > That would mean that after a time, you release your digitally- > encoded music bits to the world for use, copying, and distribution > without charge. Is that the case? | No, I don't think that is what it means. That would be the "free | music distribution business." | | What I said means that I don't stop people from copying my music. I recognize that copying and distribution isn't free, it's only cheap, and that you don't give away distribution services. But I think we're in agreement about the important part, which are the lack of strings attached to a copy of your music to fund your work. So in practice your fans could host a web site with freely- redistributable downloadable MP3's of your music, and you would never, ever, ever sell another copy of anything you've recorded ever again? I will continue to sell CD's at my shows, because people like to have a physical CD from the author. It is highly unlikely that I would sell a million CD's, but that doesn't bother me. And, if I did, there would be a million people listening to my music. I would be so in demand, that the money from the CD's wouldn't matter (to me). The Grateful Dead didn't have the problem that you are referring to, and yet they were in the "free music business" themselves (as I recall, one was allowed to make "bootleg" recordings of their concerts). Brian From fsb-return-814-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 19:42:56 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA21918 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 19:42:55 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA20638 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 19:42:53 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23070 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 17:43:13 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23063 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 17:43:12 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 17:43:12 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA24467; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:40:26 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:40:26 -0400 Message-Id: <199804271440.KAA24467@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804270401.AAA31150@battleship> (message from Brian Bartholomew on Mon, 27 Apr 1998 00:01:14 -0400) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: RO > After much complaint, there were US laws passed to legalize taping TV > shows for replay at home.... My recollection of that one (which may be as good as my recollection on music performance, so take this with a grain of salt) was that this was a court decision. The broadcasters filed suit against the VCR manufacturers, claiming that they were accessories to copyright violation. The test of this sort of thing at the time was whether the device has a substantial legitemate use -- which need not be its primary use. The courts ruled that making a video for private use for purposes of time shifting fell within the range of non-infringeing behavior, and since this was a substantial use of VCRs, the manufacturers got off. By the way, some of the recent bills in congress have been moving toward changing the wording from "substantial use" to "primary use." By that measure, it's generally believed that the VCR manufacturers would have lost. Subsequent to this court ruling, I believe that some sort of compensatory tax was levied on video tapes similar to the way audio tapes are handled. The model with audio tapes is that it is assumed that some amount of infringeing will occur, and that this tax is somehow indirectly paid back to the artists. I don't know how the disbursement actually works, though. shap From fsb-return-815-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 19:45:34 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA21931 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 19:45:33 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA20688 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 19:45:31 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23246 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 17:46:00 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23237 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 17:45:59 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 17:45:59 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA24472; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:43:13 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:43:13 -0400 Message-Id: <199804271443.KAA24472@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804270848.KAA27135@coltrane.wiwi.hu-berlin.de> (bfox@wiwi.hu-berlin.de) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: RO > Hire bands, or see live music, and buy your CD's direct from the > band. More and more bands are specifically making a living from > self-pressed CD sales. I second that. The music industry is a pyramid scheme stacked against the bands. New bands, in particular, have to put in a lot of money they don't have. Money from the CD's sold at the events goes to the band. Money from CD's bought in the local store goes to the distribution chain. Hmm. I wonder if we can come up with a public performance model for software development. How much would you guys pay to watch me hack in a bar one night? :-) shap From fsb-return-816-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 19:58:23 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id TAA21947 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 19:58:23 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA20896 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 19:58:21 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23602 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 17:58:48 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23594 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 17:58:45 -0000 Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (192.197.208.1) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 17:58:45 -0000 Received: (from peterd@localhost) by mocha.bunyip.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA02869; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 13:56:10 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804271756.NAA02869@mocha.bunyip.com> From: peterd@Bunyip.Com (Peter Deutsch) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 13:56:10 -0400 In-Reply-To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro"'s message as of Apr 27, 10:43 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" , fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: RO [ You wrote: ] > > Hire bands, or see live music, and buy your CD's direct from the > > band. More and more bands are specifically making a living from > > self-pressed CD sales. > > I second that. The music industry is a pyramid scheme stacked against > the bands. New bands, in particular, have to put in a lot of money > they don't have. Money from the CD's sold at the events goes to the > band. Money from CD's bought in the local store goes to the > distribution chain. I suspect that the analogy was even better than I had originally thought. If you look at the act of creating music, you see lots of labour composing, arranging, hiring and managing skilled staff (who can be difficult, especially the gifted ones... ;-), then recording, overdubbing, mixing, marketing, selling, etc. In fact, the actual time spent by musicians in the studio is only a small part of the total needed to produce even a relatively simple record. Ditto for programmers on a software product. SOrry guys, but that's the economic reality. And we'd all like to see all those people fairly compensated while making the results as widely available as possilble. Forcing musicians to give away their labour wont do that. Forcing programmers wont either. But, sometimes it can make sense to pay for the work, and give it away with minimal restrictions. I agree software is moremutable and the analogy is not 100 percent, but the differing perspective does let us see the business aspects a bit better in the new light. > Hmm. I wonder if we can come up with a public performance model for > software development. How much would you guys pay to watch me hack in > a bar one night? :-) Well, Disney apparently has guided tours of their animation studios. Yup, you can pay to go to Disneyworld and then watch the workerbees turning out the next "Hercules". I somehow doubt the animators get residuals for their performances! And when I think about it, we *do* have that concept in the software business. I issued shares to the old hands who helped me found the company. They profit from all future work we do. Can you imagine a story about Microsoft that didn't discuss their employee share options? - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Deutsch, (514) 875-8611 (phone) Bunyip Information Systems Inc. (514) 875-8134 (fax) http://www.bunyip.com "This document must be read and contemplated in its entirety in order to understand its meaning and intent. This is because many concepts in the characterization of SR&ED are interrelated and cannot be applied in isolation. Quoting extracts out of context is often inconsistent with a holistic interpretation. " - Revenue Canada Income Tax Information Circular No. 97-1, "Scientific Research and Experimental Development - Administrative Guidelines for Software Development" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fsb-return-818-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 20:04:07 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA21983 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:04:06 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA21013 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:04:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 23974 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 18:04:33 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 23967 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 18:04:32 -0000 Received: from ppp85.northweb.com (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.69.85) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 18:04:32 -0000 Received: (qmail 25071 invoked by uid 501); 27 Apr 1998 18:07:01 -0000 Date: 27 Apr 1998 18:07:01 -0000 Message-ID: <19980427180701.25070.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804271605.MAA31340@battleship> References: <199804271605.MAA31340@battleship> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q So in practice your fans could host a web site with freely- > redistributable downloadable MP3's of your music, and you would never, > ever, ever sell another copy of anything you've recorded ever again? > And you can make a (difficult) living like this? How does that work? > > Or does your business model depend on friction in the marketplace? Okay, that's enough. I've been polite. Now it's time for strong words. If one's sole contribution to the discussion here is to tell people that they're likely to fail, please shut up. Helpful criticism isn't. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice. From fsb-return-819-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 20:09:16 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA21989 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:09:16 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA21083 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:09:14 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 24238 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 18:09:43 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 24231 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 18:09:42 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 18:09:42 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA24509; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:06:56 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:06:56 -0400 Message-Id: <199804271506.LAA24509@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804271605.MAA31340@battleship> (message from Brian Bartholomew on Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:05:24 -0400) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: RO > So in practice your fans could host a web site with freely- > redistributable downloadable MP3's of your music, and you would never, > ever, ever sell another copy of anything you've recorded ever again? > And you can make a (difficult) living like this? Actually, there is a threshold of popularity above which you can make money doing concerts only (though you'ld lose a lot on record sales). That's maybe 10-20 groups in the US. The rest use concerts to drive album sales. If you can guarantee enough signal degradation in the copying process, however, you WANT people to copy your stuff because it encourages album sales. shap From fsb-return-820-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 20:46:52 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA22084 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:46:51 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA21657 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:46:48 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 25297 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 18:47:15 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 25290 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 18:47:14 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 18:47:14 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA24555; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:44:27 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:44:27 -0400 Message-Id: <199804271544.LAA24555@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <199804271756.NAA02869@mocha.bunyip.com> (peterd@Bunyip.Com) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R [Following is a description of how bands grow from local to national, which may not be of interest to everyone.] > I suspect that the analogy [between software and music] was even > better than I had originally thought.... A significant difference is that the music industry has a different market evolution mechanism, and therefore lends itself to different styles of investment. Perhaps this will spark useful thoughts, so I'll describe it. An unknown band has to pay for studio time, recording equipment, performance equipment and such. Most of those bands either "cover" other people's music (and pay a royalty for that if they are caught) or write their own. The band also has to front the costs of producing their own early CDs. All of this (at this stage) has to be paid for out of the band's share of the tickets and any CDs they sell at concerts or can convince a local record store to carry. Really talented groups often do their own sound engineering to avoid the extra several thousand dollars that a good engineer costs. The good news is that local bars often want to support local bands. [ Sound engineers are underappreciated. Roy Halley, for example, did the engineering on all but one of the Simon and Garfunkle albums (I forget which). That crisp clear vocal sound is Halley's signature. The exception wasn't *nearly* as good. After the split, *both* artists continued to work with Halley, though Simon has worked with some others as well. ] Some studios will do a managing package for the band and take a chunk of the proceeds. These, in my opinion, are to be avoided. More honest studios can be convinced to give the band a deal on off-hours use of the studio. Getting all this early stuff done requires a chunk of change, but it's small enough that family can often be stretched into doing it as a group. The name of the game is to get yourself on the playlist of a major radio station in your area. At that point you qualify to sign up for ASCAP or BMI, and the "managers" start circling. With occasional wonderful exceptions, most of the early managers are truly sleazy. Smart bands build good relationships with their recording studios and use them to vet the managers. The managers will then start the group performing in second tier locations within their area, often fronting the necessary cash. This is where the first major investment gets into play. After a while you set up to go national. If your manager is really good, this will often be a part of your first record deal, and the tour expenses will be fronted out of your CD sales by the record company (much like advances to a book author). Software authors, in contrast, don't need to perform their stuff publicly to get it into circulation. They can build a product, demo it to the publishers, and then get a publisher to carry it forward and take the real risk (many do just this). The software speaks for itself; it doesn't rely on the "star" effect that seems to central to music performance. People go to concerts as much to be part of the experience and see the performance done (maybe more) as to hear the music. This allows the software folks to skip the interim investment and growth stages. shap From fsb-return-821-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 20:50:09 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA22090 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:50:09 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA21688 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 20:50:07 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 25528 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 18:50:36 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 25521 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 18:50:35 -0000 Received: from cm20813845107.cableco-op.com (HELO earthlink.net) (208.138.45.107) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 18:50:35 -0000 Received: (from jsshapiro@localhost) by earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) id LAA24561; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:47:49 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 11:47:49 -0400 Message-Id: <199804271547.LAA24561@earthlink.net> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" To: fsb@crynwr.com In-reply-to: <19980427180701.25070.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> (message from Russell Nelson on 27 Apr 1998 18:07:01 -0000) Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > > ...How does that work? > > > > Or does your business model depend on friction in the marketplace? > > Okay, that's enough. I've been polite.... I didn't take Brian's question as nay-saying, and I was looking forward to seeing the answer. Selling music is quite different from selling software, but if someone can give an account of how to make it work for music perhaps we can adapt the solution from one domain to the other. shap From fsb-return-822-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 21:31:03 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA22134 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 21:31:02 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA22163 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 21:31:00 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 26580 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 19:31:27 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 26573 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 19:31:26 -0000 Received: from kansas.pn.com (204.96.36.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 19:31:26 -0000 Received: from battleship (auntiem.wv.com [205.136.66.19]) by kansas.pn.com (8.8.8/8.8.0) with ESMTP id PAA03459; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:30:53 -0400 (EDT) Received: (bb@localhost) by battleship (8.8.5/8.6.12) id PAA31458; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:36:35 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 15:36:35 -0400 Message-Id: <199804271936.PAA31458@battleship> From: Brian Bartholomew To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R > The Grateful Dead didn't have the problem that you are referring to, > and yet they were in the "free music business" themselves (as I > recall, one was allowed to make "bootleg" recordings of their > concerts). I think they were in the "entertaining performance" business, and the bootlegs just served as advertising. The performance isn't something you can copy and share with current technology. All these examples tie something that's easy to copy to something that's hard to copy, so that physical object manufacturing or consulting business plans continue to work. I want a plan that works when *all* the work product is easy to copy, and users are permitted to do so. A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/lpf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew - bb@wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA From fsb-return-823-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 21:43:57 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA22181 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 21:43:57 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA22286 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 21:43:55 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 26984 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 19:44:04 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 26966 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 19:43:39 -0000 Received: from roatan.ucs.indiana.edu (HELO indiana.edu) (129.79.10.65) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 19:43:39 -0000 Received: from poverty.bloomington.in.us (root@dial-126-131.ucs.indiana.edu [156.56.126.131]) by indiana.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/1.16IUPO) with ESMTP id OAA30660 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:43:01 -0500 (EST) Received: from poverty.bloomington.in.us (scott@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by poverty.bloomington.in.us (8.7.3/8.7.3/poverty) with ESMTP id OAA20150 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:42:57 -0500 Message-Id: <199804271942.OAA20150@poverty.bloomington.in.us> To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:40:26 -0400." <199804271440.KAA24467@earthlink.net> Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:42:54 -0500 From: Scott Goehring Status: R "Jonathan" == Jonathan S Shapiro writes: Jonathan> Subsequent to this court ruling, I believe that some sort of Jonathan> compensatory tax was levied on video tapes similar to the Jonathan> way audio tapes are handled. I know there's (used to be) one on DATs; if there's one on standard audio (or video) tapes, I'm not aware of it. (I'm not saying there isn't one on analog audio or video tapes, merely that I'm not aware of it.) The DAT tax was rather hefty and probably contributed substantially to the lack of success of that medium. I've just checked on the House of Representatives website under excise taxes and cannot find any evidences of any current taxes on recording media (either as a retailer's tax or as a manufacturer's tax), so if there are such taxes, they're not in the Internal Revenue Code. (This is possible, but unlikely; the "tax" may be imposed as a court-ordered settlement, for example.) From fsb-return-824-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 22:22:04 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA22268 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 22:22:03 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA22799 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 22:22:01 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 27982 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 20:22:27 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 27975 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 20:22:26 -0000 Received: from kansas.pn.com (204.96.36.40) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 20:22:26 -0000 Received: from battleship (auntiem.wv.com [205.136.66.19]) by kansas.pn.com (8.8.8/8.8.0) with ESMTP id QAA05102; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:21:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: (bb@localhost) by battleship (8.8.5/8.6.12) id QAA31511; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:27:38 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:27:38 -0400 Message-Id: <199804272027.QAA31511@battleship> From: Brian Bartholomew To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition Status: R If it came across as a taunt or a slam then I should have phrased it better. I certainly don't mean to disparage Mr. Fox, his choice of careers, or the music business. Let me try again: How fragile is this business model? Is your livelihood seriously threatened if a fan puts up a web site and distributes MP3's of your music for free? A member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF) ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/lpf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Bartholomew - bb@wv.com - www.wv.com - Working Version, Cambridge, MA From fsb-return-825-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Mon Apr 27 22:42:21 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id WAA22342 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 22:42:20 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA23090 for ; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 22:42:17 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 28510 invoked by alias); 27 Apr 1998 20:42:45 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 28503 invoked by uid 0); 27 Apr 1998 20:42:44 -0000 Received: from pfaffben.user.msu.edu (root@35.10.20.52) by pdam.crynwr.com with SMTP; 27 Apr 1998 20:42:44 -0000 Received: by pfaffben.user.msu.edu via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.101) for fsb@crynwr.com; Mon, 27 Apr 1998 16:42:11 -0400 (EDT) To: Scott Goehring Cc: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition References: <199804271942.OAA20150@poverty.bloomington.in.us> Reply-To: pfaffben@pilot.msu.edu From: Ben Pfaff Date: 27 Apr 1998 16:42:11 -0400 In-Reply-To: Scott Goehring's message of Mon, 27 Apr 1998 14:42:54 -0500 Message-ID: <874szfro7w.fsf@pfaffben.user.msu.edu> Lines: 10 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Status: R I've just checked on the House of Representatives website under excise taxes and cannot find any evidences of any current taxes on recording media (either as a retailer's tax or as a manufacturer's tax), so if there are such taxes, they're not in the Internal Revenue Code. (This is possible, but unlikely; the "tax" may be imposed as a court-ordered settlement, for example.) The last time I looked at the Free Software Foundation web site there was still an article on `the right way to tax DAT'. Is this obsolete, then? From fsb-return-831-Bernard.Lang=inria.fr@crynwr.com Tue Apr 28 23:00:05 1998 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by margaux.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA29463 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 1998 23:00:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ns.crynwr.com (ns.crynwr.com [192.203.178.14]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.8.7/8.8.5) with SMTP id XAA02925 for ; Tue, 28 Apr 1998 23:00:02 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (qmail 28789 invoked by alias); 28 Apr 1998 21:00:29 -0000 Mailing-List: contact fsb-help@crynwr.com; run by ezmlm Delivered-To: mailing list fsb@crynwr.com Received: (qmail 28781 invoked by uid 0); 28 Apr 1998 21:00:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO desk.crynwr.com) (205.232.69.125) by ns.crynwr.com with SMTP; 28 Apr 1998 21:00:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 13902 invoked by uid 501); 28 Apr 1998 21:03:12 -0000 Date: 28 Apr 1998 21:03:11 -0000 Message-ID: <19980428210311.13901.qmail@desk.crynwr.com> From: Russell Nelson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: fsb@crynwr.com Subject: Re: open source definition In-Reply-To: <199804282010.WAA04457@coltrane.wiwi.hu-berlin.de> References: <199804271506.LAA24509@earthlink.net> <199804282010.WAA04457@coltrane.wiwi.hu-berlin.de> X-Mailer: VM 6.34 under 20.3 "Vatican City" XEmacs Lucid X-Face: $K'YURj"g6ImvqTS_=]8)gqh!5;ElY<[.Rao%j8r+]iUfE{%|v%F<=mcq<6l{K=~mf&#:?" nslS]U~|x{2V=Eex_I#"9K~9)>?m7Lm={(j_&)SX~fzg&ST~P%QUhc{1p]c3@Zn1u*PZlkHM**X^vV l>GkB5y^Kz%w5p~^uDue]hL&ke,N;+Q My experience is that people buy hardcopies of music because they want > to own copies of their favorite music which has the properties of > portability, and playability on a wide range of equipment. It may be list abuse, but it's too great a followup to ignore: http://www.cryton.demon.co.uk/mp3mobile/ For those too lazy/busy to click on it, it's a MP3 player for a car, running Linux. -- -russ http://web.crynwr.com/~nelson Crynwr supports Open Source(tm) Software| PGPok | Freedom is the primary 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | cause of Peace, Love, Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | Truth and Justice.