Re: Making money on open source, if not by selling _support_, then how?

[Justin Gombos <rpbkbq.xax.gld@uluv.kbq>]

On 2006-04-12, Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote:
> "Justin Gombos" <rpbkbq.xax.gld@uluv.kbq> wrote in message
> news:nT7%f.4699$7Z6.366@trnddc06...
> ...
>> > Which means no creations at all.
>>
>> You can't conclude that.  If that were a true statement, we would
>> not have the rich library of GNU software that exists today.  Why?
>> Because there's nothing to stop a GNU developer from having a day
>> job.  I suspect most self supporting GNU developers have day jobs.
>
> But that's my point. Taken to it's limit, there could be no
> well-paying "day jobs" for those GNU developers. After all, most of
> them are employed at companies that get some benefit from the GNU
> software. In the limit, where software was worth $0, there would be
> no "day jobs" in fields that are even remotely related.

How could there be no day job available for GNU developers?  Whatever
your answer, it must be purely hypothetical, because GNU developers
*do* have day jobs.  If they didn't, you'd have to explain how all the
GNU developers have been surviving for the past 20+ years.  And what
prevents such day jobs from being well paying?

> If the day job is unrelated (or even only weakly related), then the
> developers are either not developing great software, or are
> short-changing someone (their employers, their families, themselves,
> etc.) Great software requires at least some of the developers
> putting a large amount of mental energy into the design and the
> vision (and keeping to that design and vision). That's incompatible
> with a "day job" that requires significant mental energy, which is
> the vast majority of them. 

It seems you're making a lot of assumptions here, which in the end
probably boils down to a very small group.  You're assuming a Henry
Ford 40 hour work week, or greater.  You're assuming these are
mentally exhausting day jobs, and you're assuming that the subject is
easily fatigable.  You're also assuming that the mental energy
required at work is the same type of mental energy that the subject
would use in their GNU development (a lot of commercial software
effort involves what I call metawork - administrative overhead and
meetings talking about the work itself).

Someone who is burned out working 70+ hour weeks on their day job
doing the same work that GNU development involves is not suitable for
writing quality GNU code; and such folks are unlikely to pursue GNU
development.  Seeing that offtime volunteer GNU work is done for
leisure, you can figure that those who do it aren't burned out to the
point of being careless about quality.  Why?  Because intrinsic
motivators are at work.

> (I suppose you could work at a Wal-Mart-like job, if you don't mind
> living below the poverty line. But I happen to think software is too
> important to the world for developers to be forced to live at
> poverty levels...).

So what?  If someone chooses manual labor during the day, and mental
labor in their off hours, fine.  

The lifestyle of a GNU developer is chosen, not forced.

> You can cheat your employer, of course, but that's not a recipe for
> a sustanable model. Nor is "work, program, sleep" a model for
> healthy living.

Healthy living is a different issue entirely.

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