OT Free Software 3420

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 16:22:33 +0000, Erix

Some of the developers are paid to do so, by companies big and small. I'd say most of them are like this. Some want to study and experiment and have their code peer-reviewed and laughed at, so as to become better programmers and persons. The point is, you can give it an hour or a lifetime, and have it as a hobby or get paid.

The reason your question is serious is this: you think the only way to make money of software is to sell licenses. But the reality is that licenses do not add value to anything, so paying for them is either stupid or enforced. I'd say it's better to pay for quality work and services.

This holds for the current trend of making basic infrastructure free and building it collaboratively, under free licenses. There are very specialized areas where proprietary code still rules, like low-selling tools for specialists (where trade secrets may actually be relevant), and games that are expected to have a short lifetime. And Windows security tools of course :)

Similarly, if you are a company that manufactures a special device, such as a mobile phone or some such, you might be wise to collaborate with others to build a nice basic operating system for them, such as Symbian (and pay for developers to do that), and compete with your proprietary person applications to sell the device.

-- Juha Siltala