From: Pat Eyler <pate@...>
Date: 2002-05-10T00:44:46+09:00
Subject: Re: 'Ultimate' FreeRIDE ?

On Fri, 10 May 2002, Euan Mee wrote:

> On 9 May 2002, Tobias Reif wrote (more or less):
> > It could be released as Free Software (GPL), and you still could
> > charge the same amount of $. (AFAICS)
>
> I doubt this in practice.
>
> The GPL does not expressly forbid selling the software, its true.  In fact,
> it's set up expressly to allowing selling the software.
>
> But...  and it's a big but...
>
> As I understand it, the GPL expressly allows the purchasor to then distribute
> any amended version of the source software freely.
>
> So, given that developers are not short of the ability to turn source code
> into working binaries, this means that putting development tools under the
> GPL means that you're unlikely to sell many more than 1 copies...
>
> So I've never understood how people are supposed to make a living selling
> GPL'd development tools.
>
> Can anyone enlighten me?

This only seems to work where there is a perceived benefit to the user in
buying the software; it's precompiled and easily installable from the
purchased CD, management wants a company 'on the hook' for the tool,
management doesn't understand free software, you want to help support the
producer so that they'll be around to support the product in the future.

None of these will do it alone, IMHO, for anything but a small company.
crynwr support seems to be a great example of this.


>
> On th eother hand, there are numerous examples of companies that provide
> GPL'd, freeware or open-source software at no cost, intending to make money
> on ancillary services - support, pre-forming binaries, implementation
> consultancy and so on.
>
> e.g. Mandrake (just gone to a subscription model), SuSe (just gone to get yet
> more capital), the AOLServer co., the company that bought PGP, etc.
>

This does seem to be the preferred model (isc.com, sendmail.com, old-style
cygnus, sleepycat, etc.)  In some cases it seems to work quite well.
Common denominators for the successful companies seem to be:
* they're acknowledged master craftsman in the market they're in.
* they sell development services and support.
* they give away a lot of value to keep their name recognition (and
  karma?) high.
* they're working in a market that already exists (though not necessarily
  one where free software has made a big dent sales-wise).

> These examples all appear to me to demonstrate that the "give aware your core
> asset and live off of the fringe revenues" business model is very difficult
> to thrive on.
>
> On the third hand, :-) how many sales will ArachnoRuby make if it's covering
> the same ground as FreeRIDE.
>
> (Three answers spring to mind - there's the chance that FreeRIDE will never
> make it, so there'll be no competition, so it's worthwhile working on
> arachnoRuby in case.    Maybe ArachnoRuby will be so superior to FreeRIDE
> that people will want to use it in place of FreeRIDE.  Perhaps ArachnoRuby
> will appear on the scene much earlier than FreeRIDE, giving an n month (or n
> year) window of opportunity for ArachnoRuby sales).
>

All real possiblities.  Another is that the two projects merge at some
point with one or more companies selling support and development for them,
competing on service quality and price while sharing a common source tree.


-pate

>
>
> Cheers,
>      Euan
> xlucid@users.sourceforge.net
>
> 'I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance,
> Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance'
>  - Ogden Nash
>