[Ilugc] Business value of Freesoftware
- From: sriram@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (P. Sriram)
- Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 09:56:27 +0530 (IST)
On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Mohanakrishnan Sridharan wrote:
thinking about what the microsoft page says about free software...
it does seem like he has something valid to say... what wud happen if all
the software available were free and their source codes open... dont u think
there wud be a great drop in the demand for techies... so what sort of
bizness designs wud u incorporate for a free, open source code software...
[the microsoft article is here]
http://www.microsoft.com/mind/0599/flux/flux0599.asp
well, actually, the mircrosoft article is full of untruths. the first
thing you will find at www.gnu.org is that free does not mean no-cost but
freedom. the basic premise of the entire article is based on this untruth
(and other such similar untruths). i dont know how many times stallman has
to say free as in free-dom and not as in free-beer. one of the truths in
the microsoft article is that software is different in that the
development costs are high and production costs are almost negligible
(more on this later). free software (or open source software) gives a
mechanism by which the end user can actually estimate the development
cost. to paraphrase the model "selling free software", developers of free
software are also free to charge whatever the market will bear. however,
you are constrained to distribute both the original source that you used
and the modifications you did in source form. it would be fairly easy for
me (the end user) to see that you have spent about 2 hours and that gives
me the leverage to offer you only two thousand instead of two lakhs for
your modified version. if, on the other hand, i can see that extensive
modifications and additions are in place, i will be willing to pay two
lakhs. once i have paid two lakhs, the question arises whether you should
charge anyone else also two lakhs; if there are, say, a thousand people
who could use these same modifications, should each of them pay two lakhs?
i have estimated your development cost to be two lakhs, but with that and
negligible productions costs, should each of these thousand people pay the
full two lakhs development cost? microsoft would have you believe, yes -
and that is how bill gates and microsoft become global money makers. of
course, this is in the spirit of capitalism, but the word greed also pokes
up its head. free software has been around for decades, but as long as the
alternative was the non-free software from ibm or dec or whoever (who did
not become global money makers based on software alone), it did not catch
on. i can see a parallel between the growth of microsoft and free
software. i myself believe that present software selling models like that
of microsoft are unstable and in a few decades, we will settle into a
model more like free/open source software. it is not as if there are other
'goods' that are somewhat similar in nature. take music, for example. many
people are willing to pay a thousand rupees to see michael jackson perform
- well, enough to make michael jackson also a global money maker. they
can hear the same music (recorded, and perhaps, clearer) for much less,
they can see someone else perform the same music (almost as good), also
for much less, but it is the whole experience that people are willing to
pay for. and, michael jacksons songs will be seen as such by listeners
listening to other performers with their own cover versions. in a similar
vein, it is possible that the free/open source software model can lead to
a situation where software will be sold for something closer to
'realistic' costs. this also leads us to why academic institutions are
willing to follow the free software model. when prabhu has a research
problem (visualization of 3-d data), it becomes part of his phd program
and iitm is willing to give him his scholarship while he develops the code
needed to do this. once this code (mayavi) is done, the research problem
is solved as far as prabhu is concerned and also as far as iitm is
concerned. thankfully, neither prabhu nor iitm have a greedy streak and
so, mayavi becomes 'freely' available. both iitm and prabhu are content
with the name recognition of mayavi -> prabhu -> iitm. sometimes, it takes
more time, resources and effort to churn out something and then, some
commercialiazation is done. microsoft would like software people to
believe that free software will rob them of their livelihood - and thus
gather force against the free software movement; microsoft does not
necessarily act in the interest of software people, it acts really only in
the interest of microsoft (in the finest capitalist tradition). the free
software model does not challenge the livelihood of software people - it
probably does challenge the livelihood of microsoft.
sriram
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