(long long mail ...)
Hi Ayan,
There are many ways of earning a living by writing softwares. I am
talking about a particular way of earning in which:
- I* write a software
- I release it under GPL
- I am owner of the code
- I want to earn money based on this s/w (not by donations)
- and my core product in not the h/w on which this s/w runs
but the s/w itself
and the point I want to make is -
the GPLed s/w 'alone' would not bring you any money. You need to have
some kind of a service/product around your GPLed s/w. That might be:
- support/maintenance services OR
- a hardware, which, as you say, which is your flagship product
and on which your GPLed s/w is based
In this case, your good GPLed s/w product is a facilitator
to sales of your h/w. All your examples point to this case
- the hardware company or IBM's h/w platform
- OR ...
*'I' might as well be a group of people.
If we are talking about writing GPLed s/w, surrendering the copyright
to someone else and earning a living, and letting him do whatever he
wants to do with it, then we are on different tracks and shouldn't
continue.
Remember - not every s/w company have a h/w product to leverage on.
This is very much specific in India where most (should say all)
companies provide 'solutions' and not sell h/w.
Rest of the mail are replies to some of your points, which I have
summarized above.
,--On 7/2/05, Ayan Chakrabarti <ee01b098@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
|In this particular case (the verilog synthesis tool), it would
| infact be giving it away with their hardware. The point is, you're
| still a software engineer, but your employer is a hardware company.
~
`-----
Where does GPL come into the picture here ?
- You are an employee of that company
- You write code and give it to your manager.
- They define the license that the s/w should be released
under.
Where do _you_ touch GPL ? And where does it bring to _you_ all the
GPL related issues ?
If that is the way our example-guy is earning a living, then he may
not really be interested in the OpenSource movement at all! Because,
he is not, in any way, bothered about giving his code to the *public*
in general. I am _not_ talking about such a guy.
,--
|Say you work for IBM and are part of the team that works on the
|file-system drivers for linux. IBM _is_ going to give away that
|software for free, not out of the goodness of their heart, but
|because it strengthens their platform.
`--------
Let's come to the practical issue. From where will IBM pay me ? From
money they earn from other business. That might be
- by providing support/maintenance of the same s/w that me
and my team wrote
- by selling more of the h/w that my s/w runs on, by the
virtue that the combination is very stable, and as you said,
by strengthening their platform
Does that mean that evey s/w company should start making h/w so that
they can write GPL s/w for the h/w and sell more of the h/w, thus
becoming a h/w company?
The GPL s/w, in itself, is _not_ going to bring you any money. And
that's what I am trying to say. You need to have services/products
around your GPLed s/w. That might be support to customers, or a
hardware to base on or something else.
,--
|The compromise is between having to start from scratch to write
|software for your particular platform (which you're essentially
|trying to sell and is your main product) to using free-software
|code to get a kickstart, but then making the source available for
|improvements. And IBM _does_ do this, and still profits.
`---------
Profit ? That's by selling the flagship product and not by making your
GPLed code public. Ofcourse, as i said earlier, the code will always
be a facilitator.
,--
|Err, no. They can insist you transfer the copyright to them, and
|keep it inhouse. Just because GPL'ed code exists doesn't mean it has
~
`---------
Transfering my copyright on a GPLed s/w to someone else so that he
might turn it into a closed source product? Then why am I bothered
about GPL at all in the first place ? And why this thread ?
I mean its OK to earn a living that way, but then i am not discussing
that way of earning a living. I am talking about practical difficulties
faced by a programmer who wants to ensure that his code remains GPL
and he earns a living as well.
saha
--
