It seems to be a very famous question : how can free software developers make money to live. They spend a lot of time and effort on something that they'll never sell..
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Anybody up to writing good directory software?
Tue, 2007-02-20 11:17 — David JonathanSince the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Is better education the key to finding better software?
Sat, 2007-03-03 03:25 — Edward RusselI read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
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4 years 20 weeks 9 hours 53 min ago
Making money from artificial scarcity?
Software proprietors only exist because of the institutions in place that support an industry of artificial scarcity. Copyright law is the main law that supports this and there are others that exist such as patent law and laws that protect trade secrets. If these institutions were to be nullified today, the entire proprietary software industry (as well a number of other industries that are dependant upon these government institutions) would be utterly ruined within three days.
The methods of making money with free software do not suffer from this problem. This is because these methods do not rely on artificial scarcity; money is usually exchanged for performing services that are in limited supply. Examples of such services include: computer programming, system administration, system analysis and design, computer program/computer system support, and all the related teaching and training services.
I will guarantee that all of the above example services will remain in limited supply for as long as users are not able to perform these tasks themselves and as long as the requirements of the computer system changes over time.
kiba
4 years 20 weeks 16 hours 6 min ago
It is very possible for free
It is very possible for free software programmers to make a living off what they love to do.
However people perceived that making a living this way is a lot harder to do than proprietary business model.
I believe this perception is reinforced by programmers who refused to even try to build a business on it and also see that it is futile.
So the perception remained unbroken.