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..
Full story »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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aboutblank
16 years 15 weeks 3 days 19 hours 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
16 years 15 weeks 4 days 1 hour 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.