On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Aasif Shaikh aasif.shkh@gmail.com wrote:

Hi All,

I am new to GNU/Linux and Open Source world. I had seen lots of open source stable projects on internet, which anybody can download, modify and sell to anybody.

Now the question arises; if a *PERSON A* develops a stable and good project as an Open Source and upload it over the internet and the *PERSON B* from some other country downloads and modify it with his name as an author (basically he is stealing someone's code) and sell it to some company to make money out of it. So how this *PERSON A* is going to be benefited.

some reading material of interest to you

http://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-free-software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License http://www.fsf.org/resources/what-is-fs/what-is-fs-new.pdf

Please excuse me if I am wrong in asking this question.

Best Regards, Aasif Shaikh. -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers

Kenneth,

On 10-Mar-09, at 6:12, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org wrote:

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 01:01:31 Aasif Shaikh wrote:

...

Now the question arises; if a *PERSON A* develops a stable and good project as an Open Source and upload it over the internet and the *PERSON B* from some other country downloads and modify it with his name as an author (basically he is stealing someone's code) and sell it to some company to make money out of it. So how this *PERSON A* is going to be benefited.

person B gets sued for copyright violation and has to pay damages to person A. See what happened to D-link, skype et al:

GPL doesn't restrict someone to sell a gpl software to others, just that the buyer is not aware of the 4 freedoms he is entitled with.

Ok how else would you define forking of software? VTiger.com is a good example of such a fork of sugarcrm.

In the described case Person B has to change the name coz if he doesn't then the original dev would sue him for using his name without permission, classic example Redhat.

Moreover GPL hasn't yet been challenged in Indian court of laws, you are a lawyer if I m not wrong, are you aware of any such incidents?

http://gpl-violations.org/

regards Kenneth Gonsalves Associate NRC-FOSS http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/

Regards, Mitul Limbani, Enterux Solutions, www.enterux.com

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 08:18:26 Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:

...

GPL doesn't restrict someone to sell a gpl software to others, just that the buyer is not aware of the 4 freedoms he is entitled with.

As I understand, with GPL, all you need to do when you sell software is to make the code of the software available to the buyer.

and to anyone else who asks for it

On Tuesday 10 Mar 2009, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 08:18:26 Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:

...

...

GPL doesn't restrict someone to sell a gpl software to others, just that the buyer is not aware of the 4 freedoms he is entitled with.

As I understand, with GPL, all you need to do when you sell software is to make the code of the software available to the buyer.

and to anyone else who asks for it

No, only to people you distribute the software to. If I give a GPL software to Devdas, I'm obliged to provide only Devdas with the source code if he asks for it. Anyone else asking for it can be safely told to go jump in a well without breaking the terms of the licence.

Regardless of whether you charge for the software or not, the licence mandates provision of source to the receiver and the receiver only. The receiver is then free to do whatever s/he wants with it, including keeping it or redistributing it.

Regards,

-- Raju

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Siddhesh Poyarekar siddhesh.poyarekar@gmail.com wrote:

As I understand, with GPL, all you need to do when you sell software is to make the code of the software available to the buyer. In case of some embedded products, the code is available as downloads from their

He has to atleast have a notice offering the code. When the purchaser asks for it he can make it available charging for reasonable price for the media / shipping.

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 12:53 AM, Raj Mathur raju@linux-delhi.org wrote:

As for preferring BSD... that's your choice to make.

A bad choice though! Lest you want to work for free for companies such as Apple :)

Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:

I would have thought that third parties would mean people you distribute the modified software to and not the entire world.

"Third Party" as described by the WordNet is "someone other than the principals who are involved in a transaction". So it can mean the entire world.

Thanks.

sadhu

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 08:18:26AM +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote: <snip>

the code available to the person he sold the software to. He could even do it on paper if he wants to :)

Actually, you are expected to deliver it in computer readable form.

With open source, the business model changes from selling boxed software (Microsoft, Oracle, etc) to selling services (IBM, Google, Ubuntu, Redhat, Sun, etc).

Devdas Bhagat

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Nachiketa Sadhu sadhu@iitb.ac.in wrote:

"Third Party" as described by the WordNet is "someone other than the principals who are involved in a transaction". So it can mean the entire world.

True, but it would be more on the lines of someone other than the involved parties who have a related transaction with me? I was thinking of third party of someone other than me and the licensor who I sell the modified software to. This is quite vague. No wonder I couldn't find such a clause in GPLv3. Of course, IANAL, so I might have missed it :)

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 11:21, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Devdas Bhagat

devdas@dvb.homelinux.org wrote:

...

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 08:18:26AM +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote: <snip>

...

the code available to the person he sold the software to. He could even do it on paper if he wants to :)

Actually, you are expected to deliver it in computer readable form.

Ah, I read this and assumed you could send it even as audio ;)

So I guess I cannot simply dictate the code and distribute the ogg ;)

Or could I... I'll be using a DVD to distribute anyway right...

I do hope you dont sound like snoop dogg or horrors Britney spears.

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 01:01, Aasif Shaikh wrote:

Hi All,

I am new to GNU/Linux and Open Source world. I had seen lots of open source stable projects on internet, which anybody can download, modify and sell to anybody.

Now the question arises; if a *PERSON A* develops a stable and good project as an Open Source and upload it over the internet and the *PERSON B* from some other country downloads and modify it with his name as an author (basically he is stealing someone's code) and sell it to some company to make money out of it. So how this *PERSON A* is going to be benefited.

Please excuse me if I am wrong in asking this question.

You are not. Closed source relies on creating shortages and charging money for the commodity in short supply. It also presumes that the creator is the only one with all the ideas and hoarding these ideas will enable a business. The flaw in this business model is that there is no shortage of inputs required for creating and distributing software (subject to providing the appropriate framework). Also the costs for detecting and implementing copyright protection far exceeds the recoverable costs and even worse penalises the legitimate user with stupid audit and licencing compliance norms.

FOSS relies on making widely available ALL tools necessary for creating software. It also understands that debugging, maintaining and customising code is expensive. Further it presumes that most people have moments of creativity and hence harnessing that creativity will build a large pool of ideas. Thus the business model is to leverage everbody's idea and code in return for one's own contribution (miniscule in comparison to others' contributions), parallel the review and debugging process, and charge for distribution, customisation, maintainence and or ride other services made possible by using FOSS.

Commercial Distributions RH, Canonical aka Ubuntu, Novell aka Suse, etc

Customisation KG, JTD, RH,

Maintanence KG, Rony Bill, JTD, RH, Canonical

Services Google, Jabber, Yahoo

The problem with closed source is that when their business rules broke down, most of them resorted to subterfuge by hijacking communications and storage protocols into which YOUR data is encapsulated for transmission and storage. And by cutting out competition through illegal (and some brown sugar) deals. One of the brown sugar deals is the "Free" antivirus that come with a pre installed M$ system. The hardware guy gets paid by the AV fella and M$ to bundle the AV and doze. M$ then charges you for the tools (word, VB, VC, etc) and the upgrade, and the AV guy for the upgrade. You might have noticed more holes in the business model than the original holes in the crappy software.

M$ has been the worst offender and has been repeatedly convicted in court. Many have also resorted to plain piracy - so much for shouting about piracy - and have been convicted in court or have choosen to settle out of court.

Having illegally obtained a business advantage (and consequently huge amount of money and market control), they proceeded to subvert governmental bodies engaged in the implementation of standards and laws. In at least two countries the M$ managers should have been thrown in jail for libel and unduly influencing a ballot. In India they got away by tendering an apology.

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 13:01, jtd wrote:

FOSS relies on making widely available ALL tools necessary for creating software. It also understands that debugging, maintaining and customising code is expensive. Further it presumes that most people have moments of creativity and hence harnessing that creativity will build a large pool of ideas. Thus the business model is to leverage everbody's idea and code in return for one's own contribution (miniscule in comparison to others' contributions), parallel the review and debugging process, and charge for distribution, customisation, maintainence and or ride other services made possible by using FOSS.

Commercial Distributions RH, Canonical aka Ubuntu, Novell aka Suse, etc

Customisation KG, JTD, RH,

Maintanence KG, Rony Bill, JTD, RH, Canonical

Services Google, Jabber, Yahoo

Forgot to add Saswata, Mitul and many others on the list.

The names here are indicative of the massive range of business models and sizes.

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 13:04:51 scrapo wrote:

Interesting the Original Poster must be wondering what is happening. He asked a newbie question - If i am writing code and someone else can use it without paying me for it, then how can i make money. Do any of you have an answer for him ?

that is not what he asked. His was basically a 'piracy' question.

I think Rajeev R K can give examples of how he made money in open source.

a photo of him is sufficient to show that he is making good money ;-)

Aasif Shaikh wrote:

Hi All,

I am new to GNU/Linux and Open Source world. I had seen lots of open source stable projects on internet, which anybody can download, modify and sell to anybody.

Now the question arises; if a *PERSON A* develops a stable and good project as an Open Source and upload it over the internet and the *PERSON B* from some other country downloads and modify it with his name as an author (basically he is stealing someone's code) and sell it to some company to make money out of it. So how this *PERSON A* is going to be benefited.

If person B uses code developed by person A then he is free to do it under GPL but he is not allowed to change the title of creator and has to acknowledge person A's contribution in the credits.

Person A earns money for making the software, by an institution sponsoring it or he does it voluntarily. In both cases he gets to earn on providing service and support for that software if users require it. If the software is a complex one to setup and customise, then users would prefer to go to the original maker instead of a third party.

On 10/03/09 9:15 PM, "Kartik Mistry" kartik.mistry@gmail.com wrote:

Atleast, apache comes default installed with Mac OS X and you don't notice it unless you dig a bit :)

I have found it increasingly difficult to use the default install of apache on OS X for PHP dev. If you have to use the gd module or pdo_mysql then the only solution I could find was a recompile. Ended up using Zend Server.

Regards, Aniketh

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 1:32 PM, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org wrote:

On Tuesday 10 March 2009 13:04:51 scrapo wrote:

...

Interesting the Original Poster must be wondering what is happening. He asked a newbie question - If i am writing code and someone else can use it without paying me for it, then how can i make money. Do any of you have an answer for him ?

that is not what he asked. His was basically a 'piracy' question.

...

I think Rajeev R K can give examples of how he made money in open source.

[[ Warning -- Long and Verbose Mail... I suggest you read it when you have a few minutes to spare... Also, all the opinions in this mail are of a personal nature, but have been moulded by influences across the software industry, most notably by the greats of the F/OSS movement.]]

Well, I saw this question late last night, but was a bit too sleepy to answer it.. And here i come back on tonight, and already the thread has run on like hanuman's tail :P

There are many angles that you can approach your querstion, but i will focus on 2 of them. Please be patient, as my post will be long. Rest assured, you will see how it all relates to your question by the end, and will understand the logic behind it too.

1. The Coder Conundrum - The major paradigm shift here is that, just the ability to write code alone does not automatically make money for you. Lets contrast this with an illustrative comparison with the automobile industry. In such an analogy, the coder would be the design and prototyping department. Their role is to convert An Idea into a usable design(the architecture), and further on into a functional Car(the Program). Now, As a car buyer, i would not be willing to spend the millions required to perform this research and design activity. In the auto industry, that design prototype is taken forward into production, using raw materials, to produce a finished car. It is then priced on the total cost of the raw materials+labour per car, The cost of the Design activity, The Cost of Distribution and warranty service, and The Mythical X( A.k.A the amount that the Automobile Company thinks the consumer will be willing to pay over and above the raw costs to own that car, A.k.A the profit). Now, when you factor this over a few million units of "A Car", the production costs are reasonably stable(With some variation brought on by the economics of scale, or the politics of mamta), while the per car cost of design decreases with the number of cars produced. This explains why a car like the REVA costs close to 6 Lacs, while the humble old maruti 800, which is a thousand times more complex and intricate can be had for under 2 lacs(Less than 1 lac for maruti, actually). Now, when we come back to software, while software does have a cost associated with Design and Development, the Costs relating to production and duplication are almost nonexistent or at most very very small comparatively. By this logic, the more popular a software gets, the cheaper it should consequently become. If the auto industry worked this way, it means if i buy a maruti 800, it costs me almost nothing to build a second or a third or the three hundredth maruti 800 and either sell or even give them away. As you know, we're not about to start building maruti 800's in our backyard :), But we can and do make copies of data on our computers(software being just one type of data... purists please excuse). But since this is not how most traditional companies like to operate, they try to fix tit by targeting what they perceive to be the problem in the entire system, namely the low cost of re-production. They do this via various means, including Technical(Keys, licence files, Dongles etc.) and Legal(Licences), thereby creating an artificial scarcity, allowing the price to be kept constant while the fractional cost goes down.

This is where The Open Source Philosophy makes it's first big break. We target the other half of the system, the one that the commercial companies dont touch, namely the Design and Development Cost. Put Simply, it converts the cost of development into tiny little pieces and spreads it around, making development more effective, thereby reducing the total cost of development. In Our Car Analogy, It's like saying I'm not ready to pay for the development of a CAR, but I'm willing to develop a Brake Pump, and donate the design to the effort. In effective terms, by developing and donating the brake pump, i am reducing the cost of developing that car, by the cost of developing the brake pump. As larger and Larger numbers of people start doing pieces of the work, eventually the design gets built. Therefore, the entire paradigm of Free Software(at least the financial paradigm) is to reduce the cost of developing software to 0 by using volunteer effort, so that it complements the already near 0 cost of true re-production and distribution of software.

Now, if you consider the auto industry, it is not just made up of Car Manufacturers. On the contrary, the car manufacturers are not even the largest part of the system(though they are a vital part, without which the system cannot function.). The Distribution Infrastructure(The Dealers and showrooms), The Consulting Services(Driving Schools), the Rental Industry(Taxi Cabs, Rental Cars, Vehicle Leasing), Maintainance(Service and Repair Centers, garages), are all part of the system, and if you notice, they are all services. This is where many Coders make money, by providing services build around the code that they have written. However, the open nature of this system allows them to also provide services built around code they havent written, leading to the ability to distribute and balance the workload of providing services across a large number of people. While the coder has the advantage of understanding the code the best(at least initially), he has to provide a service that the user wants to be able to make money(it could be building a new feature, or helping a company deploy the code, or training people on the code, etc.,). Another thing to remember is that a vast majority of coders in the OSS ecosystem do it on a spare time basis, and do not have an immediate need for the code itself to generate revenue for them. It still works because of the sheer mass of people involved, which makes even such small bits-and-pieces time/code contrigutions add up to something significant.

2. The Epitome of Efficiency - Now this is where the opensource system really shines. In terms of efficiency of code development and use. If for example, Coder A develops a program(using resources, time and money = X), and is marketing it in a Closed fashion, and Coder B comes up with an idea for an improvement or a new feature for that system, he has no choice but to Develop the entire program from scratch till it is equal to the program from Coder A, and then implement his Improvement ( X + dX Simplistic i know, but will do for this example). The Total cost of the ecosystem is therefore ( 2X + dX). Now if the same program was being developed in an open source fashion, Coder B could just improve the work of Coder A, and the cost of the new feature would just be ( dX ), and the cost of the total system would be ( X + dX ). Also, noy Coder A has access to the improvement made by Coder B, while in the closed system, Coder A would have to redevelop the same new feature again. As the number of features and complexity of the system increases, the open source system cost increases in a linear fashion, while the Closed source model Costs increase in an exponential fashion( which is why so many companies just go bust or get taken over by larger companies. they find it easier just to buy the company out rather than re-develop in this extremely inefficient model). In addition, another thing to consider is the quality of the code itself. In a Closed source model, the quality of the code is a factor of the quality of the developers and the testers. There are limits to the level of quality that can be achieved by this system, and to put it mildly, the software is only as good as it's best developer(this scales surprisingly well, and is much more accurate than most people expect. Case in point -- Windows Vista -- I rest my case :D. One of the largest development teams in the world, and they still couldnt make it bug/problem free, or even close :). Now in the open source model, the environment of open collaboration, peer review and cut-throat competition(if a guy writes better code than you, his code WILL displace yours, even if you were the original author). This means that eventually, over time, a couple of things happen. Firstly, A Program will get better and better because of improvement in code quality. Secondly, a new program will become easier and faster to write, since various parts of it will already have been written and will only have to be adapted and integrated. In some cases, with things like web services and frameworks, we are even reaching the point where most major parts are already done, and writing a new software program is little more than a customization process, The Epitome of Efficiency.

So As you can see, the entire system IS DESIGNED to allow what you described, namely Person B taking Person A's work and improving on it and/or using it for profit. Now do not confuse it with stealing. If i steal your Car, I get to use it, But i deprive you of your ability to use it. Therefore, i have made you lose something. Now, instead if i walked up to your car, pointed a magic-ray-gun(A.K.A a Copy function) at it, and cloned the car, and drove away the clone, leaving your car as it was and you free to continue driving it, would you still call it stealing?(makes you think, doesnt it). Now, I Do make my living, my bread & butter(and Jam, if you will), within this same system, almost exclusively from open-source software and systems. I specialise it Training, Integration and Deployment of Open Source Software. Now the skills needed by a good trainer are significantly different from the skills need by a Good Coder, Ditto a Good Deployment and Integration Expert. I have built those skills and exchange those skills for money to make my living. I am not a great coder(not even a good coder, for anything other than small patches), but i still survive and thrive here. Eventually, It comes back to the coders, as a company that believes in opensource software because they have seen it work wonders for them are more likely to step out and fund an open source developer to build their next software requirement, rather than go to a commercial company to get it developed.

Now, what IS wrong here is the fact that Person B is taking credit for the work of Person A. That falls into the realm of Lying and Misrepresentation. And That is what Copyleft(right) is here to protect against. Some licences do not protect against this, but others, like the GPL do protect against it, and much more, and that is why a large number of OSS developers like to use the GPL for the code they right. Now, if Person B does copy your code, and lies to a company saying it is his own, you now have the legal recourse to sue him for violation of the terms of the gpl, and could theoretically get all the money he fraudulently made off your misrepresented code given to you(practically, knowing the conditions under which the legal system operates, the lawyers will get most of it). A Number of companies that tried to do this have been caught at it, and eventually had to reform. I'm sure some small time companies are continuing to do it, and remain un-punished, but rest assured, if it is a popular product, someone, somewhere, sometime will notice there is a violation going on, and it will get publicised. Also, as companies are getting more and more savvy about the IT ecosystem, they are becoming more and more interested in the processes followed by their in-house and our-sourced developers, and if it is a big project, chances are that open source software finds a legitimate entry in.

In Summary, The FOSS Process is designed to be flexible, efficient, and profitable too, but in a manner that is different from what we may be used to seeing.

a photo of him is sufficient to show that he is making good money ;-)

Lolz... Has saswata shown you the picture of my plate of desserts?? My size has more to do with my love for food, and my having a mom who's an AMMMMAZING cook, than the money i make... (Also, spending my college days hammering away on a keyboard instead of chasing a ball around the field or the girls around the canteen may be a significant factor)(p.s. I made the girls chase me, so i dont have to spend the energy :P Just thought i'd add that clarification)

Regards R. K. Rajeev

-- regards Kenneth Gonsalves Associate NRC-FOSS http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/ -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers

jtd wrote:

On Wednesday 11 March 2009 01:33, Rajeev R. K. wrote:

...

There are many angles that you can approach your querstion, but i will focus on 2 of them. Please be patient, as my post will be long. Rest assured, you will see how it all relates to your question by the end, and will understand the logic behind it too.

Neat. Could you put this up on the wiki.

Dear All,

Thanks a lot for your valuable time and explanation provided on the subject.

ILUG-BOM Rocks!!! ;-)

Regards, Aasif

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 10:39 AM, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:

On Wednesday 11 March 2009 01:33, Rajeev R. K. wrote:

...

There are many angles that you can approach your querstion, but i will focus on 2 of them. Please be patient, as my post will be long. Rest assured, you will see how it all relates to your question by the end, and will understand the logic behind it too.

Neat. Could you put this up on the wiki.

Well, having never posted anything on the ilug-bom wiki before(i think, cant really remember), do all registered users have write access, or does the wiki admin need to give me write access. If so please do and i will clean up that text, and put in some back story before posting.

Regards R. K. Rajeev

-- Rgds JTD -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers