[ox-en] Re: Importance of price
- From: Yuwei Lin <yuwei ylin.org>
- Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:20:44 +0100
Hi Stefan,
Thanks for following up.
And Free Software is certainly a product because it is not given to us
by nature - instead it is produced by someone. Again no doubt.
Which part of free software you consider as a product - source code, binary
code, distribution, maintenance (since software is never a finished
product)? And which part of these should be gratis?
There are growing cases showing how free software developers can make a
living of providing consultancy, service, or even developing software
released under free software licences. In the UK, a lot of
government-funded research software are free software, but the developers
are paid to do the development. Google develops a lot of free software as
well, and their developers are paid. Although Ubuntu (and many other Linux
distributions) is free/gratis, but users have to pay if they would like to
have bugs fixed quickly, or other services. These all show that there is an
economy of free software growing.
Independent free software developers who do not work for the governments or
big companies usually have to face an ignorant question from their
users/customers: shouldn't free software be free of charge? These customers
are misled to expect free labour (or cheaper labour) from these free
software developers. And it is frustrating to them having to explain this
all the time.
Back to the relationship between free software and art, artists do make
money out of creating art as well. People need to pay a price to have these
artists around, directly or indirectly, visible, or invisible.
However, the Oekonux perspective - and I say perspective instead of
ideology on purpose - is different. On purpose because Oekonux is not
Ok - if this talk is about Oekonux, then I think you can present Oekonux's
vision. However, I think if you'd like to give an introduction on free
software, it's still better to clarify free software does not mean gratis.
Advocacy on free software is very important and much appreciated, but we
should not provide illusion to the audience. We should provide a vision
without compromising to the reality - making free software development
sustainable.
Good luck with the presentation.
Best wishes,
yuwei
--
Yuwei Lin | yuwei at ylin dot org
http://www.ylin.org
_________________________________
Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/
Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/
Contact: projekt oekonux.de