Re: Free software business models (was: Evolution copyright assignment: Storm in a teacup)

["John J. Boyer" <director chpi org>]

Miguel

your message is long, so I'll reply up front. It is also well-reasoned. 
I've been looking for a business model for my own software development, 
and may  well adopt a combination of free and proprietary software.

Thanks for speaking out,
John


On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, Miguel de Icaza wrote:

> Richard said:
> 
> >     Have you ever think that without that document perhaps they would never
> >     released evolution as GPL software? or even worse, Ximian would never
> >     developed it.
> > 
> > There was no real possibility of this, because Ximian was founded by
> > free software developers with the specific aim of developing free
> > software.  And at first it developed only free software.
> > 
> > Ximian's practice of releasing proprietary software came later, after
> > Ximian accepted outside investment from people who had no particular
> > commitment to free software.  In other words, it was ambushed by the
> > VC.  This has happened to many free software companies: it is one of
> > the main dangers that they face.
> 
> No, we were not ambushed by the VCs. 
> 
> We wanted a company that developed and created software, not a company
> that only did support and services.  I am not a services person I am a
> software developer.  My desire remains firmly to create a completely
> free operating environment, and one that is not year light away from
> the commercial offerings and one that happens relatively quickly.
> 
> The policies that Ximian designed were a combination of balancing our
> commitment with free software and having to find a way to create a self
> sustaining company that would allow us to continue building software.
> 
> I still feel that doing a combination of free and proprietary software
> is a good way of moving forward.  You see this on Red Hat's services
> model, you see this with projects like Mono, Evolution, Qt and Berkeley
> DB.
> 
> I believed as much as the next person on the free software business
> mantras:
> 
> 	`People will build the software on their own'
> 
> 	`Free software just happens magically'
> 
> 	`People do not need to be paid'
> 
> 	`Software will get written because it will bother someone 
> 	 enough that it will happen'
> 
> 	`People will choose us for support and services because we know the
> 	 code base better'
> 
> 	`Freedom matter the most to all developers and users'
> 
> And although all of the above have an element of truth, they are only a
> piece in the puzzle.  I would say that neither Nat nor myself wanted to
> sit around for twenty years for the `magic wand' to sort things out.
> 
> Instead we came up with some compromises that we felt were appropriate
> to create a business that would develop free software.  That would
> accelerate the creation of key missing pieces on the desktop; would
> productize what we felt was important for the adoption of free software
> and at the same time keep the company running and create enough value
> that it would bring a return to our stock holders.
> 
> The reality is more complex than the one-liners and the feedback loops
> systems that we all engage in the free software world.  
> 
> We might not have designed the best strategy for the acceleration of
> the adoption and development of free software, but we tried one path,
> and we were reasonably happy with it.
> 
> Today, if I someone asks me about creating a company that will *build*
> software, I make sure that they understand that services and support is
> not going to sustain that business, at least not in my experience.
> 
> But the best way of arguing my points is to go and create new free
> software companies and show the world how your model can work.  We did
> not find the silver bullet for a pure 100% free software company, in
> the meantime we continue to develop a large volume of free software.
> 
> The dynamics have changed by Novell's acquisitions of Ximian and SUSE. 
> Novell has a big channel and a support and services organization that
> can bring in revenue for the free software that Ximian and SUSE
> provide.  Today the world is larger and large companies are working
> together in joint projects: from Apache, to OpenOffice, to Mozilla, to
> Evolution to the Linux kernel and they sell other kinds of services.
> 
> Most of the new free software being developed today is -in my
> impression- the response from customer needs on large deployments: fix,
> patch, improve features that are needed to make a Linux sale happen.
> Linux sales that typically have services and support dollars attached
> to it.  
> 
> Such opportunities did not exist for Ximian and probably do not exist
> for most free software startups today.
> 
> In short, for making a living, if you are happy as a consultant doing
> very limited software development, pure free software companies are
> possible.
> 
> If on the other hand, you are mostly interested in creating new
> software on a short period of time, I would advise a combination of
> free and proprietary software.
> 
> I would love to be proved wrong, but so far there is no standard
> answer, no magic recipe.  There is no simple business model for free
> software and it will continue to be an extremely risky strategy for
> investment.
> 
> Miguel.
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-- 
John J. Boyer; Executive Director, Chief Software Developer
Computers to Help People, Inc.
http://www.chpi.org
825 East Johnson; Madison, WI 53703