Still no new license -- but draft text available

[Grant Griffin]

Ketil Z Malde wrote:
> 
> "Rainer Deyke" <root at rainerdeyke.com> writes:
> 
> >> If you aren't a cooperative type, don't use 'em.
> 
> > I write shareware games.  I distribute my games for free through the
> > internet, and charge for the password which unlocks the full game.  If I
> > distributed the source code for my games for free under the GPL, there would
> > be no incentive for anyone to register since anybody could just remove the
> > password check and release the result.
> 
> No incentive, except honesty on the part of the user.  You might
> dismiss this, but people are still paying $X0 for Red Hat Linux
> instead of $0.xx for the same product from CheapBytes -- and RH
> doesn't even mind (or perhaps I should say "moan").

May I humbly suggest that these two are not the same product?  As I
understand it, the Red Hat version comes with a certain amount of
pre-paid support; presumably the $X0 version doesn't.  Therefore, Red
Hat is employing one of the more successful revenue models for "selling"
free software, which is to sell "support" instead of "bits".

Also, there's the whole nutty book/disk/box thing.  You can buy Red Hat
retail, in which case you're paying partly for the book/disk/box--and
also for the "marketing" that the retailer provides (financed by their
cut) of giving you a shelf to browse, and a cash register to ring.

I'm a shareware seller like Rainer, and I think a lot of the problem of
getting people to pay for shareware is not so much an "honesty" problem
as a "getting off dead center" problem.  In other words, many people are
willing to pay a fair price for a good product (and most shareware is
relatively cheap compared to comparable non-shareware products), but
they somehow need to be motivated to actually take the action of going
through the mechanics of making a purchase.  I'd really like to publish
my stuff in free/open form, but I've never been able to figure out a way
to motivate even honest people to get off dead center to pay for it that
way.

The shareware revenue model generally does not intersect with any of the
open-source revenue models.  If I tried to sell coffee cups or T-shirts;
I would go broke; if I tried to sell support, I would go broke.  Those
revenue models are successful only in fairly large volumes.  However,
the shareware model _is_ an effective way to generate enough revenue to
support the development of certain kinds of niche software--especially
now that the Internet allows one to advertise worldwide at near-zero
cost.  

Whatever one's monetary goals are in life, nearly all of us have to
solve the "gotta eat" problem--I certainly do.  It's obvious to me that
it's rather difficult to make money selling something for "the amazing
low price of absolutely free" (after all, Microsoft nearly put Netscape
out of business doing that.)  Which explains why the vast majority of
free/open software is developed by volunteers (people donating their
time), or by people employed by not-for-profits like you-know-gnu, and
universities and research institutions.

(not-to-name-any-names-<wink>)-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
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