Re: [Fsfe-uk] Funding Open Source

[Alex Hudson]

On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 09:23, ian wrote:
> Not at the moment, but schools might want to change from Publisher
> en-masse at some time in the future so they (or someone like me) might
> pay for say a publisher filter. You could also apply for grants

I'm not disagreeing it's possible to generate revenue, just that in the
general case I'm not sure it's possible to so sustainably for specific
pieces of software. 

I think my specific problem is with COTS software - I think it's
extremely difficult to develop that kind of software on a commercial
basis in the free software world. The single-vendor model seems to only
work for proprietary software, and there is never enough work to sustain
multiple vendors on a single project until that project reaches a
certain mass (Samba, etc. - that kind of size). Multivendor does work if
each vendor takes part in numerous projects and has other sidelines, but
then you have again moved away from the 'I want to be paid to develop
X'.

It also doesn't help that the perceived monetary value of free software
is quite low in most cases - but, this may actually just be the true
value of software without the restrictive practices of proprietary
vendors. Perhaps it turns out that most people are able to contribute to
the development of software in small ways, and it doesn't require the
proprietary infrastructure. This is something only time will tell, I
suspect.

> > what can be overridden by EULAs. I guess many here would hope that EULAs
> > don't count for an awful lot, and that the right to reverse engineer is
> > protectable. But, these days, who knows?
> 
> Only one way to find out ;-)

I would love for someone to do that! It would be great to know that the
right was enforced. Sadly, it's quite a dangerous game for someone to
play. It's also slightly muddied by the various EU laws which either
exist or may soon exist which contradict it - for example the EUCD
specifically overrides it in the case of copy control software :( Of
course, what the definition of that is isn't clear, so software
developers can attempt to stretch that definition over all sorts of
things.

Cheers,

Alex.