Free Software Has No Pirates!

[mdlbear]

Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog: Free Software Has No Pirates

Now, I've heard from a few stockholders saying, "What? Sharing? Free Software? What's up with that! Go make some money!" And so I thought I'd put down, once and for all, why we're committed to sharing, to open source, open standards, and eradicating the digital divide. Ready?

Because we're going to make more money.

How? It's trivially simple. Why do carriers give handsets away for free? Because they make money on the subscription necessary to receive the handset. Why do banks give away free checking, or free credit cards? Because they acquire new customers. Why do Google and Yahoo! give away free search? Because there's a fortune in the end result.

So why on earth would we give our OS away for free?

Because it'll ensure those without the economic wherewithal to pay for it will still consider using it. Companies that suffered from piracy a decade ago now know the lesson well - piracy is a good thing so long as the pirates are folks who could never afford your products. So stop calling them pirates, call them users. Free software has no pirates. As I've said forever, there's value in volume, even if you're not paid for it.

Do I worry about enterprises or corporate customers taking OpenSolaris and not acquiring a subscription to someone's (hopefully our) service contract? No, not in the least. Do you really think a hospital, or an air traffic control authority or a Minister from an African nation would run their institution on unsupported software? No. No way.

Are we guaranteed to get that business? Nope. But we are guaranteed the opportunity will be greater than if we kept Solaris locked up. And I'd rather get 20% of a business that's planetary in scope, than 100% of a business with 17 customers. Like I said, there's value in volume. (And I haven't even touched upon the impact of open sourcing on innovation.)

Sometimes people ask me why I use -- and write -- free software. This is why. Sometimes people ask me why my music is released under a Creative Commons license that allows anyone to download it and make copies for their friends. Same answer.

Comments

[hms42]

Agreed... I just had someone ask me about audio software last weekend and I ended up giving him copies of Audacity and 2 other free audio programs that I use regularly.

Also included some free filk mp3s. You never know what that might generate.

One thing I did make sure to include was all copyright info so the person can track down MORE when they are ready.

Harold

[mdlbear]

"... so the person can track down MORE when they are ready"

Exactly. Somewhere between advertising and building an ongoing relationship with the customer.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

True Story (Steve has heard it, but others haven't). My son-in-law's company was having a hell of time selling their Software. Micro$quish was going to come out with something like it Real Soon Now, and no one wanted to be running the orphaned software. Since the M$ stuff would obviously kill the little company even if it wasn't as good as their program. They couldn't even get more funding because of the Micro$quish cloud.
So Mark told them to make it Free. Sell the Servicing. M$ went away. Funding came through. They Live!
No, they no longer get all the business that comes from using their software, but they get plenty.
And They Live! Which beats a lot of other small companies that Micro$quish has done that too.
And Mark just got another promotion. He found out about it while on speaker phone to the company weekly meeting. More info to be gotten at Baycon.

Information Age economics

[smalltowndad.livejournal.com]

Thanks for a good explanation of free software.

It does make sense: and I find discussions like yours easier to read, and believe, than the sort of 'power to the people' proclamations I used to run into.

Re: Information Age economics

[mdlbear]

You're welcome. Of course, that's not me -- it's Jonathan Schwartz. The whole article is worth a read.