Get APLawrence.com by RSSYet another article on open source
2009/08/20
by Girish Venkatachalam
Girish Venkatachalam is a UNIX hacker with more than a decade of
networking and crypto programming experience.
His hobbies include yoga,cycling, cooking and he runs his own
business. Details here:
http://gayatri-hitech.com
http://spam-cheetah.com
The idea of knowledge being free and unfettered is not new. The idea of monetizing labor and knowledge is not new either. But somehow much to the chagrin of the non hacker community and in particular management types, we live in an increasingly open source centric world.
For many people unfamiliar with the open source culture, its ecosystem and values, the very motivation behind giving away one's sweat and blood and tears at no cost whatsoever...sounds illogical.
This article is an attempt to figure out what motivates people to relinquish profits and commercial intent and suffer its consequences.
Not all open source geeks suffer though. There are rare instances of open source enthusiasts getting rich, famous and sometimes both. But in most cases people prefer fame and satisfaction over money.
Also there are many individuals like Richard Stallman who evangelize this concept, there are many others who don't talk that much but do a lot of work for the community. And depending on whether the license is GPL or BSD or anything else, you have slight nuances in how free or open the source is.
Free software is typically also open source but there are cases when there is further hair splitting. But all that is irrelevant. For the purpose of this article, we will focus purely on the merits and demerits of open sourcing and its associated dangers and benefits.
The merit of course is obvious. You get popular and people start using your software right away. You don't have to worry about marketing or sales. The work happens automatically once you put up your project in sourceforge or publish in freshmeat.
The demerit is also obvious. You don't make any money. But I am not sure of this. I hear that donations are very very rare but you may make little money. It may come in the form of enhancements, projects or support.
What is the danger? The danger of doing something wrong applies here too. If you are too idealistic and naive, then people will treat you like a doormat. You cannot continue hacking and you will run out of money. Not a nice situation.
The benefits are multifaceted. For one, you are getting a massive user base with no additional effort. You get fame, glory and a sudden reach to the worldwide market. Open source I am sure everyone will agree is an excellent marketing tool as it rides on Internet for free promotion of your ability and product's features.
The other benefit is more subtle. By open sourcing you get great patches, you are under back pressure to perform better than you would otherwise. Your code is suddenly open to everyone who cares to take a look and your comments, indentation and coding style have to be good. You cannot get away with sub standard software and expect it to work in the open source world.
A dual model of having a free edition and a commercial edition is the route taken by many projects. This is okay provided you do it right. If the free edition is a thoroughly watered down version, then you cannot get the trust of hackers. Do it right. Don't get greedy. Don't be naive at the same time.
One of the biggest money spinners for open source hackers is providing technical support. Not only for them, but for any company that creates technology products, support is critical. Instant messaging, mail support, phone support or whatever else you can think of with an integrated database for tracking tickets is essential for most corporates. Without a guarantee that you will resolve their immediate problem affecting the business they will not invest in you. If they are buying your spam filter and if things don't work properly with e-mail then they want a guarantee that the issue will be addressed within a given time frame. For several IT managers timely resolution of issues is key. This is one of the main reasons they trust companies. So open source software plus support is a great win win situation for both parties.
I think the time has to come to talk of me and my product. In the world of crypto from where I hail, peer review of algorithms, source code and implementations were always stressed upon. There is no trust in a secret sauce cipher as it will doubtless get broken by a cryptanalyst if not your user.
Moreover I come from the BSD world where the software is really really free even for commercial use. And even inside the BSD world, OpenBSD is the OS that is completely free without any strings attached whatsoever. I come from this world. Now let us see what I decided.
SpamCheetah is not a simple product. Either to install or create your own liveCD, it is not a trivial effort. Moreover it is somewhat related to security and it will only be used by people who need to trust you.
This being the case I had no further doubts. I went ahead and open sourced it. But then I also need to make money. So I have created two versions: one open source version with all features except graphs and reports, and a commercial trial version that users can download which will expire in 45 days.
To conclude I have open sourced my creation. I will know whether this decision was smart or not only later.
References and further reading
More Articles by Girish Venkatachalam
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Thu Aug 20 14:47:51 2009: Subject: TonyLawrence
I wish you great luck in this. You've obviously poured your heart into this project and I hope it works out very well for you.
Fri Aug 21 13:43:37 2009: Subject: BigDumbDinosaur
http://bcstechnology.net
The idea of monetizing labor and knowledge is not new either.
Where did this word "monetize" come from? It sounds like the same sort of poppycock as "crowdsource." All money is is a medium of exchange. Everything has some value to someone, so in the world inhabited by strange (fake, in this case) terms, everything is "monetized." Even more laughable is "monetized debt," which would be redundant if "monetize" actually was a word.
If The idea of monetizing labor and knowledge is not new either. were translated into correct English, it would be The idea of charging for labor and knowledge is not new either.
Otherwise, is a good article. <Grin>
Fri Aug 21 14:18:56 2009: Subject: TonyLawrence
I know. 90% of the time, "monetized" should be "commercialized".
I mentuoned that at http://aplawrence.com/Basics/cache.html but I've been guilty of using the word myself now and then.
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