Digested

Does money changing hands affect free software?

I like money. The more the better. But then again, I'm not willing to pay the price necessary to get enormous amounts of money. I could probably double my income within a month or two, but that would require that I give up many other things that I enjoy, such as a quiet country lifestyle, my family, my faith, my hobbies.

In other words, the commercialization of free software isn't a problem. I'm sure that most KDE developers would love being able to work full time on what they enjoy doing. There are some developers who are paid to work on KDE, and a comment from Andrew Morton recently noted that most of the kernel developers are paid to do so.

There are certain aspects of commercialization, or rather certain characteristics of high tech business that can cause a problem.

Ownership: Obviously tight intellectual property control is anathema to free software. But what about when a commercial interest releases their software as gpl or similar? Who owns, as in controls, sets future direction, drums up developer support, maintains communication systems, etc. for the development effort? We have many examples of this situation that we can learn from.

Trolltech owns Qt. There is no question. When a KDE developer finds a bug in the Qt classes and sends a patch, Trolltech rewrites the fix. They want to maintain ownership of the codebase, all the while releasing it under the GPL. This is one of the more successful commercial open source stories. They get income by selling the libraries to those who want to develop proprietary software. They nurture the relationship with the KDE community by substantial contributions of developer time, and in return they get testing and a rather admirable case study for their product. Does Trolltech own KDE? They definitely influence KDE greatly. When Trolltech released Qt bindings for D-Bus, it probably sealed the decision for KDE to use D-Bus in future versions. This wasn't a decision by fiat however; many KDE developers were leaning that way already. There seems to be a healthy symbiosis between the two interests, and a common view of what constitutes good taste. It is in Trolltech's interest to maintain an excellent relationship with KDE, so we see good results. If that ever changes, KDE developers will need to take over maintenance of the Qt classes.

Note that I have no difficulty with Trolltech's licensing schemes. If someone wants to develop a proprietary application, let them pay the going rate for whatever libraries they need. Indirectly I benefit from that arrangement, since the revenue is put back into the Qt libraries or KDE developers are hired.

Easy Software Products owns CUPS. I am not as familiar with the business end, but the software is available under the LGPL and GPL. Many printer manufacturers provide drivers that work with CUPS, and they sell either software or consulting along with other printing and document products. They own the software, but it is made useful by the extensions of others.

OpenOffice. SUN owns OpenOffice and are constantly trying to get others to contribute. They will probably get as many contributions as Trolltech does to Qt. Not many. Why would I hire someone or contribute myself to something someone else owns? Realistically future OpenOffice development will have to come from SUN itself. How does the free distribution of OpenOffice contribute to SUN's bottom line? I understand from a business point of view why Trolltech releases Qt under a free license. Does SUN get enough revenue out of StarOffice to maintain development? This is a side effect of commercialization, one that again favors the monopoly.

Safari. Hah. Who owns khtml/WebCore? The answer is KDE/Apple. The twain don't meet. This is an interesting case study, and contains a salutary lesson for the next time someone shows up with a gift horse. The rather ham handed ways that Apple proceeded could have killed a less resilient project. As Zack so eloquently stated, the development of khtml changed from a rather interesting challenge to a frustrating parsing of questionable source code while fending off impatient unknowledgable users. I give full credit and thanks to those who have continued khtml development. Very strange pronouncements have emanated from various quarters, such as eskewing code quality for feature implementation. I have a hunch how far that would get in the khtml developer circles. How dare khtml reject the generous code offerings from Apple! There is a very interesting precedent to do just that. Remember the LVM/EVMS competition in the kernel? How the kernel developers rejected a working but inelegant solution from IBM?

When a commercial interest tries to take ownership of something or tries to get others to contribute to what they own, problems develop. Why should I work for someone else if there is no benefit that comes to me? IBM contributes to the kernel even if HP, SUN and other competitors may benefit, because they don't own the kernel. Trolltech, Novell, DataKonsult, Open Office Polska Company and others contribute to KDE because none of them own KDE.

Another aspect of commercialization is branding. I am interested primarily in one brand, Derek Kite. Whatever benefits that brand, I am interested in contributing to. I know that I alone cannot do everything, and recognize the value of community, so I am interested in the KDE brand. I can be made interested in other brands however. Contact me for my rates. In other words, no, I'm not going to contribute to a software project where a commercial interest takes all the credit. Unless I'm paid to do so.

The Linux desktop is maturing and becoming a viable choice for ever greater numbers of users. Commercialization will happen as people step in to fulfil demand for Linux desktop services and products. As a result many more people will be making a living from KDE. This will contribute to an increasingly rich software offering. But danger lurks. Something about software, particularly the desktop makes people stupid. Someone in the near future will make a play to dominate the free desktop market. They will do it by the old standbys of exclusion and differentiation. KDE will once again be attacked viciously for having the temerity to exist. It will turn out badly for many. Comparisons to the Unix wars of old will be made.

It's not money that is the issue. It is control.