[Haifux] Why open source

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Tal!

Please include an empty line space between two paragraphs. Your text is hard 
to read.

On Saturday 29 November 2008, Tal Abir wrote:
> I guess that small utilities are hard to make money from.

Right. But a lot of FOSS is anything but a small utility.

> That might explain the recurring answer of "don't be greedy".

Where do you see this answer?

> Why code isn't like poetry?
>
> If someone makes money from some code he should pay whoever written that
> code.
>

"Should" is the key word here. With free software he doesn't have to. 

> The same as shironet pays Akum, Sourceforge should pay the projects it's
> hosting.

Well, it was their choice to be hosted at Sourceforge. Nothing forces them to 
be hosted there. They can set up their own hosting with their own ads and 
requests for donations. Naturally, it costs money and is more maintenance, 
but it may prove profitable.

> The developer should be allowed to concentrate on what he is doing best -
> developping.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Hosting costs money, and either you 
get hosting like SF.net or Berlios, which doesn't cost anything, but you make 
less revenue from ads, or you get your own hosting.

> Messing around with licences and selling software seems like a waste of
> time.
>

Which licences? Open-source licences? Proprietary licences? And open-source 
software is not meant to be sold without an added value.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

-- 
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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
Original Riddles - http://www.shlomifish.org/puzzles/

Shlomi, so what are you working on? Working on a new wiki about unit testing 
fortunes in freecell? -- Ran Eilam