openSource, Kirche und Staat sowie meine letzten Worte zu diesem Thema

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Hi,

dies ist jetzt endgültig für mich ein ex-emotionales Thema.
Auf Heise und teilweise auch hier wird openSource gerne als "Idealisten-Veranstaltung" dargestellt.
Nun haben wir in unserer schönen europäischen Kultur irgendwann Kirche (Idealismus) und Staat (Realität) getrennt und sind damit eigentlich ganz gut gefahren. Religiöses Eifertum über den richtigen Weg führt irgendwann einfach immer sehr leicht zu Erscheinungen wie Savonarola (http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/savonarola.html), Lenin, Hitler oder Pol Pot.
Und dann gibt es noch eine Haltung nach der ein "guter" Entwickler sowieso nur mit dem kleinen Finger schnippsen braucht und es regnet Gold. In so einer beglückten Lage, kann er es sich natürlich leisten, der Welt Geschenke zu machen.

Wie bringt man jetzt eine marktwirtschaftliche Ordnung und openSource unter einen Hut, bzw. was -ausser religiösen Motiven für eine bessere Welt - bringt Menschen zur Arbeit und am Ende kommt Eclipse raus?

Hier ist die Antwort:
(http://www.coconut-palm-software.com/the_visual_editor/2005/10/13#no_open_source_backlash)

In his blog, which is a comment about this blog, Paul summarizes:

    …open source developers are being exploited by unscrupulous Software Vendors. To stop ‘exploitation’ the author suggests that the government should step in and ‘regulate’.

He then requests feedback and comments, so I thought I’d oblige him. :-)

Speaking as leader of Eclipse’s Visual Editor Project (for which I am not compensated a penny directly), Paul has just rediscovered the #1 reason for the GNU General Public License. It’s a “share and share alike” license that forces everyone to give back freely just as they have received. That way, if companies want to add to the program and make it a product, they are free to do so. However, they must share the source code to their modifications so that it can be included in the main distribution if the original author wants to do so.

Naturally, companies don’t like this, and generally refuse to use open-source programs that are licensed this way.

So the choice for open-source programmers has become:

   1. Work on GPL’d software and it will never be used by most people unless you manage to hit the big time with it (ie: Linux).
   2. Use the Eclipse Public License, Berkley, MIT, or any of several other licenses that do not require reciprocal sharing, but make money off of the reputation you develop.

In my experience, #2 is much easier.

So the logic of the other blog was flawed in that it said that the programmer in position #2 will never get any money for his work.

While strictly, she is never guaranteed to a penny for that one project, in practice, these same big vendors are very quick to hire good open-source developers and pay them to work on their open-source software. Alternatively, if the developer is good enough, they can become a consultant specializing in custom solutions based on the ecosystem that develops around their open-source project and make some very good money that way.

From a business standpoint, developing open-source software is an entrepenurial venture. It may or may not turn into big money for a given project. Timing, execution, and luck all play a role. But it is still possible to do very well basing a business on an open-source ecosystem.

It’s also rather funny how Microsoft is posting a blog about unscrupulous software vendors exploiting the marketplace…