so one of the most common questions i
get asked from people that are first
learning about the free and open source
software movements
is
these programmers and developers that
have been developing
proprietary software they've been using
the proprietary model forever and now
they're asking hey how can i switch over
to selling open source software how can
i make money selling open source
software because to them it sounds
impossible
and
to many it probably is impossible many
people probably can't make money selling
open source software the reason is not
because of open source software because
in many cases they're just not good at
what they do nobody wants that piece of
software nobody's willing to pay for
that piece of software i mean let's face
it most people selling proprietary
software they're not successful right
because their proprietary software isn't
any good or at least nobody's willing to
pay for it but too many people want to
blame
the model the business model but
let's
answer this question because even though
i'm not a developer
you know i do have some thoughts on this
from consuming a lot of free and open
source software some of it paid and i
also have some experience with
video content although it's not software
you know all of my videos posted on
youtube and odyssey i license under a
creative commons license meaning it's
free for you guys to do whatever the
hell you want to do with my content
you guys can redistribute my videos and
modify my videos do whatever you want to
do with my videos i don't care uh it is
a cc 3.0 license with a cc attribution
3.0 license meaning you do have to give
attribution to me right you should
actually say hey distrotube created this
work you could link to where you found
the original video that's always good
practice anyway i mean that's just
common sense regardless of the license
but for the most part you can do
whatever you want to do with my videos
and i don't care why because it doesn't
matter sharing my videos around giving
it to whoever
doesn't affect me at all doesn't affect
my business plan at all and i think
that's the model that too many software
developers they kind of miss the point
they're so
wrapped up in trying to sell the code
right you can't sell code not in open
source software because the whole point
of open source software when you license
something under a free license the code
has to be public 100 has to be public
which means you can no longer force
people to pay for the code right because
anybody can go get the goat so you gotta
change the whole mindset of what you
think about selling software a good
example of really good paid open source
software is what our door does our door
is a digital audio workstation open
source you can go to their website
order.org
and if you want uh to get their latest
software as a pre-built binary what you
do is you have to sign up for a
membership on their site
pay them a few bucks and then you get
access to binary builds of their
software otherwise what you could do is
it's open source software the source
code is available free on the internet
you can go find the source code and you
can go compile it yourself if you have
the time and have the skills and my
skills i mean it's not hard to compile
software sometimes it can be lengthy to
compile software depending on how large
the program is but
i think that makes sense for convenience
sake
every piece of open source software
should just offer binary builds to their
customers if they're willing to pay for
it and i think that's what you need to
do sell binary builds rather than
selling the code right and another thing
you do especially if it's a complicated
piece of software like our door that's
going to require support cell support
right sell support contracts
years ago when richard stallman was
first starting the free software
movement back in the 1980s one of the
pieces of free software he helped
develop was emacs emacs kind of a
complicated piece of software right and
how richard stallman made money and made
a pretty good living at the time was
he was actually selling physical media
with emacs on it you know floppies or
whatever you know he would go ahead and
write the floppies and then sell those
floppy disks to people for money
right which is perfectly legal with free
and open source software you can sell
floppies and cds and dvds or whatever
you can actually sell media that holds
that software you can make money with
that software the other way richard made
money on emacs was with uh support doing
seminars and actually uh teaching people
how to use emacs people would pay for
him to come and actually
teach about emacs
and again he made pretty good money
doing that he wasn't selling code right
he wasn't selling the code for emacs he
was selling all of this periphery stuff
built around emacs and that's what
that's what software developers need to
start transitioning to one of the most
common complaints i hear from
people that sell software is they
complain about piracy they claim that
the reason they can't make any money is
because people
steal their work right it's all the
pirates fault and of course that's a
cop-out uh i'm being serious here if
you're one of these people not just
software developers but musicians
video content creators
people that write books whatever it is
if you're complaining that the reason
you're not making any money is because
of pirates you are
basically trying to give yourself a cop
out an excuse for
what has been
a failed venture on your part because
guess what the people that pirated your
work they were never going to pay for it
in the first place there's no way that
you were ever going to make that kind of
person actually go out and purchase your
work they were never going to do that
they may never consume your work if they
have to pay for it but they were
definitely never going to buy it so
you know don't blame the pirates right
and another thing i think people would
be happier if they license software or
or anything under free licenses whether
it be books or like i do with videos if
you license your stuff under free
license you never have to worry about
piracy because you've basically given
pirates
the freedom
to take your work right like you no
longer have to you know mentally i don't
have to get angry at people for stealing
my work because they didn't steal it it
was given to them right and that's the
beauty of this right
is now i don't have anybody to to i
don't have that cop out at least with
piracy right it's one of those things in
life years ago i learned if you have a
friend and this friend asks you to lend
them money never loan a friend money if
you loan a friend money
ninety percent of the time you're going
to lose that friend because they're not
going to pay you back
you're going to resent it they're not
going to be your friend anymore or
they're not going to pay you back you're
cool with it but he's not cool with it
because he knows he didn't pay you back
so he avoids you all the time
because he thinks maybe you're going to
ask him to finally pay that money back
never loan a friend's money and and the
reason i say this is if you a friend ask
you for money give them the money
and tell them hey this is a gift i don't
want you to pay me back i don't care
right
and that's it makes things a lot easier
between you and that friend right
there's no tension there's no resentment
no negativity and i think this is the
same way with this piracy problem with
proprietary software you know with free
software there's no resentment you don't
resent the pirates right because you've
freely given them your work now i can
only talk about free software as far as
developing free and open source software
so much because again i'm not a
professional developer but let's take my
video content you know i've made about
1200 videos in the last four and a half
years or so all of it under creative
commons license well not all of it
there's some in the early days of the
channel that were licensed under
proprietary license on youtube just
because i didn't know youtube had an
option for me to actually change the
license you know i thought youtube
actually forced a proprietary license on
stuff that they published they don't you
can actually if you go into your youtube
settings you can choose a creative
commons license i did that pretty early
on in the channel's history so almost
all of my videos including the one
you're watching right now if you go
check the description of this video you
will see
that at the very bottom of the
description it says license under cc
attribution 3.0 and it gives a link on
the web to where you can read the full
license and this has not caused me any
problems
at all you're right there's not a
massive amount of people watching my
content on the internet on somebody
else's channel on youtube or any other
video platform right nobody is taking my
work and putting it on their website and
people are watching my work
and you know i'm not getting paid for it
or whatever that's not happening yet
there are people using my stuff but it's
such a small amount and it's the kind of
people that would have probably ripped
off my work anyway right these were
people that were going to do something
nefarious anyway now i don't have to
worry about you know trying to get their
stuff taken down i don't have to worry
about dmca notices or lawyers or
anything like that right because i
freely allow them to do this but
again these weren't people that were
actually going to
do anything the right way anyway for the
most part and you know these
these kinds of people i like when people
say hey i found this youtube video it's
your youtube video but it's on somebody
else's channel they're trying to pass it
off as their work i go and their youtube
channel has like
five subscribers that video that they
posted a year ago one of my videos have
been up for a year and has 20 views
their channel is probably not even
monetized even if it was
you know the ads
that got served on 20 videos didn't even
pay them probably a penny i'm not even
kidding to get paid any real money and
by real money i mean if you want to make
like ten dollars on youtube
that video
you know you need
ten thousand views twenty thousand like
it it needs to be a substantial amount
of views right so these people they're
they're never going to get that because
if they were able to get those kinds of
views and you know they would actually
have to put in real work themselves you
can't go rip off somebody
and get rewarded that way so that's why
i'm not worried about those kinds of
people that's why i don't care anything
i do is always going to be licensed
under free licenses
and i think you guys if you're a
software developer yeah go for it just
get it out of your mind you're no longer
selling code right the code is there
you know as a as a vehicle for you
selling other stuff whether that be
those pre-built binaries physical media
with your software support for your
software any kind of internet services
were related to your software right the
software is just a way to get people to
buy your other stuff if that makes sense
anyway i've rambled on way too long here
peace guys