Is it possible to make money?

Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby FreakNigh » 03 Aug 2011, 20:57

Yes well you may define the free part as on the client side only. But when I have players boo-hoo and say why isn't the new feature in the free game your making for us in yet? I have to say "because that feature is not free, and if I had money whether it be from me or you, that feature could exist now."

You harp on me for using the word invest, then you later harp on knitter for not using invest? If the money is coming from the client or someone else what does it matter? That project was not free!!!

The entire premise of this thread is the money made from the invested development time, not the invested development time.


Are you saying I cannot pay someone else to create a FOSS project?
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 03 Aug 2011, 21:16

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:Yes well you may define the free part as on the client side only. But when I have players boo-hoo and say why isn't the new feature in the free game your making for us in yet? I have to say "because that feature is not free, and if I had money whether it be from me or you, that feature could exist now."

I am sorry, that made absolutely no sense. Could you please clarify?

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:You harp on me for using the word invest, then you later harp on knitter for not using invest? If the money is coming from the client or someone else what does it matter? That project was not free!!!

Are you saying I cannot pay someone else to create a FOSS project?

Again, your are pulling my words out of context and construing them to your own meaning. Typically in debates one has to come up with ligament arguments based off of fact (which is what I used) in order to hold any weight in the argument.

A little lesson on debating: Consider the two words: "like donuts". By themselves the words have no definitive meaning, because it is the surrounding context that defines the meaning. Lets use the example: "I really like donuts". Now we know the meaning of "like donuts", because the context has defined them to mean that I like donuts. Now lets put them in a different context: "Maple bars are like donuts". Like the first context it defines the meaning of "like donuts", instead defining it to be a comparison of maple bars to donuts. Unlike the first, the meaning is completely different because the context is different.

Likewise the context where I referred to "invest" with you was entirely different than when I referred to "invest" with Knitter. If you want to hold weight in a debate you cannot fall prey to such petty mistakes. Now, I would love to hear your opinion if you can do it in a proper debating manner :), otherwise its a waste of time to read :(.

And sorry if I come across as harsh, its just my nature ;).
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby FreakNigh » 03 Aug 2011, 21:47

Okay well if we are debating and it's all impossible for you to work with unless painfully spelled out then lets start with what we are debating eh? We are debating what the meaning of free means in FOSS and even whether there can be a such thing.

You say the word free means usable without monetary return from any person on this planet. Knitter says "The "free" is from freedom and never from price." meaning the project still makes money in some way from clients (most likely indirectly) to be returned to any form of investing (careful with that word eh). I say the word free in FOSS must mean that the project was not only costless to obtain but costless to create, therefor I say no such thing even exists. I say if it is free like an apple from a tree then there was no cost to anyone. I say if also the developer is himself a client, then within the entire pool of clients who end up using the software, no time or money was spent in acquiring that software from anyone in that pool.

This is a deep subject you can't just toss it because someone can't explain their vision or explanation perfectly. We're all here to figure out how to make money with FOSS eh.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 03 Aug 2011, 22:00

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:Okay well if we are debating and it's all impossible for you to work with unless painfully spelled out then lets start with what we are debating eh? We are debating what the meaning of free means in FOSS and even whether there can be a such thing.

You say the word free means usable without monetary return from any person on this planet. Knitter says "The "free" is from freedom and never from price." meaning the project still makes money in some way from clients (most likely indirectly) to be returned to any form of investing (careful with that word eh). I say the word free in FOSS must mean that the project was not only costless to obtain but costless to create, therefor I say no such thing even exists. I say if it is free like an apple from a tree then there was no cost to anyone. I say if also the developer is himself a client, then within the entire pool of clients who end up using the software, no time or money was spent in acquiring that software from anyone in that pool.

This is a deep subject you can't just toss it because someone can't explain their vision or explanation perfectly. We're all here to figure out how to make money with FOSS eh.

Thank you, that was more like it!

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:You say the word free means usable without monetary return from any person on this planet.

You, like Knitter, are getting mixed up on the difference between revenue from the project and the monetary value of the software. Like I explained to Knitter, it is possible to make $$ from a FOSS project, but the actual software has no value--its the secondary sources such as promotion, services, etc where the money is made.

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:I say the word free in FOSS must mean that the project was not only costless to obtain but costless to create

The entire FOSS-thing is about how it is handled after the development, eg once it reaches end-users. In other words the "creation cost" is outside the context of the definition of "FOSS software". So if we are debating the meaning of "FOSS and free" than your argument is invalid.

Furthermore, it is not costless to create software as it takes a vast amount of time, work, and money (all of which are synonymous :P). And it takes developers far more time to create a complete game then they could ever spend playing it, so considering being able to play the game as a "return" for their investment is bogus.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby FreakNigh » 03 Aug 2011, 22:13

Yes but what I'm getting at here is the algorithm. I'm saying the argument is not how do you make money with a "Free" OSS, but what does it take to realize it can never be or ever was free. That what you're really doing is just giving the developers time up as charity and that you should realize this and focus on the project being finished and finding the time / investment / money from whoever is needed to make that happen. Separate the free (in terms of $$$) from open source and this is where I think me and knitter agree and you don't. Knitter says the free has nothing to do with $, I say by logic the word free having anything to do with $$$ makes it all impossible.

And when you understand this then you can begin discovering the means in which to have an end which is an open source project.


...........

The entire FOSS-thing is about how it is handled after the development, eg once it reaches end-users. In other words the "creation cost" is outside the context of the definition of "FOSS software". So if we are debating the meaning of "FOSS and free" than your argument is invalid.


Like I'm getting at, if you say the creation cost is outside the context of FOSS, then is it not possible that in order to get to stage of it being FOSS, that it is not actually FOSS during this period? In other words FOSS doesn't exist OR can not be FOSS during it's entire lifetime, only after completion. Therefor you have no obligation to not charge in conventional ways while it is in development?

You can agree that the creation of a FOSS project to completion MAY not be possible without money? I'm saying it is NOT possible period because time is money. Therefor FOSS is not possible and we should not be debating whether a FOSS project can not make money etc because it doesn't exist.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 03 Aug 2011, 23:08

I will be honest, I really can't tell what you are getting at here. That post was disjointed, confusing, full of falacies, pulled multiple things out of context, and needs some serious clarification. Let me clarify what I mean with an example:
FreakNigh {l Wrote}:That what you're really doing is just giving the developers time up as charity and that you should realize this and focus on the project being finished and finding the time / investment / money from whoever is needed to make that happen.

You haven't defined who "you" is or what "you're doing" is. Unless defined otherwise, the word "you" refers to me--the reader, and "your doing" refers to what I am doing--debating. Hence from the context you are saying that by arguing I am giving developers time up as charity? So, please rephrase things better.



Although I did not understand a bit of what you where saying, I did identify several fallacies in your post. Typically when debating you want to avoid such fallacies otherwise your argument holds no weight. I will just point out a few of the problems this time instead of explicitly explaining it to you like I did with the context thing. Again, I would love to hear a properly written reply :).



FreakNigh {l Wrote}:what does it take to realize it can never be or ever was free

Am I to understand that you are arguing that FOSS software isn't free? Are you referring to the freedom of end-users, or the investment value of the developers? If the former, you are very much mistaken. If the latter, you are correct.

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:Separate the free (in terms of $$$) from open source ... Knitter says the free has nothing to do with $

When it comes to commercial-FOSS you cannot separate "free" (as in monetary value) and "open source" as they are integrally tied together, which I have covered countless times in this thread so I will not reiterate.

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:Like I'm getting at, if you say the creation cost is outside the context of FOSS, then is it not possible that in order to get to stage of it being FOSS, that it is not actually FOSS during this period? In other words FOSS doesn't exist OR can not be FOSS during it's entire lifetime, only after completion.

You are entirely correct--until the software and/or source has reached the end-user with a FOSS-license attached too it, it is not FOSS. (this isn't a falacy, but it helps illustrate the one bellow).

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:Therefor you have no obligation to not charge in conventional ways while it is in development?

If it has not reached an end-user how do you expect to "charge in conventional ways"?

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:You can agree that the creation of a FOSS project to completion MAY not be possible without money? I'm saying it is NOT possible period because time is money. Therefor FOSS is not possible and we should not be debating whether a FOSS project can not make money etc because it doesn't exist.

Again with the context thing--this is a real problem. You are pulling two things from two separate contexts an treating them the same: A) the development cost, and B) the "freedom" of end users. The development cost is not free, where as the FOSS-end users are free.



If you want your argument to be valid you can't pull things out of context and misconstrue them to your own meanings. You can't have fallacies, and need to be clear with good solid facts. All these are lacking terribly in this post. As I said before, I would be happy to hear your opinion so long as it is in a good debating form, otherwise its a waste of time to read.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby FreakNigh » 04 Aug 2011, 01:32

I don't care if you think my argument is valid, that's pretty self centered. Also continuing to post with nothing but long winded "I literally didn't understand a single word" could be viewed as your not so bright. Take on the challenge of trying to figure out what I said instead of making me double post everything. I mean honestly, you literally thought when I used the word you there I ment you? You belittle everything then position the argument and shave off the fat so that you've already won and all that is left is a paved road right into "your forgiveness".

The original question -
Is it possible to make money writing FOSS, or might we all as well keep our source hidden?


It should be SteveSmith to tell us what FOSS means. It's totally up to him as to how "free" it is and in what ways at what times. Then we also need to know how much money he is looking to make... beer money, development costs, or maximum profits?
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 04 Aug 2011, 09:16

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:I don't care if you think my argument is valid, that's pretty self centered. Also continuing to post with nothing but long winded "I literally didn't understand a single word" could be viewed as your not so bright.

I thought we hadn't progressed to throwing blatant insults at one another (typically this is a sign of desperation when debating). If my criticism is unwelcome you just need to say so in a polite manner, but do remember that I still will not take your arguments literally unless you can post them in a sensical manner (even though I will refrain from correcting you :D). And whether you like it or not your posts really where fallacious and didn't make sense, so in a way it was courteous of me to bring the issues to your attention. But, insults or not--take it as you will.

FreakNigh {l Wrote}:You belittle everything then position the argument and shave off the fat so that you've already won and all that is left is a paved road right into "your forgiveness".

Quite to the contrary--on several instances I agreed with others in their arguments, and in one instance gave you a compliment. The entire idea behind correcting you was to hear your opinion in a sensible manner so we could have a civilized debate--not to belittle you nor to have you bow at my feet for forgiveness. As I have said in the past, you have misconstrued my words to your own meaning.



The original question -
Is it possible to make money writing FOSS, or might we all as well keep our source hidden?

No, at least not easily. In previous posts I have illustrated how viable income can be generated from secondary sources (services, promotion, etc). However, do realize that A) all FOSS-business models are extremely vulnerable to competition (this can be reduced using a partial-FOSS system, such as a FOSS MMO client but proprietary server-side), B) FOSS business models cannot generate as much income as their 100% commercial counterparts, and C) it is very hard to get funding or support for a commercial-FOSS project.

When it comes right down to it it is just easier for dev's to create closed-source, 100% commercial software--and makes more money too. This is why there are a so many commercial softwares available which are closed-source, where there are hardly any FOSS ones.

Aka: Its doable, but hard.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby FreakNigh » 04 Aug 2011, 13:38

Well obviously we agree that neither is worth even acknowledging the other's words. Long winded responses, selectively picking what the argument can continue as, and doing things such as dismissing the other's entire response as "illegible" or "stupid" instead of at least humoring it to try and understand it are troll tactics. Sadly I myself am just dismissing in your response so I'm not much better but you'll see I don't need a ten page "too exhausting to argue" response to do it with. I myself could humor more of your post if 50% of it wasn't a repeat of parts of mine just for you to say only "it doesn't make sense" and the other half is perfectly normal with nothing to argue.

Really your point is very clear and so is mine (even though you don't understand it, others will). Your very hardcore towards the idea where the free element is entirely separated from development and you absolutely will not have the philosophical issues around it discussed on any place of the world without injecting, suppressing, and placing your flag on top of it all in a smooth paved landing submission into your view. Within your constraints / box you are most definitely perfectly right. Therefor there is nothing significant to argue relating to making money with open source. This is an Apples vs Oranges argument with nothing but mud flinging and agreements.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 05 Aug 2011, 00:45

Have you ever heard the term: "Putting words in my mouth?". I have constantly told you that you are misinterpreting my posts time and time again, and rather than honoring my requests for a civil debate you throw insults and make wild accusations of what I do and don't do--whereas I have simply offered advice so we could enjoy a intelligent debate about commercial FOSS development.

But it is quite apparent that you are incapable of communicating at any level without taking mortal offense to the slightest difference in opinion or constructive criticism. Furthermore, each of the arguments you have posted are flawed, fallacious, and most of the time can't even be read (I would quote some examples, but you would just be offended again, insult me some more, and make more wild conjectures).

Although irrelevant to the original debate (and in some times contradicting my own opinion), I kindly quoted the issues with your arguments through simple examples to give you a chance to build a legitimate case for opinion--but because of the lack of facts, the fallacies you refuse to address, and bad-mannered insults it is apparent that whatever you are arguing for is horribly incorrect and not worth reading.

With that said, could you please step aside and at-the-least let others have a intelligent debate without ruining it?
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby FreakNigh » 05 Aug 2011, 11:10

No... As with all troll interventions (and maybe we're both it or just myself). The solution is admin intervention at the entry point. Either your initial post that started it needs deleted / moved and everything till then or mine immediately afterwards.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 05 Aug 2011, 18:21

My initial post was completely on subject as well as my response to Knitter and first response to you--it was you who diverted the subject to "the definition of free". After that your next post was completely unreadable where you keep arguing that "FOSS doesn't even exist because its not free (referring to the dev cost, which is fallacious), upon requesting clarification you posted a slightly better post but still off topic. I then replied and tried to shift if back on topic by bringing in the original subject and trying to ignore your off-topic comments. You then reply again--off topic--arguing that FOSS doesn't exist because there is no such thing as free (we are talking about making money with FOSS projects here, and you are arguing that by associating $$ with FOSS isn't possible because then FOSS doesn't even exist? That's what the entire subject is about--the relation of FOSS and money! Need I even point out how incorrect this logic is?).

After that post I responded in an attempt to get you debating in a sensical manner. ("debating in a sensical manner" includes "on topic", "with facts to support you argument", "non-fallicous arguments", "non-trolling", etc). And then your next post you start throwing insults rather than clarifying your horrendous posts.

I saw that you where taking offense, so in order to rectify the situation I tried to clarify my position in my next post. Despite my best efforts you return to throwing insults and making wild allegations in your next post.

Finally, I solidified my position, illustrate how detrimental you where being to the topic (since your first reply to me) and made a simple request for you to step aside and quit trolling, so that others could have a good debate without dealing with your illogical, off-topic and arguments, insults, and allegations. But, you couldn't even honor that so I have sent a message to the site admin and asked that this thread by retired--its really a shame you couldn't just honor my countless requests for a good debate.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby charlie » 07 Aug 2011, 23:50

I liked Knitter's post. :D
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 17 Aug 2011, 18:26

@Charlie:
    Aside from my posts combating FreakNigh's obsession with "is foss really free?", did you read my reply to Knitter?

    I outlined the vast issues in his argument which I will outline here:
      1. He claimed FOSS software is "free as in freedom and never as in price". Like I told him, this is completely incorrect. There is no monetary value in the actual FOSS-software, hence it is always free as in price. There are ways to make money from providing services with the FOSS software, but not from the actual software. And yes, there is a initial "cost" to develop it which technically means it is not free to develop. However, this argument is invalid because it is beyond the context of this argument--we are arguing how to make money, not "what the development costs are" (and that argument is fallacious, but that's beyond the point).

      2. He claimed several companies do it and make great profits, but never provided a list to prove it. Even if he had, I would suspect the "great profits" they make are nothing compared to what they could make being a 100% closed-source commercial project.

      3. He claimed marketing a product is the biggest obstacle. This is also incorrect--the actual development is by far the biggest obstacle. For this very reason 99% of FOSS projects never reach a stable release, aka they never reach the marketing stage. For this reason the development takes years, and the marketing a couple of months.

      4. He claimed that commercial-FOSS projects fail because they don't have the resources. This is also incorrect. Its not that people don't have the resources, its that they don't invest the resources. If a commercial-FOSS project was going to succeed and make considerable profits developers would invest the time and money. But because 99.99999999999999% of FOSS projects aren't going to succeed commercially and generate worthwhile profits people don't invest the necessary resources to do so, and it stays a hobby project.

      5. Lastly he claimed that the problems with FOSS-commercial development are completely unrelated to it being FOSS. However, he has yet to provide a legitimate "problem" that is actually unrelated to it being FOSS.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby Knitter » 17 Aug 2011, 22:33

I just chose to stay out after reading a bit more of your replies, here and in other topics, they all tend to go the same way and it's not towards a proper discussion...

1. Then we need to define what it means by monetary value. Both free and proprietary carry a development cost so they are equal in this point, therefor I should ask what differentiates both license schemes that makes one have no value and the other have value. You never sell software, you sell either the service of developing it or a license for it's use. If my company develops software by request I'm selling the service of developing the requested software, in the end the software is not mine it's owned by the company/person who bought the services. If I develop software and then "sell it", I'm selling a license for it's use and not the actual software. The only situation where you effectively sell the software is when you completely hand over your rights to another company/person. You can do this with both license schemes so where is the difference?

I actually see none but I may be missing something. To me, they both work the same way, only the restrictions applied to whomever buys are different. Moreover if I can generate a monetary revenue from the software, again in my view, the software has monetary value. Either by providing services around the software or by allowing other people access to the binaries against payment, or whatever other ways you find to generate money, they come from the software. It doesn't matter if it's free or proprietary.

So I guess we need to define the monetary value of something like software before we can agree or disagree.

2. I don't like to mention names, and Google has everything nowadays. Still I can mention Funambol as an example of a company that had a big growth in 2008. Could they have bigger profits if they were only developing proprietary software? Maybe. But that's something we can't say. But even considering that they could, going with free software didn't made them bankrupt :). I could also mentioned a more known one like Sun with their free software projects and you can easily find more if you want to.

3. Marketing never takes just a couple of months, it's lasts for as long as you want to make money from the project, even with projects that are well established in the market you need to push on marketing campaigns.

As a developer I consider that in a project full of other developers the biggest obstacle is not, in fact, development. It's the only thing a group of developers has for free, and the only thing they need to make the project, though it's not what they need to make money.

Projects never reach the a stable release for several reasons, but I can only speak by my experience and in those where I was involved it was never about development skill or the development of the code. Most of the times is for completely unrelated things like personal life changing your interests and goals or the lack of funding to continue. As for statistics I have a favorite quote: "73.6% of all statistics are made up" (due credit :) )

This is another area where we must agree on disagreeing.

4. And I maintain that resources (not only monetary) are the main problem. A lot of resources are needed to take a project from an idea and transform it into something that you can put in the market, let alone make it generate money. You need marketing personal, accounting and management personal, salesmen, if we are talking about games we also need graphic artists. All these people need to either invest their time or be paid, both resources that are scarce.

Can you say that a proprietary software project will generate revenue, do you have any guaranties about it when you see a project in paper? In both proprietary and free you need to risk and I don't see most of the developers having the necessary monetary or time resources for starting and maintaining a project.

5. Isn't the lack or money to invest, a real problem? Or the lack of a qualified marketing professional (even amateur) a real problem? Do these problems only manifest themselves in free projects? Or are they not problems?

I sell software that is free. It cost me time to develop but I now sell as part of a complete solution that packs together the software, some basic configuration and some theme development. You can get the software for free at http://code.google.com/p/stay-simple-cms/ or you can by it from me. The software has monetary value to me, it's from it that I get paid and without it my "packaged" would make no sense. Would a proprietary solution work best? I don't know. I also have a proprietary project https://www.plesform.com (Portuguese only and specific to the Portuguese market). The free project actually pays me more than the proprietary one. I have other free projects that have better changes of providing me with revenue than my proprietary ones.

Am I selling services instead of selling the software and it's completely different from proprietary? I think not. In one free project I'll launch sometime next month (I hope) I'm actually going to sell the binaries ready to install like you would get in a store. The only difference is that you can also go to sourceforge.net and download the source code. And yes, I have good expectations about being able to sell it.

I guess we have completely different backgrounds and see things very differently, so this is my view on the subject and I agree with you that I can't see it like you do ;), I see ways to make money by developing free software, they have their constraints and peculiarities but it's the same in any other field and as long as I can go beyond the break-even point, I'm generating profit.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 18 Aug 2011, 00:54

Knitter: First of all, I wanted to thank you for your well-written written reply--I appreciate it :).

1. You are correct, you don't sell software, you license it. My point is that if software is licensed FOSS the actual software's monetary value is nil. This is because the FOSS license allows users to copy, redistribute, or even resell the software. Consider if suddenly Starcraft 2 where released GPLv3--people would obviously stop buying it, and Blizzards income would crash.

By licensing it FOSS you give them freedom to do just about anything. This means someone else, who didn't put an ounce of effort into your project, could sell your software just as you are selling it (such as the binary example you used). If you make money from services associated with FOSS-software, there is nothing stopping someone else to do the same.

By making software FOSS you A) cannot reliably sell it, and B) cannot reliably provide services. Because of this the monetary value of FOSS software is null (unless for special circumstances (such as goolgle+vp8) which only apply to large-scale corporations and are useless to us).



2. The examples you provided are the special exception I just mentioned, and are useless to us. Use the google+vp8 codec as a example, it is more beneficial for Google to FOSS vp8 in order to promote YouTube than it is to make money from licensing VP8. But how on earth is a small FOSS project supposed to be in such a situation?



3. The initial grunt-work of the marketing takes a few months, after that yes it is a continual but easy process. Lets use your binary example for a video game. You develop a game to compete with Starcraft 2 and it takes you 5 years like it did Blizzard. Then you publish the binaries to the web, and accept paypal for the payment.

Now you sit back, relax, and do nothing. People constantly purchase your binaries and make you money, and you don't have to lift a finger. Contrast that with the years of 8-hour days you spent developing the game. Sorry, but the development is much harder than the marketing.



4. Yes, it takes a lot of resources to create and market software. While neither commercial nor FOSS projects are guaranteed to succeed, there is considerably more assurance for commercial projects. It is this assurance that causes people to invest the required resources, which is why commercial software is so successful. On the flip side of the coin, FOSS software doesn't have near the assurance and is far more risky which is why nobody invests.



5. I think you misunderstood me on this one. I was pointing out that there is a root-problem causing all the other problems: the fact that the software is FOSS. The problems you mentioned are all traceable to this root-problem in some way or another, hence the real problem is it being FOSS. You haven't provided any problems that are legitimately separated from the FOSS, which leads again to the conclusion that FOSS is the problem.


And don't get me wrong--It is way cool that you are trying (and from the sounds of it--succeeding) at selling FOSS software. I just don't think it would work on a large-scale project such as Starcraft 2. Either people invest the resources and come out short because of "vulnerabilities" of commercial-foss (remember #1), or they don't invest enough and it doesn't make money.

It may work for a single developer working to make a couple extra bucks. But for a large-scale projects that require huge investments it doesn't work (and video games fall into this category), and that's why it never happens.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby FreakNigh » 18 Aug 2011, 08:59

Consider if suddenly Starcraft 2 where released GPLv3--people would obviously stop buying it, and Blizzards income would crash.


Isn't this a throw away to the whole question we are debating? That you then use as your justification to keep everyone debating your mildly off topic issues that no matter what you clearly won't "let be wrong" even for the better of the thread?
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 18 Aug 2011, 09:43

No, actually. It was an example to show how the licensing affects the monetary value of the software. The subject is making money from FOSS projects, and as such the monetary value of the FOSS-software is completely on topic and relevant.

If anything, your post was off-topic an irrelevant ;).
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby Modplan Man » 30 Aug 2011, 18:55

@ MyEmail:

Your post is a rather confused mess. Any form of value is not tied to making software or any other work proprietary as you suggest, or else we would not have clear examples like Sita Sings the Blues, works that have generated significant monetary value whilst also being free and legal to share. Value comes from the useful nature of a product, not whether it's proprietary or not. Something being GPL'd does not mean it has no monetary value - in fact, GPL'd software can be more valuable precisely because of the fact it can be shared, used and modified freely. The issue is to simply create a business model that benefits from the use of the software as a "free" component.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 31 Aug 2011, 08:02

Modplan Man {l Wrote}:Value comes from the useful nature of a product, not whether it's proprietary or not

And the useful nature of the product is directly related to whether its proprietary or not (see my dozens of previous posts for examples). Also, the example you provided is hardly an example of "commercial success" (something like a videogame with 250k+ sales please), and the other link is dead.

Once patents, trademarks, and the entire commercial industry share your same view so will I. When Blizzard, Crytech, iD software, EA Games, and Activision all FOSS their games I will believe. When Starcraft 2, Crysis, Warhammer and Call Of Duty are FOSS and generating the same or greater revenue, I will personally hand-deliver an apology to everyone on this forum admitting I was incorrect.

Until then lets get back to the reality shall we?
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby Modplan Man » 31 Aug 2011, 13:59

And the useful nature of the product is directly related to whether its proprietary or not (see my dozens of previous posts for examples).


I have not seen any such evidence, only assertions by you which make no sense. Being proprietary has nothing to do with the utility and usefulness of software, being proprietary merely means you use the legal rights granted by copyright and patents to exclude others from commercial or even private activity. In no way does that make software more valuable, it's merely the exclusion of competition. In any market you have a monopoly you are able to charge more from a lack of competition to bring prices down, but that does not mean the monopoly holder is more valuable, monetarily or otherwise. You're confusing several completely different subjects and effects. You have a very short sighted view of markets and value.

Linux itself has been made significantly more valuable precisely because of being shared - it's openness grants anyone the ability to modify it to their needs, breeding markets for support, customisation, etc. The free sharing of software increases the available market for such services as companies that use the software do not need to pay licensing fees and it creates a wider pool of potential services customers, allowing companies using the software to put resources into other areas making them more efficient.

Also, the example you provided is hardly an example of "commercial success" (something like a videogame with 250k+ sales please), and the other link is dead.


Once again this shows your ignorance. Here's the fixed link: http://questioncopyright.org/sita_distribution

So far, Nina has made more money by this method than any traditional (i.e., exclusive) distributor was offering before the film's release. Since releasing it for free distribution in February of 2009, she's received approximately $28,000 in donations and another $25,000 in sales of DVDs and other film-related merchandise from the online store. (Note that the donations are dedicated to paying back music licensing fees she had to pay to be able to release the film at all; there's more on that here.) The average donation is a bit over $10 US (but that's not counting the rare outliers, the occasional donations of $500 or $1000 -- if you include those, the average donation is around $30).

Best of all, her income stream is fairly steady. This is the opposite of the traditional "burst and fade" distribution model that so many works endure, dragged out of circulation prematurely to avoid competing with new releases from the same publisher. Because Nina's film is audience-distributed, it's in circulation forever, whenever and wherever people want to see it. And all those audience members are potential customers and donors, as the financial results bear out.


And here's another article that confirms the findings: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200908 ... 5986.shtml

Nina Paley made more money going the Free as in Freedom route for her film than she would have going the proprietary route. If your theory of proprietary value held true, she would not have the made the money she has on the film, and this is a film maker who would not have had the opportunity otherwise. Far from decreasing value, her film increased with value from being shared to society (from allowing sharing, remixing and all kinds of other activity) whilst also increasing her ability to make money with the film.

Note: I should also add that you talk about Blizzard and co. as if they're in a protective bubble in being proprietary. This conveniently ignores the fact that all such game companies already compete with free from software piracy, which many of such companies already claim is destroying their business with little hope on the horizon - assuming we take your theory that any sharing from free alternatives automatically removes any means to make money, which once again contradicts what is now mountains of evidence that such companies have benefited immensely from such piracy even as they try to stop it:

http://piracy.ssrc.org/

http://piracy.ssrc.org/hadopi-says-lets-try-cutting-off-nose-to-spite-face/

http://piracy.ssrc.org/adobe-logic/

http://piracy.ssrc.org/the-software-enforcement-dance/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070215/002923.shtml

Lessons from fashions free culture

The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada

Piracy boosts anime sales

Let's not even mention Humble Indie Bundle (DRM free? Open sourced engines? Rampant piracy? Check) that has made $2,000,000 on the last bundle alone:

http://www.humblebundle.com/
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby MyEmail » 31 Aug 2011, 18:14

An outdated video with poor-graphics is hardly an example of success. Perhaps you could come up with something meaningful, say a videogame with 250k+ sales?

The most basic common sense should illustrate to yourself how a product's licensing affects its value. Since I obviously have to spell it out for you: Lets say you create a videogame. It took an invested 5mil (which is rather low) to create. In scenario A you release it proprietary and sell it in stores, and make 20mil over the next five years. In scenario B you release it as FOSS and still sell it in stores, but everyone just downloads it for free (because you have licensed it saying that was Ok to do) and you make $0, zip, null. The only thing that changed in these two scenarios is the licensing, hence the licensing is directly related to the value of the software.

Like I was telling Knitter it is possible to make money through secondary sources that are completely separate from the software itself. But the monetary value of the actual software is still nill. This is where you are getting confused. Consider Android and cellphones. Anyone can get the Android OS for free, without price. The Android OS's monetary value is nothing. HOWEVER, money can be made through a secondary source by selling cellphones with Android pre-installed. Its the cellphone that produces income, not the FOSS/FREE Android OS.

And as far as piracy goes companies have found a simple solution that works very well: The game does not work unless you have a active internet connection and can login to their server with your account. The only way you get an account is by purchasing it from them (if you purchase the game you automatically purchase an account too). With this it is entirely futile to pirate a game--in order to play you still have to purchase the account. If you pirate you still end up paying.

With FOSS however it is so vulnerable to competition even this isn't plausible. Even if you where to make income from a secondary source, there is nothing to stop someone else from doing the same, or even offering the same for free. While this is definitely Ok at a corporate scale for things like Android, it is nowhere near acceptable for a small (<10 devs) FOSS project. Consider a mmo-game that is FOSS and makes money from the online service they provide. While they can make money and the software is FOSS, anyone who didn't invest a dime can do the same. I could copy the mmo-game, setup a new server, and charge $5 less than the original developers. Heck, I could even offer the service for free. Either way it ruins their income. Either way the software's value is nil, and its the service provided that produces the income.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby vexorian » 23 Sep 2011, 01:57

^ Red Hat exists, they manage to make money from free software and they do rather well. The list is rather large. It is definitely not impossible to make money off free software.

I guess the trick is to find a way to make the game free , but also offer a service and do it well. For example, you could have a free game, but offer optional paid servers so that it would be possible to play it in them. Surely, people could copy the idea, but they would have to offer servers on their own, and a good server infrastructure costs money. You would have competition but life is tough like that - Your service should be competitive if you want to earn money.

Anyway, I am currently trying to just get ads in the game's web, sourceforge allows it and I am not making a big deal of money but that's probably because I have 5 users tops. I wonder if a bigger game project with a larger community would get more visits and clicks, but that would not be much anyway.

When developing a free software game, you probably have an interest larger than money. In my case, I am making my game because I wanted it to exist and it didn't. I add features because they would entertain me. If I can get some few people to like the game and make levels for it then that's a bonus. I went the ad route just so that I could have an extra justification to use time I could be using to earn money on it.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby mdwh » 24 Sep 2011, 00:29

Knitter {l Wrote}:That and the fact that most current FLOSS game projects seem outdated when compared to proprietary games that are released today.

I colaborate and follow a few FLOSS games, most are similar to games that I played in 2000, look at OpenDungeons (when was dungeon keeper release?), Red Eclipse, FreeCol, FreeCiv, SuperTux Kart (I played a game with better graphics in 1999), Warsow is fallowing Quake style... I could go on but I think you get the idea. The games are great, I don't deny that, but they don't sell in their current state and their user base is very limited.

As an example, playing Wesnoth on the iPhone is way better than playing it in the PC. It's the same game, but in the iOS platform it goes along the same lines as the proprietary alternatives, in the PC it just looks outdated. I can easily sell the iOS version but I have trouble getting anyone to play the desktop version.

Given my experience I don't think the problem with FLOSS games is in the fact that most people expect them to be gratis, it's the fact that most teams don't have the necessary resources, both in time, money and man power, to properly invest in monetizing the projects. The availability of the code is not a problem, people are rarely interested in the code of a game
It's not seeing the code that's the problem, it's the freedom to distribute that's the issue (as people have said, there are non-free games that let you see the source - you can still sell those, but it's not open source).

It's a circular problem - if hypothetically someone did invest money into a free game to make it good cutting-edge quality, would it suddenly start selling? Well, it may have a better chance - but you've got the problem that anyone can get it for free. So what happens in practice is that anyone wanting to invest money in game development doesn't put the entire thing under a licence that says it can be distributed for free.

The games you list aren't even trying to make money from them (at least, they're not doing any route such as selling binaries but having open source - the official websites make the games clearly available for free). So I don't see the lack of profit is because of any lack of quality - they're not trying to profit. (I didn't realise that the non-mobile Wesnoth was unpopular?)

Outside of games, there are good quality products that compete well with closed source alternatives (Firefox, Ubuntu, Android, Qt) - but any money made is made on selling things like services (Ubuntu), or because they help the company make money in other ways (Google, Nokia). End users don't buy these applications, nor would I expect to see them buying free games, even if they were cutting edge quality. So I guess a problem is, it's less obvious how this can work for a straightforward game?

It can work for online games - you can sell access to the server, or charge for in-game money (although technically not a game, this is how Second Life does it, which has open sourced clients); but only some games take this form, and these kinds of games tend to be harder to write, and require investment to support.
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Re: Is it possible to make money?

Postby FreakNigh » 24 Sep 2011, 01:58

Is it even possible to bring a game up to a market competitive state with free labor at all let alone if the source is available no matter what the license?
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