Re: Funding GPL projects or funding the GPL?

[Jesse Pollard]

Gilad Ben-Yossef <[e-mail]>:

> The challange is therefore to find a way, a 'business plan' if you will,
> to get money *without* execersizing control on generated intellectual
> property. To do this, let's note that there are already equivelent
> fields of business with some very close charateristics to software (that
> is they involve brain work, not digging coal) where for various reasons,
> control of intelectual property is not how you get paid. 
> 
> Let's take a specific example: lawyers cannot control the intelectual
> property they generate because it's part of the law system that once a
> lawyer thought up a new idea anyone can use it. In fact, AFAIK
> precedence is one of the basic ideas of the modern law systems.

Ummm. nope. Wrong (or at least very incomplete).

Lawyers CAN own the new idea - they can copyright their presentations
preventing others from using them without first paying for the right
to use all/part of the presentation in other cases.

Lawyers are closer to high profile consultants.

> Are lawyers out of a job? Are there less and less lawyers around because
> they can't make money? Are they perhaps not innovative? I don't think
> so. As a matter of fact some would even argue that they maybe too much
> lawyers around but let's not go there...

The same can be said for consultants :-)

> Ok. So how do they do this? simple, the way they organise their business
> is suitable for the job: AFAIK, a typical law firm has a couple of
> senior lawyers who are the 'partners'. The rest of the staff, including
> the less senior lawyers, are hired help. 
> 
> A couple of interesting to note:
> 
> 1. The top brass are lawyers, a lot of the time practicing lawyers, not
> 'managment'.

Actually, they are the management. These practicing lawyers only handle the
most exclusive clients (and for the most $$$$ possible). All others contribute
a cut to the firm (and charge less $$$$ to the customer).

Thats the same way a consulting company works.

> 2. No sales, marketing etc. etc..
>
> Where these are not true is usually in the really big (and therefore we
> assume succfull) companies. That is it begins to maybe become slightly
> different only AFTER you succeed.
> 
> To paraphrase Robert Heinlin, in a typical law firm senior managment
> 'everyone drops'.
> 
> And that's it. (I think :-) the problem with current Open Source
> operations which don't do so well is that they are trying to build a
> company structured around how closed source software companies are built
> - senior manamenbt that don't program. CEOs from that other (closed
> source!) company that worked. Peopole who do PR. Sales people. People
> who do not 'drop'. Can you say 'Overhead'?
> 
...
> Imagine for a second a software company built according to 'law firm
> principles' - we have the 'Senior Hackers'. They all write code in
> addition to taking care of the other sides of business. Sure, they might
> hire an accountant and other employees to take some of the work etc. but
> there is no bloated 'managment' that can't hack. Intresting concept if
> nothing else...

And who is charged for the time?
Who gets the direct benifit of the work?

You must have a customer/client that is identified for all billing.
Personally, I think Red Hat is doing the best job of this:

1. provide consulting to clients paying for help.
2. providing custom software to clients paying for it.
3. providing short debug/fix/patches cycles to clients/customers paying for it.
4. advertising their capabilities to attract more (paying) customers/clients.
5. funding developement out of their charges to customers.
6. funding debug/fix/patch cycles for applications that do not have paying
   clients/customers. Probably charging this to "overhead" or
   "marketing/advertisment" to expand their list of capabilities.
7. Being good enought to pass those developements/fix/patches to the rest of
   the world via GPL/LGPL licenses.

IBM is doing a similar thing, though I suspect they count the expense of the
open source development/debug people into the charge passed to the customer
purchases of their hardware (ie. bundled into hardware cost) or
overhead/marketing overhead, or in consulting fees.

Not being an employee of either RH or IBM, the above statements are, of,
course, my opinion of how they are looking at things.

The other side of coin is "what do the customers get"
1. someone to call when they have problems
2. customized software aimed at their environment
3. a lower expense than the M$ tax
4. a better (ie. more reliable/secure) product than M$ can produce

What does the world get out of it:

1. an alternative to the M$ tax
2. a better (ie. more reliable/secure) product than M$ can produce
3. the ability to modify the software, learn how things work, limitations
   of the software
4. a better personal knowlege environment allowing the potential to be better
   employed by other busineses.
5. an ever expanding knowlege of how/why/what software works

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Jesse I Pollard, II
Email: [e-mail]

Any opinions expressed are solely my own.