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Why free should not always mean cost-free

Posted by gnotaras on · 3 comments
G-Loaded Journal; By George Notaras 		Mail this story
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More and more I realize that there is a misconception about free software. Many people tend to believe that free software actually means software that should not cost any money. They somehow find natural and fair the fact that some people may work voluntarily in order to produce software, which the rest can use to make money without having any legal obligation to contribute either money or effort back upstream.

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Comments (3)

skelband ·
Richard Stallman, I believe (I hope I do not misquote him) is most emphatic that there is no moral opposition to charging for software that is open source. Red Hat do it all the time. What you get for your money is support in the form of their expertise, time and effort.

I must admit that I don't think the author fully understands the distributed nature of most free products which are community developed and maintained. Gnome and others receive remuneration as a body for its costs, but I don't think that it is practical in most cases to remunerate the developers. There are so money of them in many cases that it would be difficult to find them all, let alone properly apportion that cost among them.

I personally am a strong supporter of remunerating effort at the point at which it is delivered. Which is why I am not a strong supporter of copyright as a vehicle for remuneration in general. It is just too open to abuse. I praise Red Hat and their like because people pay for what they perceive is service that they want from them.
phsolide ·
Well said.

The side effects of copyright seem to cause more troubles to society as a whole than the benefits outweigh.
ComputerBob ·
Quoting:The side effects of copyright seem to cause more troubles to society as a whole than the benefits outweigh.
To me, that sounds like someone who doesn't own any copyrights.

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