> Plenty of companies create, use and release open source software using permissive open source licenses.

Typically, these big-corporation permissively licensed projects are loss leaders and some other part of the company is making the profit; think Android (funded by Google's ad revenue) or LLVM (funded by Apple's iOS hardware sales, and again Google's ad revenue).

If you look at companies that have successful business models where the income actually comes from the open source software itself (Red Hat/SuSE), you'll find a lot of critical copyleft GPL projects (GCC, Linux, glibc, systemd, Samba, ...).

That’s kinda my point.

And I think it’s disingenuous to claim gcc, Linux or glibc are somehow “from” RedHat or suse. Sure they contributions but it’s not like they’re company projects that were open sourced.

The fact that GCC/Linux/glibc/etc were pre-existing projects that multiple corporations chose to contribute to without gaining any real "ownership" or control makes them less relevant examples for you?

>> Complaining about a lack of business involvement in RMS-approved “free software” ...

> The fact that GCC/Linux/glibc/etc were pre-existing projects that multiple corporations chose to contribute to without gaining any real "ownership" or control makes them less relevant examples for you?

The comment I replied to says

> If you look at companies that have successful business models where the income actually comes from the open source software itself (Red Hat/SuSE), you'll find a lot of critical copyleft GPL projects (GCC, Linux, glibc, systemd, Samba, ...).

My point is that nobody is paying for RedHat so they can use GCC or the Linux Kernel or glibc, and none of them would "die" without RedHat.

Also, I imagine practically no one pays for RHEL just to get RHEL. They want the certiciation/support/training from RH (some of which they used to provide as a service for their free product).

RedHat is essentially selling a service (support), and to provide that RedHat has a Linux distribution they control completely.

>When the licence itself and the mantra that goes with it are both hostile to business use, it’s no surprise business doesn’t get involved.

Obviously, but that's because businesses act unethically -- ie, for private profit over public good. They absolutely should be called out for that. Or, more specifically, they should be regulated so that non-free software licenses are illegal or severely restricted.

>Or, more specifically, they should be regulated so that non-free software licenses are illegal or severely restricted.

I think it is OK to just not have copyrights (and also not have patents). And then, there is no non-free software licenses because it is not copyright, so even if they write them they do not have any legal meaning.

Stallman's idea, that practical works you can freely use/modify/distribute/etc but artistic works it is permitted to be a limited copyright (only a few years), might also work, I think (although I am not entirely sure; I think it is probably simpler to just abolish copyright entirely).

I have also seen a suggestion to tax copyright so that you have to pay a annual tax, and can copyright it for up to ten years, but anyone who pays 100 times the tax rate of copyright can force it into the public domain early. I think that can do (and if the government likes to earn money, it can help them too), but still perhaps the copyright should not be applicable for practical works, which instead are freely usable. (Some works may be hybrid, and that is more difficult. One idea is if you can separate the parts easily enough then you can copyright the artistic parts, but if you cannot then it is forced public domain; making the source code of a computer game available may be one way to do, so that you will want to release the source codes anyways in order that you may copyright the artistic non-practical-works of them.)

But whether or not is copyright, there should be a requirement of warning label on commercial products that use DRM, and there should not be laws to restrict circumventing them on your own copies of works/devices.

How would authors make money without copyright? Publishers would just print whatever they wanted and authors would be living off patreon and ad revenue like youtubers today do...

> I think it is OK to just not have copyrights

Without copyright the GPL (or any other license) is unenforceable

I am aware, of course. But it is still better than copyrighted proprietary software, I think.

So a "Free" license that has literally no legal protection from abuse is better than the mere existence of proprietary software?

This makes zero sense. The companies that are currently publishing copyrighted proprietary software would then be free to take the GPL software, make improvements for their own purposes and distributed the compiled binaries and make profits without providing the improvements back.

As a proponent of permissive licenses I have no qualms about my software being enhanced and used by others without giving back those improvements - but the whole point of the GPL is to prevent that - so a GPL without copyright may as well be MPL or BSD or MIT.

Sorry, maybe I was being unclear, because it isn't quite what I meant. I meant that that I think having no copyright at all is better than copyright enforcing proprietary software. Yes, you still would be able to distribute compiled binaries without providing the improvements back (and I think permissive licenses (I use public domain myself, rather than copyright) are much simpler than the GPL), but someone can try to reverse it (or to do other things with it) and they can't arrest them for that (although anyone can still make complaints about what the company is doing, to give them a bad reputation; people could still complain about anything they wanted to complain about). I know what is the point of the GPL, and I like that point, but think it is complicated, and I do not like copyright.

Of course if I write a program I would like that others who make modifications (public) that they would also contribute those source codes too, but I do not like to put in legal obstructions, so you should have freedom rather than having too many laws and obstructions.

> Obviously, but that's because businesses act unethically -- ie, for private profit over public good.

I don’t find that unethical. What’s more, I do it all the time—for example, right now I’m watching Netflix instead of doing any kind of public service. I have two kidneys, but only really need one. I use my money to buy stuff for my own usage, instead of donating it all after I fulfil my basic needs.

And if I happened to run a business, I would do the very same thing. So I don’t think it’s my place to be calling people out on things that I do too. Doing things for the community should be held in a very high regard. But being legally forced to do that seems really inappropriate to me.

You're confusing the actions of yourself with the actions of multibillion-dollar institutions. Corporations are not people, they are massively powerful legal entities.

Corporations aren’t people, thus are incapable of making any decisions. People run corporations and these people make decisions. And they make them, as most of us do, with their own interest in mind first.

> that's because businesses act unethically -- ie, for private profit over public good

Are you suggesting it is morally wrong to earn a profit if it would better serve the public good? How and more importantly who defines public good? A major theme from The Wealth of Nations refutes your point by arguing that the greatest economic benefit occurs when people act in their own self-interest:

> It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

It sounds like you're arguing for a socialism model where a central authority decides how to use capital.

I lok at the meaning of that assertion on terms of game theory. Producing software is not a zero-sum game. If you model it as something like the prisoner's dilemma between the developer and the public, then proprietary software makers are the defectors: they gain a lot, and the public gains a little. Free software makers are the cooperators: they gain less, but the public gains a lot, and more is gained in total than in the first case.

The public good under that definition is rather clear: the total advantage (not necessary capital) that something provides to the entirety of society.

I can see how choosing to act in a less-good way than another obvious way can be interpreted as unethical.

>It sounds like you're arguing for a socialism model where a central authority decides how to use capital.

You got it. A democratically controlled central authority representing the interests of working people instead of capital, yes.

>This is fucking insane. It’s a terrible suggestion and you should feel terrible for having made it.

It's actually a very good suggestion and I feel good about it. Another way of saying this is that intellectual property restrictions should be greatly relaxed. What's insane is that an overwhelming majority of time, money and energy in the tech sector goes into software that is closed source, and thus technological progress is greatly hindered because research and code is unable to be shared openly. Imagine, for example, the vast public good that would arise from Google or Microsoft opening up their entire code bases for free. Think about how much good has already arisen from their respective open source projects already, & if that was extended to all their products.

Regardless, my point is not that every business acts unethically, but rather that in any business there exists a tension between private profit and public good. This is one specific example -- it is in the interest of a private company to keep their code bases closed and proprietary, but it is in the public good for all software to be free an open.

> Imagine, for example, the vast public good that would arise from Google or Microsoft opening up their entire code bases for free.

Why stop with code? If code is always better in the open, then why not require all business communication in the open.

> in any business there exists a tension between private profit and public good

I don't think there is always a tension. If not by profit, how do you motivate people to develop new technology and fund the support system necessary for development?

>Why stop with code? If code is always better in the open, then why not require all business communication in the open

Sounds good to me, a kind of freedom of information act for private corporations.

> Regardless, my point is not that every business acts unethically

And yet your suggested solution is to treat them all as if they are.

> businesses act unethically

Perhaps the more charitable reading of this is that some businesses act unethically, and they should be called out for doing so?

I think the meaning is not that some act unethically, but that they are incentivized to act unethically, e.g. by being allowed to externalize costs and then being by making their survival dependent on how well they did it.

>> so that non-free software licenses are illegal or severely restricted. > This is fucking insane. It’s a terrible suggestion and you should feel terrible for having made it.

This is an unacceptable comment. If you disagree with the parent, then write so in a manner that opposes and disproves the comment, not outright go for personal attacks.

I hope at some point it makes financial sense for a company independent of software to maintain stuff like the BSDs and what have you. Ie toyota doing something like Netflix. Maybe an embedded devices manufacturer...

Arguably Netflix is that company already.

They exist to let people watch movies/tv, and use tech to provide that service.

Compare that to say HashiCorp who release tools as MPL and then provide further features under a licence to fund the business; Or Percona who provide enhanced forks of MySQL under gpl (because that’s what upstream dictates) but then additional tools under eg BSD license, and provide consulting for either their own or other database engines to fund the business.

Heck my own business is effectively consulting, but I build tools to make my life easier and release them under permissive licenses wherever I can (If I fork an existing gpl licensed tool to improve it clearly I have to use their existing licence)

Super off topic, but how many years experience did you have when you started consulting? How long before you started making equal or more income?

It depends what kind of experience you mean. I started working in a 'classic' (i.e. windows desktops and Novell servers in a private WAN) network/systems support+admin role in 2003, moved into web development in 2006, and then gradually got more involved in ops again until about 2013-14, when I started taking on new clients directly (only the very first job was I an employee - in every other position I was essentially a contractor - initially through agencies and then directly invoicing the company).

The income question isn't as easy to answer - my rate varied a lot from roughly what I'd been contracting at for some 'mates rates' clients, up to nearly 4x the price for others - but as is expected it wasn't consistent. It's been a couple of years of pretty steady work at a reasonable rate so I guess the "TLDR" answer is 3-4 years.

Keep in mind, apart from the first 2 or 3 jobs I had (2x government and then one at a Telco) everything else has been 'remote', and I've been geographically remote (I live in Thailand) since before I started this business. I have no doubt this has affected the number of potential clients, but it sure beats commuting into a city every day.

I hope that helps and isn't too much of a ramble. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss it further, my address is in my profile.