Re:Richard Stallman on proprietary software, SaaS and open s...
by icebraining on Tuesday August 06, 2013 @10:29AM
(#6166746)
Open source is ostensibly about altruism isn't it?
No. Free Software (Open Source misses the point[1]) is about giving users their four freedoms. There's nothing in the philosophy that implies that you shouldn't charge for it.
Personally, my salary - and of the other developers at the company I work for - is paid for writing Free Software, some of which is publicly available, some of which isn't.
"Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price doesn't make the software free, or even closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it."
No. Free Software (Open Source misses the point[1]) is about giving users their four freedoms. There's nothing in the philosophy that implies that you shouldn't charge for it.
Personally, my salary - and of the other developers at the company I work for - is paid for writing Free Software, some of which is publicly available, some of which isn't.
"Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price doesn't make the software free, or even closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it."
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.e...