On Friday, 9 January 2015 at 15:39:13 UTC, Joakim wrote:
It poses unacceptable risk of company becoming hostage of
ecosystem were "buying" closed patches is only way to use the
tool effectively. In software world where even .NET goes
open-source there is simply no reason why would one agree on
such terms.
See my response to Joe above, most devs rely on closed
toolchains. Funny how they all avoid becoming "hostages."
It doesn't match my observations at all. Of 5 places I worked, 4
actively avoided any closed toolchains unless those promised too
much of a benefit and where considered worth the risk. I'd expect
this probably to be more common attitude among smaller companies
as enterprise relies on lawyers to address such risks and does
not care that much.
Right now quite some of other developers contribute to D2
toolchain and related projects even if it is not directly
used. It makes sense exactly because project is fully open -
there is a good trust that such work won't get wasted and/or
abused and sit there until its actually needed, encouraging
other people to contribute in the meanwhile. It won't work
that way with hybrid model.
I don't see how other devs selling paid patches will affect the
mentioned aspects of OSS devs working on D. Simply claiming
that "it won't work that way" anymore is not an argument.
It is matter of licensing. Right now it is all open and company
using D can be absolutely sure that it is possible to fork the
project at any time while keeping both own contributions and all
stuff that was paid for. Closed patches would need to restrict
that to prevent simple sharing of such patches resulting in much
more complicated situation.
It also prevents clash of interests - upstream would be
interested in preventing open contributions to areas that are
covered by closed patches to make buying them more tempting.
1) Selling services is indeed much different from selling
software and much more honest. When you sell a program you
don't really sell anything of value - it is just bunch of
bytes that costs you nothing to copy. When you sell service
you don't just sell "access" to same software running on the
server but continuous efforts for maintaining and improving
that software, including developer team costs and server h/w
costs over time. This is actually something of value and
charging for that is more widely accepted as just.
The only ridiculous statement I see here is your claim that
building a desktop/mobile program doesn't also require
"continuous efforts for maintaining and improving that
software, including developer team costs and server h/w costs
over time." Both server and desktop/mobile software are widely
considered worth charging for: it is highly idiosyncratic and
self-rationalizing for you to claim that one is significantly
different from the other.
Building requires. Selling/maintaining - doesn't. And pure
sell-the-software model pretty much never includes and guaranteed
support from the developer. Quite the contrary, those are always
tempted to abandon support in favor of making new major version
of same software and selling it again for same money. There is
also inherent economical issue as such model introduces huge gap
between successful companies and contenders (either you cover
development losses and get any income on top "for free" or you
don't and go bankrupt) favoring creation of monopolies.
It isn't about "desktop" vs "server" but about "product" vs
"service".
2) We don't even sell plain service access - it is more
delicate than that, exactly to ensure that our client don't
feel like product hostages and get encouraged to try with no
big commitment. You can contact our sales department for more
details ;)
You take money and create mostly closed-source software: those
are the only details that matter in this discussion.
Nope, this wasn't at all what I was talking about. My objections
is not as much against the fact patches are closed but the fact
that you propose to sell _patches_. I despise copyright, not
closed software.
I am pretty sure company leadership won't me as radical as me on
this matter but so far our business model matches my personal
beliefs and that keeps me happy :)
3) There are indeed plans for open-sourcing at least base
libraries we use. It is taking very long because making
something public in a way that won't hit you back is damn
tricky legally these days and it is blocked in legal
department for quite a while. No announcement because no idea
how long may it take.
Sociomantic has always been generous with the D community, I
don't mean to imply you haven't. But unless you open-source
all your code, you're employing a hybrid closed-source model,
exactly the kind of model you're objecting to here. :) Funny
how it's good for Sociomantic but not anybody else.
I hope earlier statements explain the difference.
Yes, I am much in favor of paying for actual effort and not
helping make money from nothing like it has happened with
Microsoft. It both more honest from the point of view of
commercial relations and motivates faster development by
paying exactly for stuff that matters. With your proposed
scheme best strategy is to hold off adding new stuff upstream
as long as possible to force more people buy it.
Microsoft is an extreme example of product software, most
software product companies didn't connive their way into a
similar monopoly position. Android is the product I keep using
as an example, no "actual effort" there?
It is hard to reason about Android business model. It is rather
complicated and partly so to ensure that vendors won't be afraid
of unfair competition from Google motivating ongoing trust inside
the ecosystem. I don't see any similarities with your proposal
despite the claims.
You won't get customers in the long term if they feel like
being extorted money. Your proposed scheme does exactly that.
I see no arguments for why that would happen, simply bald
statements with no real reasoning and seemingly ignoring the
funding/time limits involved with my hybrid model.
I see exactly the same from your side. Fortunately you seem to be
the only person for now that thinks something like that even
remotely makes sense and thus there is no real value in trying to
convince you. Because of that I'd prefer to respectfully retire
from the discussion.
