Free Web Sites and the Misconceptions of Free Code

whiteknight0571 · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 2:02 pm

Hello Everyone,

I took the liberty of creating this thread for those with constructive criticism, or debates on the first article published here at Raven's. Just jump in, post your comments about the article, or post me ideas and constructive criticism on my writing style. I look forward to your replies.

kguske · Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 4686

As an open source developer / contributor and as someone who provides technical support, I certainly appreciate the need to bluntly explain the realities to those who only take without offering anything in return. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the shareware concept took off, but very few products earned their creators any significant dollars, and, sadly, many excellent applications and utilities could not compete against the significant capital investments and development organizations of commercially funded providers.

The Internet and open source offered a different approach - let people collaborate on complex applications and share the cost of time and resources to develop robust applications. Some (Mozilla, Java) were funded by companies who wanted to compete with Microsoft on its own turf. Others (Linux, PHP) were true startups that grew rapidly because they provided competitive products with virtually 24 by 7 support, which was provided by volunteer contributors around the world. Although we have all seen the problems with collaboration (a subject for another article whiteknight?), it was collaboration that helped these products grow.

Which brings me to my point: it's important to note that "something in return" could come in the form of donations of time by helping with support, testing, documentation, and even improving products by correcting bugs, adding features, etc. Supporting a free software provider's affiliate programs (Google AdSense, banner ads, etc.) is another way to contribute without donating kaching!

$. I agree that if you make money using free software, you should contribute money. But even those that don't make money should contribute something. That's an excellent counterpoint for those who want to contribute, but have reasons / excuses for not contributing kaching!

. There is no excuse, and should be no tolerance by any software community, for those who contribute nothing but complaints. Lead, follow, or get the out of the way!

Thank you for contributing an eye-opening article!

whiteknight0571 · Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:34 pm

Hello kguske,

I thank you for being the first to comment on the article, hopefully your trailblazing will spur some debate on this. I would say that I totally agree with you when it comes to the many ways that we can contribute to developers who kindly offer us "free code". To be truthful, I only mentioned the dollar approach because I know, from personal experience and talking with "free code" developers, that many of them do so as a means to create an additional income. As I mentioned in the article, we all have lives with responsibilities and loved ones we must support. We all have living expenses that need to be met, and that is why I honed in on the money aspect.

I do totally agree that clicking on a site's Google Addsense links, or clicking on their affiliate banners, are two other ways of helping supply the financial aspects without having to pay actual dollars in thanks for the code. Of course, devoting some time to the project either through help with code errors, or promotion, or maybe helping in their support forums, are yet other ways to contribute and give thanks to the developers for something they have given us freely.

I also especially agree with your slant on the complaints issue. I find it all to often that people drop by the coders site only to complain about issues or errors, without so much as a thank you or doing anything else that contribute to the code development. Because of this fact, it is easy to understand why some sites either wither and die, change to a paid solution, or just simply go dormant for months on end. I feel that the open source community, over all, has attracted many that want something for nothing. They misunderstand the concept behind the idea of "free code", and as such, tend to take advantage of the coders putting in the time and hard work to develop solutions we want.

Thanks for the constructive criticism, or should I say the support on the concept, and thanks for the topic suggestion on collaboration. Once Raven has a little more breathing room, we'll be talking about the topic for the next article. To quote the Raven, this was my "fire and brimstone" article LOL. We need to rotate between this approach and the "Dragnet - Just the facts ma'am" approach. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on the article.