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by jardinier

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

How do people who create and distribute free software make a living?

In a recent discussion, the general consensus was that AVG was at least as good as, if not better, than the major brand names.

Everyone who knows about Firefox browser it switching to it.

And now Open Office is gaining popularity.

184 replies

by choppit

Some people don't expect to make a living from it, they're just passionate about programming and free software. In many cases these are community supported. Others hope to sell commercially licenced/supported versions or support contracts.

I always look for free alternatives before buying commercial software both personally and for the business. The *nix platforms are particularly well provided for but the Windows side is steadily growing.

Here's my most used sites for free software:

http://www.tucows.com
http://www.snapfiles.com
http://sourceforge.net
http://freshmeat.net

For *nix like distros (OSes) I use http://www.linuxiso.org

Whilst we're on the subject does anyone know of a good list of commercial software with their best free alternatives? In particular I'd like to find a good free Windows alternative to MS Project. The best I've found is GanttProject but it's nowhere near in the same league.

by 0ldan

Two come to mind and they are very good.

dotProject (www.dotproject.net) is about to make a 2.0 release and is an excellent piece of code -- and free. Several companies use it internally to manage projects. It's so good, I use it myself for my company's IT projects.

phProjekt (www.phprojekt.com) is in version 4 and has higher goals - it claims to be becoming a groupware tool rather than simply a project management tool which are its origins.

I recommend you evaluate them both before moving into something Microsoft-ish and spending the money. The reason is that you might find your needs are much simpler than you originally thought. Or you might find they are more complex. In any case, it's an easy way to get your feet wet in online project management tools to see if it fits your workflow!

by jaqui

is usually about 6 to 8 months behind in it's data.
if you know which distros you are interested in, then I would recommend going to thier own sites for most up to date info.

gnu.org is another good resource, and savannah.gnu.org for the actual projects.
savannah as a non gnu version also.

have you taken a look at mr project as a replacement for ms project?

by thechas

I haven't used them, but here are a couple of links:

http://www.guysoftware.com/planbee.htm

http://www.freewarehome.com/Business_and_Productivity/Miscellaneous_Business_and_Productivity_t.html

The program for the site above is Gestien de Projet.

The web site for the program is in French which I cannot read.

Another program I downloaded about the same time as these is titled itemX.

I did not find any new information on it.

I thought IMSI's Turbo Project might be a low cost option.

http://www.imsisoft.com/prodinfo.asp?t=1&mcid=110&cid=

Seems that they have upscaled their pricing since I last looked.

Chas

by b.evers

The openoffice project has a projectmanagementtool in it's incubation phase, oopm.

At the moment there mainly is mail traffic about what is required for opensource projectmanagement.
http://oopm.openoffice.org/

Perhaps people can give input to the list, about what is required to get a project up and running. Just subscribe to the mail list and give input.

Also open workbench is a freeware PM tool for windows, but also has some limitations, mainly on scheduling resources.

by faith_michele

but it does have some noteworthy tools for Project Management. It has an Access DB that can track risks, changes, and issues, with the ability to assign ownership. It is only free if you already have Access 2000 or greater, so it doesn't really fall in the free category.

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/InfoKits/project-management

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/InfoKits/project-management/pm-controlling-the-project-1.4

I also think MS Project is an outstanding product. I had a free trial (120-days) version with my college. You are right that there should be more free alternatives in this arena.

Faith Young

by apotheon

Actually, there are a number of free project management solutions out there that run on Linux. Doing an apt-get search for "project management" on my workstation here shows the following PM applications at my fingertips:

kfocus
mrproject
opensched
planner
tutos

You can probably find information on some of these and a few others not in this list by searching Sourceforge and/or Freshmeat.

by chrisvl

While we are on the subject, does anybody know of a good alternative to quicken?

by romerogt

I also use sourceforge.net an snapfiles.com, but just found TheOpenCD, it is a CD with a lot of OS software that runs on Linux:
http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/about.php
What I liked about the CD is that software is real OSS and it is categorized so if you need something for CAD (for example) you will find at least one of this applications.

For your colaboration project, there are a lot of (W)LAMP applications that you can use, like e-Groupware, dotproject, phpprojekt, cms like Mambo, CRM like SugarCRM. Since they use MySQL and PHP you can run them on windows and Linux on apache, and some of them even runs on Windows with IIS.

At work we use mainly Windows but have a lot of OSS running, at client and webapp level.

by thechas

Julian,

For most open source software, you have a combination of factors that fund the project.

First off, most of the programming is done by people who donate their code to the project.

Next, comes support from select companies.

Open Office got it's start from Sun and it's Star Office.

Firefox (Mozilla) gets significant funding from Netscape.

Then, most free-ware and open source software sites have a donation link.

Also, in the case of Firefox, the Mozilla group has a couple of enterprise applications that they sell.

For AVG, along with AdAware and Zone Alarm, the situation is a little different.
The authors of AVG (and a number of other "free-ware" programs) started out to hone and prove their software writing skills.
Now, many offer premium versions that you must pay for that include additional features and support.

So, it is a combination of enthusiasm for the idea along with reaching the critical mass to turn your hobby into a commercial enterprise.

Chas

by rodneyjohnson2005

another new addition say to your anti-virus is prevx it prevents stuff from installing it tells you when a secure area is being acessed free home version http://www.prevx.com another good idea made by securing the net starting form the home computer, you can also suspend the program say installing anther program it will pop up every thing during an installation and uninstalling, its seems to be the norm firewall, antivirus, prevention.

by maxwell edison

.
Updates may carry a cost, documentation and suppport, or perhaps an enhanced or better version later on.

Did you know that McAfee started out as a FREE software?

by choppit

I've used GanttProject and if you look back a few posts you'll see that I've discounted it. It's quite good, but not even nearly comparable to MS project. Ideally I'm looking for something which can be used collaboratively.

by jaqui

for full collaboration tools, go with the commercial product that powers sourceforge.

expensive. but can't argue that it's got the capability.
~chuckle~

some of the content management systems have support for project managment / collaboation also.

by lucas rodriguez cervera

As long as I know there is no advance open-source equivalent to MS Project. As you know, GanttProject may be a good alternative if you make only a very basic use of it.

Same case for the visio equivalent. I have investigated deeply and there is no alternative with a significant amount of functionality. The best one I know is DIA.

Although it is not very sophisticated, Gforge is a good project collaboration application. We have used successfully for one year.

Just my two cents,
Lucas Rodr?guez Cervera
www.nevant.com

by oz_media

I understand what yu are saying. Some companies make money of of banner advertising while running their software, such as GetRight download accelerator, which essentially is free but with ads (therefore the banners pay for its use.) until you pay a nominal subscription fee to open up the no ad version.

AVG makes money from selling Network Copies and Exchange protection with paid service ad suuport.
It is common for AV builders to offer a home version for free, e-Trust and Trend Micro do it too, exculding NOrton and MacAffee of course who are juts in it for the $. By offering a free home version, it promotes people to try and trust it, then they will use the professional versions at the office.

Open Source is just what it is, open source code that in most cases if MUCH tighter than retail offerings. NO there's on instant money in it, but these devlopers do get picked up for high payign jobs as well as seeking partnerships with companies like Google or e-Bay.

MI support all these guys as I can, whether through nominal PayPal donation for support, promoting their products (just look at the good name Firefox and AVG get on this site, how many people have sought free solutions for personal use and then used it at the office, I can think of several myself.

Sometimes, a free offering or value added service is the best way to promote your products without even charging people for them. Once they like you, they will automatically buy your other products without them being thrust in their noses.

I think it's just good business in most cases.

by apotheon

AVG is great. It's the best proprietary/closed-source antivirus solution I've had the pleasure to use.

There's a free/open-source antivirus solution out there, though, that by all accounts seems to be better. There's a Windows port of ClamAV (ClamWin) available at http://www.clamwin.com/ for your convenience.

By all accounts, it finds virus problems nothing else on Windows does, and nothing else finds virus problems ClamWin doesn't. I haven't actually run it head-to-head with AVG myself, and have never had a problem with either one failing to find a virus, so in my experience they're both pretty much equally wonderful. I do like the fact that ClamAV/ClamWin source code is open to the public, though, and that it is Free (as in "speech") as well as free (as in "beer").

by oz_media

I have heard of ti but never tried it. Perhaps I will try it now.

You case was interesting and somewhat compelling yet neutral. The free beer was the closing argument that got me though. :)

by swinky

It seems to me that open-source antivirus is a bad idea. Wouldn't that make it incredibly easy to develop/modify a virus that could get past the program itself? Once you know how something works, then you know how to circumvent it...

by randy

I don't know if this is common knowledge but I just wanted to warn everyone about putting the latest version of AVG (both free and commercial) on a machine with Windows ME. We had a few cases where all network services on the machines nearly came to a halt After installing the latest version of AVG or updating AVG on a Windows ME machine. Don't expect a quick solution from Grisoft either, the only support you can get is through email. I found it faster and easier to back up the machine and lobomize the machine. I am now testing Kaspersky AV because they agreed to give me phone support if I need it.

by brendon

I work for a large IT company and support numerous large organisations. We have seen A LOT of pcs come in to be repaired that have AVG and are infected with viruses, but those that come in with Trend or Norton are not usually infected.

It says it all really.

by black panther

In the early days of the Internet Netcape Navigator was the browser that everyone used along with an email program called "Eudora".

Along came B.ll G..tes who said "mmmm... how do I get rid of Netscape and get people to use Internet Explorer"

Easy .... make it FREE......

Then earn money from all the Add-ons etc

But just because it's FREE doesn't make it a better product.. although which one do you choose -- especially in today's world and on a budget!

:)

by jaqui

Netscape itself is free, even after being bought by AOL. no ads with it, tabbed browseing [ naturally, as netscape was first with it ] icq/aim client built in. ( AOL owns icq also )

and Netscape is the origin of mozilla / firefox.
( both released under the NPL ( Netscape Public License ))

Opera has free version with banner ads in it, small fe gets rid of banners.

by tampa hillbilly

I was a Netscape user. IE-5 came out and was a MUCH better product, so I switched. Both were free, so how can that reason be used? Netscape is not even HTML 4.0 compliant and renders nothing if there is a page error. Try troubleshooting errors with that. IE renders pages with errors, and is sometimes too good at it. Netscape coasted on its butt while Microsoft built a smarter browser. That is why Netscape fizzled.

by apotheon

That's how BSD was originally produced, and in fact the BSD in "BSD license" (an "open source" software license) stands for Berkeley Software Distribution. MacOS X is built on the Darwin kernel, which is a fork of a BSD kernel. The Berkeley to which this refers is the University of California at Berkeley.

by kaceyr

... Open Source software is free, and not all free software is Open Source.

Many times over the years I've written tools that helped me do my job with a little less work. Most of them I've given away for the asking (executables, not source). A few people have asked for the source, and some of them I've given the source freely, others I've charged for it.

When I've created something that I feel others may be interested in, I take a good look at it, and if I would develop it from scratch rather than pay for it, then I give it away. If I'd be willing to pay something for it, I sell it.

Back to your examples:

Grisoft (the folks who make AVG) also has a server product that goes as high as $1,290 US (100 server license) for a two-year license. So they use the free product as an indoctrination to build product confidence in order to sell the higher end products (they have several, you should check them out www.grisoft.com).

Firefox has to be free. If it weren't, it would never be an IE challenger because Microsoft will never charge for IE. I do take issue with your statement of "Everyone who knows about Firefox browser is switching to it.". That is incorrect. There are a *great* many folks, even in discussion groups on TechRepublic, that have tried Firefox and like it, but have reasons that they will not switch. I'm one of them. My reason for not switching is my customers. They make decisions on which browsers to support and what level of support to provide based on Internet usage statistics by browser. Right now, Firefox isn't even on the radar. 93% are using IE5 or IE6, 4% are using Netscape, and the remaining 3% are using AOL (a Netscape variant).

Open Office is the one I can't figure out. I've used it fairly extensively and it's quite an impressive package. It even co-exists with MS Office 2003 and can share documents with it. The part that I don't get is that Open Office is well worth some money. They *should* be able to sell it easily at, say $100, but when it was known as Star Office and got purchased by Sun, it wouldn't sell. I can only assume that people don't like the idea of trusting an non-MS entity for their primary business functions. Pretty good marketing on Microsofts part. I can only assume that Open Office has some big company backing.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents worth.

by apotheon

Actually, OpenOffice.org and Star Office are related, but not the same thing. Star Office still exists, and is still being sold. Some parts of Star Office are proprietary and closed-source. OpenOffice.org is essentially Star Office without those closed-source components (often with an open-source implementation tacked on to grant roughly the same functionality). Thus, in a sense, OpenOffice.org is the free version of Star Office, much as there is a free version and a retail version of AVG.

by jaqui

open office states that is is derived from Sun's Star Office on the website. Sun does not own open office.

open office has ( from last time I checked star Office out ) better support for m$ vbscript macros, though it translates them to javascript.

by jevans4949

Star Office comes frome the *nix world, and one of the major points when it was brought to the attention of the wider world was its high degree of compatibility with MS Office. If you want to sell *nix systems, or any other platform, such as Sun, interoperability with the Windows world, especially document exchange, is important, especially in the corporate market.

Although I am not privy to the internal councils of Sun, I am guessing this may have played a major part in their decision to acquire Star Office's owners. Giving away an adequately-functional version for free is a tried and tested method of building market share - in this case, not for Star Office but for non-MS operating systems.

It's my guess that, if the Open Office project continues to thrive and keep abreast of Microsoft, Sun will eventually drop Star Office. The important thing about Open Office for Sun and *nix vendors is "There are alternatives to Microsoft".

Personally, I prefer Lotus WordPro, but that's just me.

One business model I do like is that followed by Serif Software. They give away very old versions for free, recently-superseded versions for around GBP 10.00 over here, and make their money by aggressively marketing upgraded versions, usually with valuable new features, every year or so, and also useful complementary products from third parties. The upgrades are usually GBP 30.00 to existing users, or GBP 100.00 if new. The packages are also available unbundled, i.e. desktop publishing, photo-editing and vector drawing, although each product has some capability in the other areas.

by future1investor

Star Office is sitting on my bookshelf. It would not install on my new machine. I downloaded and have been using OpenOffice for some time now. Kudos to the folks who write such good software and are always improving it!

Did you know that Bill Gates was and is totally against Linux and the whole freeware movement? Shows who's interest he has in mind and it isn't mine or yours!

by pka

Try Sun. OpenOffice.org is a free version of their Star Office. By the way Open Office is yet another package not free.

For the most part, I'm liking what I see with open source software. I think most of them will adopt a tailored version of it and hope to turn a profit their. Linux is a good example.

by fresnotech

While I do agree with most of what you said, I think you have something just a bit off. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I think you have the statistics for browser use off just a bit. At last check, Firefox had been downloaded and installed about 10 million times, since it's 1.0 release late last year. I believe that they are nearing the 6-7% usage mark right now, which isn't too bad for a product out less than six months. Also, the numbers that are provided by whatever source is gives them are a little skewed also. You can't not have IE on a machine. You can't go to Windows update and patch your hole-y Windows box if you don't have IE on the machine. Should you use MSN messenger, anytime you click on something that is a link (email messages link) it opens in IE no matter that you have Firefox as your default browser.

Firefox is my browser of choice, and I don't even consider using IE for most things, but if I need to patch Windows, IE is the only thing that will do it.

by toomas

Firefox is my default browser. Unfourtenately there is number of sites for what I must lie and using
User Agent Switcher it lie to sites that I use IE.
Usually sites pages are using Frontpage default scripts. It skews statistics.

by jaqui

I've seen, somewhere on here (TR) that AVG only catches 75% of viruses, as compared to Norton and McAfee's 90%

not saying that it doesn't catch virues the other two don't, lords know I've seen trojans, that I know were there, skip right past all three of them.
( killcmos to be specific, tamed trojan )

no antivirus solution is perfect, run one constanly when online, shut down nic/lock firewall completely. shut down running av and use several others to scan to get best possible coverage.

worst one I saw was bulldog.
( told me a linux archive had "drop.bat" virus when transfered to windows box to use cdrw on it. )
yet never could find any data on "drop.bat" virus.

by apotheon

I haven't seen that comparative failure rate. My personal experience has been that neither Norton nor McAfee has ever found a virus that AVG hasn't. Then again, I don't run into viruses too much outside of clients' offices, because I'm not a nightmare end-user.

If that's the case, maybe you should switch to ClamWin.

by americium

When I switched to AVG from Norton, AVG found a virus that Norton had overlooked.

You go, AVG!

by lynbor

I remember when McAfee was new and FREE. I also remember when they went commercial and the quality of their product went out the window. It had real compatibility issues. I then switched to Norton. No compatibility issues, but their subscription fee for database updates was annoying. I purchased the software and didn't feel I should have to also purchase a subscription to it's database.

I then found AVG. I was pleased when I installed it and it found viruses that Norton's had apparently not found. It worked well, but for some reason I kept looking at alternatives. I eventually found AntiVir (http://www.free-av.com) and after installing it even more viruses were discovered that AVG had apparently overlooked.

As you say, no antivirus solution is perfect, but having used both AVG and AntiVir for little over a year I find I like AntiVir better. The only thing that has been a problem is that sometimes their update server is too busy to handle the load. But in those cases I've just aborted the update until the next reboot and that has worked well.

Getting back on topic.....

Free software is great, but I think there needs to be a happy middle ground.

Commercial software tends to be considerably over priced. Especially in a multi-user environment.

Free software or donation-ware doesn't reward the authors well enough unless the program is exceptional or is badly needed and there are only very expensive alternatives available.

I like the idea of a "basic" version that is free or very cheap and a more reasonably priced "pro" version. I have no problem paying a resonable fee for a tool that makes my life easier.

However, there also seems to be a lot of pure CRAP software out there in both the Free and Shareware world. My observation is that "pride in workmanship" has become much less visable than it once was. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule of thumb.

Some programmers can write very tight and good performing programs, but they should be taken out and shot for the extremely poor user interface they put on top of their baby.

hehe, well, I could go on and on as this has been a subject I've been involved in for over 15 years. I've worn the hats of most sides to this issue. I praise the hobbists and creators of very fine products that are available for free and for a reasonable price and I scorn at the rediculous attempt at providing a kitchen sink that Microsoft has been able to do with all their products since DOS. :D

by fresnotech

I have very little faith in the Norton and McAfee AV solutions. I don't use them on my machine because of the problems I have seen on other people's machines when I have to clean them up. There is nothing worse than going to a client to do a cleaning of their box only to find a fully updated Norton or McAfee on it that says there is not a virus on the machine.

I can think of one example of this happening that was extreme. I killed Norton on the machine, and installed AVG (the free choice at the time) and it found 50 viruses on that same machine that Norton said was clean. Some of those viruses were the same virus copied into other locations, but there were no less than 20 different viruses or variants of those viruses.

I have since moved on to BitDefender (www.bitdefender.com) for home use on machines that I clean. The scan process takes a little longer than AVG, but I did do a head to head on them. AVG said it was clean, and BitDefender found 2 viruses on the same machine. I haven't tried Clam outside of work, where we have a Linux backend that is protected by Clam, but I might now that there is a Winblows version of it out there.

by apotheon

I didn't reread the entire discussion before posting that. I just responded to the latest message.

Mea culpa.

by choppit

I went down this same route trying to find a free Windows alternative to Visio. End result....Microsoft got my money.

by jaqui

linux from scratch.

yup I build my own, every time I install.
and I only install from unaltered sources.

my system is fsh and lsb compliant.
( gotta know that the customised *x systems are not good for developing on, as they aren't standard to original source, mine is.)

by apotheon

I was referring, of course, to Windows use. Every single post I've ever made to TR has been from a Linux system. At least, I'm pretty sure I haven't made any posts from anyone else's computers, or anything like that.

I haven't tried LFS yet, though I intend to at some point in the vague future. Debian just does everything I need, and does it better than anything else I've ever used, including software management. I love the apt system and I love the fact that, though other distributions have adopted apt, Debian's apt repositories are so much more complete, extensive, and well-tested than any other collection of software for a given OS.

This all makes Debian seem like pretty much the perfect OS, for my tastes. It makes system management absurdly easy, and scales to multiple-computer environments without losing any of that ease of management. Added to that is the fact that Debian installs so cleanly.

I'm sure LFS installs more cleanly than Debian, if you have any clue how to set up a system from LFS, and that it's every bit as stable as Debian (again, if you know what you're doing), but I have a hard time imagining it being as easily managed as Debian, particularly in more-complex computing environments than simply one computer on one desk. I have a four-port KVM at my desk just to run the computers that I use locally, not even counting the systems I access primarily through SSH. Ease of system administration and software management is of paramount importance in my life.

by dwiebles

I had AVG on my home network. We have 4 "kids" (<22 years old) using the computers, downloading all matter of music and games. I plugged my notebook running Symantec corporate, and it caught "Gaobot" in the shares folder on one of the home PC's. Since then, all Norton, AVG is good, but Norton beat it on this one.

-DW

by oz_media

IN that same sense, I have seen AVG pick up what NOrton has missed.

NO one solution is foolproof.

AVG is just as solid as Norton, but it is far more stable and resourceful on the stations it's installed to.

I am not saying you made a mistake in choosing Norton.

I am merely saying that the issue that resulted in your going Norton is also an issue for some to LEAVE Norton for AVG. It works both ways, but ONE virus not being detected is hardly a measure of better software, especially considering what AVG MAY be finding that Norton isn't.

by dwiebles

No software is perfect, at least that I have found (prove me wrong people...). AVG is good, I loved the low resources it used, has great features too. I have been using Norton for years before trying AVG, and still recommend it to people. I just wanted people to know that AVG does miss things too, despite the rave reviews it gets here (I have posted in it's favor too). You always hear "I had Norton and AVG caught virus "x" that Norton didn't". But, it works both ways.

-DW

by kaceyr

... exactly what Star Office can provide that Open Office can't. I don't consider VBScript support to be a primary requirement for any office package, but I do consider scriptability in some form to be a very nice to have.

I think I'll take another look at Star Office's specs, but for now I'll stick with Open Office and Microsoft Office.

by jaqui

work with koffice.
or go whole hog nuts and use a TeX based editor.
instead of using multiple office apps, why not standardise to only one?

since openoffice can read and write the ms file formats, and has the scripting support you want, it could save you money long term to standardise onto it.
you are obviously familiar with it so wouldn't need to concider learning curve.

by kaceyr

... but I have several clients who really are Microsoft shops. When they want a office-based application, they mean something that wraps together their stuff from Excel and Access into Word and PowerPoint using only the tools provided by MS Office. No exceptions.

Microsoft Office is an exceptional product. It's only real drawback is it's high pricetag. The only reason I can run the enterprise version is that I use it for development work, and it comes in my (very expensive) MSDN Universal subscription. That's the price I pay to stay on top of things here in the State of Washington!

by toomas

1) Database (Adabas D IIRC with support for ODBC andJDBC)
2) More filters like WordPerfect
3) I'm not sure but SO 5.x was also e-mail client

I use OO quite much . It's writer have features what I like such has page styles and booklet printing. Last one is not so important because priter drivers work better but page styles are good when you need produce booklet number of pages in landscape following portait orientation. Also OO vector graphics is much better tham MS Office.

by jaqui

it's not actually a ditro for everyone.
it's target is actually to tech you how the system works, and what are the minimums you need to have to get a functional system.

to build an lfs based webserver you only have the absolutely required stuff, nothing extra at all.
even with debian there are extra libs and apps.
( such as apt-get )

my reson is that I then have a system with unaltered packages, no customisations, to use for developing on.
by making sure my file system heirarchy is fsh compliant, and I install software to meet lsb compliance, I have a system wich allows easy compilation on all distros of packages built on it.

by jaqui

which was the point of my post.

use different anti virus software, and scan systems to catch what one misses.

keep both updated.

I wasn't saying that avg isn't worth using, but that no one app is 100% effective in stopping viruses

by apotheon

If I could set up LFS systems with full Debian software repository compatibility, I'd be more inclined to try it out sooner rather than later. As is, though, I love the Debian package repositories enough so that Debian's facility with lean installs is quite lean enough for my purposes. Besides, I tend to use pretty much everything Debian installs (as opposed to all the extra cruft many other distributions install).

by jaqui

just install the .deb support software, then install the apt system.
there may be bugs from debians customisation f the kernel etc, but there may not.
debian doesn't make the drastic changes most distros do.

slak is one of the best known distro for a from source install.

lfs is great, for it's purpose.
it's not really intended as a production os, much more beyond lfs ( yes they have a blfs book also, and alfs [ advanced ] ) it is meant to be a teaching / / learning tool for the os, once you are familiar with it.

go grab a copy of the book and check the intro, it says that right near the beginning.
"
Why would I want an LFS system?

There are a lot of reasons why somebody would want to install an LFS system. The question most people raise is "why go through all the hassle of manually installing a Linux system from scratch when you can just download an existing distribution?". That is a valid question which I hope to answer for you.

The most important reason for LFS's existence is teaching people how a Linux system works internally. Building an LFS system teaches you about all that makes Linux tick, how things work together, and depend on each other. And most importantly, how to customize it to your own taste and needs.
"
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/whatislfs.html

by apotheon

The problem is that "bugginess" that might arise due to not being set up the way a Debian system is.

As for the reasons for using LFS: I have those reasons to want to. I want to use LFS to learn about how Linux works. I'm just not doing it right now. For my primary workstation and production servers, however, I'm going to stick to what is most easily maintained while doing what I want.

by jaqui

--Source Code Analysis Reveals MySQL has Low Incidence of Bugs
(4 February 2005)
A source code analysis of the MySQL database conducted by Coverity found
that the program has fewer flaws than (comparable) commercial code.
MySQL averaged approximately one flaw for every 4,000 lines of code;
commercial software has between one and seven flaws for every 1,000
lines of code. MySQL, the company that develops and maintains the
open-source program, requested the audit and has fixed the problems that
were found.
http://news.com.com/2102-1002_3-5563918.html?tag=st.util.print

by jaqui

for any purpose other than pedanticness about using clean sources for a development platform I would never recommend lfs for a production system because of the difficulty in patching.

I put that effort in to have the original sources as a development platform.

not for my server, for that I used freebsd.
( I don't see any reason to worry about multimedia, and fancy graphics ability on a server.
I don't even have a monitor, keyboard, or mouse attached to it after boot.
and only login when patching it. ( remotely so don't need the keyboard/mouse/monitor then either )

by munezrhep

They make a living. But not entirely on distributing free software. I think they do this for the good of those who can't afford commercial software. And for those who are tired of writing software and knowing that some had already written similar ones. We really don't need to use commercial software. Just find the appropriate software for your needs. And just pay a fee for support and development. Whatever!

by apotheon

While I'm sure there's some "betterment of mankind" motivation involved in most cases, I think the main reason in most cases is just a love of the work and a desire for the best software possible for their own use.

There's that "geek cred" issue as well, of course.

by stomfi9

Membership subscriptions with part of the subscription paying for personal benefits.
Sales of other goods like penguin hats.
Method patents (Not software methods)
Support
Education
Publishing
Creation and sale of vertical market devices and applications
Consulting

by johnlil

Folks who distribute free software often make a living from follow-on consultancy. You save so much on something like LINUX that you can then afford to pay someone to come in and do all the hard work, and you still save yourself a wad!

by praetorpal

I can't tell if you are making a positive point here or are a cynic. If you think that you are going to save any money by getting IBM to do your work for you, you'll probably be surprised. Purchase cost is just part of TCO.

A product like SnapLinux when it rolls out, will change the equation. Anyone will be able use it, Linux skills or not. You will pay something for the convenience of a zero-config dedicated appliance, but after that you will really ahead in the game.

by jfreedle2

Well I think that people who develop software for free generally make money in other ways unrelated to software. I know about Firefox and Open Office and I am not switching to either. Generally I don't really care about the web browser, it is a very poor interface and well about the only think that I use it for is reading news sites. The functionality that I am using it for to post this would be better implemented in a rich GUI newsgroup reader. It is about like to you perfer a command line interface or a rich GUI interface. I prefer the latter so I do not prefer the broswer interface.

by tracyf

At least, that's what I would think many do, at the beginning. After the person/company becomes well-known, they then offer up "pro" versions with even more functionality- for a fee.

However, not everyone is out to make a buck- some just like programming & I can't think of anything more soul-satisfying than to give a gift & have it talked about & enjoyed by possibly thousands of people?

by bronzemouse2003

The key to free software will always be support. When things go wrong, what kind of support can the author provide?

When you use free software (freeware/shareware) you need to remember the disclaimer used by HavenTree for their EasyFlow software. It went something like this.....

Honest Disclaimer
We dont' claim EasyFlow is good for anything - if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing.

I had an Engineering group using a freeware application for 5-6 years in a production environment. It suddenly began failing. We called the author and his comment was "I haven't looked at that code for over 15 years. You should look for a different product." Time lost on the line, and looking for new product.

Like I said, what kind of support can you expect?

Like

by gregry

Actually, HavenTree's support philosophy seems pretty close to Microsoft's, assuming you aren't a Fortune 500 company paying them lots of money. They don't say it that way of course, but try to get them to help with something that is patently a software problem. Come to think of it, HavenTree's philosophy may be the most common one in existence in any industry. Don't most companies just leave you twisting slowly in the wind?

by the computer doctor

They really don't leave you hanging in the wind. They are much more cut throat than that. They want you on a spicket like a stuck pig.

Actually every software license I have read (oh aren't they fun to read) they all have the disclaimer that they won't be held liable for any loss of any sort.

by the computer doctor

I agree with the thought that support is a major issue with free software. Many times it just isn't supported at all.

I came to a completely different conclussion to your example though.

Using any software package for 5 or 6 years is a pretty good lifetime for software. Then you put in the statement that it hadn't been updated for 15 years. It lasted around 15 years without an update. That software was incredible!

Daniel Blake

by dstahl

There are many choices available for a Windows platform. As most of them have already been mentioned in this discussion. But here are a couple that I use frequently.

An alternative to Visio can be found here:
http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/
Dia is a gtk+ based diagram creation program released under the GPL license.

Dia is designed to be much like the commercial Windows program 'Visio'. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

I am also a big fan of FreeMind.
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
FreeMind is a free mind-mapping software written in Java.

/djs

by myron_s

Here is my reason. I do it to excercise my skills on fery frequent basis and one major problem is motivation. As in why start a programming project in the first place when no one will really use it in anger. Yeh, I do have a job and it pays well.

Look at it another way. Why do people pay to jump out of a plane when nothing is wrong with it? Oh, don't forget the parachute!

Problem is that too many people are obsessed with money and those that do, well, their brain's get so totally cabbaged when they see something of quality and it's free. Sometimes to the point that such people have to pay lawyers loads of cash to stop the practive of using free software.

At the moment it seems in the commercial works there has begun a scramble to patent every possible idea possible. Research labs exist not really to innovate and discover, but to patent a programming idea before any one Joe Public beats the commercial world to it.

Criky, if corporations could charge the global population for breathing they would!

Look at Japan... Some placed in conjested areas there exist oxygen bars where the public can go and pay to breathe pure clean air! If that's not a warning, what is.

So, software. Reasons for `free`? Loads of them. From `Down with capitalism` right down to `It's there do be done, so why not`.

There is no definitave answer. Only thing for sure is that those who don't understand the concept of `free software` will do everything possible to compete and tear it all down.

Bottom line to your query? It's a better between those who are down right greedy (and hide behind a mask while being greedy) and those who want to do it to assist humanity.

Multi-million software companies really need to be banned globally. Sure, make a profit, if you built something up yourself, no problems, you deserve it, but at some point wealth transforms itself to utter and pure greed and power.

Besides, Bill Gates didn't invent MS-DOS. He purchased the rights off someone else outright, and in the process I think (correct me if I'm wrong) shafted the guy financially when MS-DOS became the hip thing.

I rest my case.

by datman

charging to do LAN administration? Shouldn't you do that for free? From all of your diatribes, I would think you wouldn't have the nerve to expect payment. :)

BTW, if you buy something, anything for that matter (house, car, business, etc.), because you see the potential in it and the seller doesn't recognize its value or, more likely, doesn't want to invest the work to develop it, the buyer has complete authority to use his purchase any way he wants to. The buyer takes on the risk that it could all be for nought. But if he can pull it off and make a profit, to the victor go the spoils.

by myron_s

Yes. I administer a network, support users and just about everything else for where I work. Also, a local business I'm right as I type fix-up one of his computers to he can operate the latest Insurance quotation system, and keep a loose eye on his network and I'm not charging him at all.

So you think, shock-horror!, I've nicked business from someone else? Sure. I actually sidelined a IT specialist qualified to the eyeballs, but was shafting the guy. When I get to look at his initial set-up, there were things there that would warrant his return. The way is was done bordered on utter-dishonesty.

I also do bits and pieces for other places, friends, etc... Keeps my experience sharpened.

My friend, this is a free market. In thise case there are a select few who I give my services for free, and I'm happy about that decision.

It's not ALL about money and as you have demonstrated by your reply, seems I've cabbidged your head too. ;=)

As to asking for payment if I feed payment is required. Well, I got loads of nerves to do that. It's if I choose to or not.

There is always a method to my madness and it's not let me down yet. Annoyed loads of others, but works for me.

by mark.patelunas

Every new virus circumvents every anti-virus program out there. I think you should also do a bit of research on how an AV and Virus creators work. Closed source software is an easier target for for a Virus writer as the source is closed. They use tols to reverse engineer the software and then have unfettered access to exploit it's weaknesses.
With open source many eyes can openly see the code and submit potential exploit problems back to the maintainers who in return fix the code. This is why open source projects such as Mozilla can implement a fix faster than Microsoft.

by russ

I also use dotProject heavily for internal project management and with customers who I have split project management duties with in some cases. It does not have all the bells and whistles that MSProject offers, but I've found it to be quite capable in handling most of our project needs.

by raj_per317

I usually use "20/20" and "Irfan View", both are free. Recently I came across "Photofiltre", which I have not yet tried.

Cheers
Raj

by aberzo

There is no such thing as free software; years ago Windows 3.1 was almost free as MS turned a blind eye to the massive number of people who got hooked by it. Everyone in colleges all over the world used it and the 'gates' were open to that. Free software demands energy and discipline from the user who will have to learn how to swerve away from its problems, contributing back to its development, be it with code enhancement or simply aesthetical opinions. People did it with MS and do it now with other software houses. MS got greedy and now threatens people with all sorts of punishing measures; one hopes the software houses that now do it for free won't turn greedy too and become horrible monsters; these monsters tend to grow so fat that eventually die from their own diseases...

by mrs1622

For the last 3 years I have spent much of my free time and
disposable income creating Caravel (http://caravelcms.org), an
open source web content management system. Why? Because I
had a vision for how I felt technology could serve the church,
and there were no projects that met my requirements for
scalability, usability, functionality, etc. Caravel is now used by
Goshen College and hosts 2,000 Mennonite Church
organizations, a K12 school system and an increasing array of
business and personal sites. We generate income from hosting
and co-op fees, consulting and design fees. I make up any
shortfall in paying my employees. The people who work for me
are not well paid--yet, but it's a mission for them too.

BTW. Caravel has a project management tool in it that's pretty
good, also some very interesting e-commerce tools.

by datman

Good for you. Most of the other posts on this subject are drivel by comparison. Sounds like you run a great business. May you prosper and be in good health, even as your soul prospers.

by georgeen

Everybody pay in general for something that they need and at least do the work as they expect. Commercial policies is pay for my products, MS are pretty good in offimatic solutions and are so advanced, but for average user, MSOffice offers a lot of things that they don?t use or need, but are paid. Open Office is so good, lighter and for the average users is more than enough, the same with Lotus Smart Suite isn`t free, but is so good product.
By the other hand, open source importance is because is another option and is in general more standarized that their commercial counterparts, specially MS (because is the biggest commercial), and the interoperability -the final objective of the standards- should be done. MS understand it, and every products interoperate but with MS products not with others or better, the others must interoperate with their products not viceversa necessarily, because is the preferred way that commercial companies "lock" their customers. "If you need something more I'm the better choice -?or only choice?-" they says and of course you must to pay more and more. Real Open source software is for free people, who seek independence, and if you are developer has more independence and flexibility, the risk? of course, if the product has no acceptance or is unknown you will be alone. ?Why 30 years after PC, we don?t have a Real document standart supported by most companies? the last intention is XML (now plethoric of implementations and commercials usually have more features -out of the standard- and the standard isn?t real, the standard is always one step before, should be the contrary as in communications is), before PDF, but is propietary, etc.

by andeanderson

For some of these people it is a matter of Pride, being able to point at a successful project and say "I did that." It can also be used as a stepping block to a better paying position.

But, you are in error when you say "Everyone who knows about Firefox browser it switching to it."

We know about Firefox and we are not switching to it. And, we are not even looking at Open Office. It is hard enough just trying to exchange information between the different versions of MS Office without introducing another new application.

I can't even get them to give up the old Lotus Spreadsheets in favor of the MS Excel which all of our systems have available.

If I tried to introduce Open Office I might as well just pack my bags.

by georgeen

Of course, this is the first cause because we have to use even bad software, other use it and they cannot or don?t want change. Is a human nature, sometimes good but is a disadvantage in the hot competitive and changing today?s world.
Open Office helps you to manage major MSWord and Excel versions in one suite, if don?t want more back pains in the future, you have one now and you should work for that be the last, how?, switch to a tool that in every version maintain real compatibility (standard and industry-wide supported format) and preferable not propietary. In fact if you achieve it, users can use the tool they prefer (of course should be standard compliant, no more no less) and the information can flow between them, the tool shouldn?t be more important than the information, but the most important decision is the standard, seek, analize, probe and switch.

by mcs-1

When I am contracted out to perform IT capacity roles it usually means I am in charge of the computer/network situation, and the people at whichever office listen to what I have to say.
I don't go off the wall and tell them they have to change everything (or sometimes nothing at all - in your example of Lotus - if it works, leave it alone), but I at least standardize things like 'everybody using the same version of Windows/*nix/Office' and so on. Too many loose ends as you describe is an IT nightmare. I would sit down with somebody an re-evaluate what the IT job should involve: IT recommends to users the best solutions - the users don't tell IT what they 'have' to run because they like it and have been using it since the Apple IIe.

by phil perry

The first type of open-source software is corporate-sponsored. These are the guys at IBM and Novell, for example, who are paid full-time to maintain open-source tools the companies see as useful in some way. If a company needs a particular tool, it makes more sense to hire an OSS guy to maintain it in-house than to buy a proprietary solution. With OSS, they aren't at the mercy of some other company and its CEO's whims. Plus, they get a P.R. boost when they release changes back to the community.

The second type of OSS programmer is the one who works in I.T. (or some other type of position) who had a particular need of his own, filled it, and then released the software open-source to help other people with the same need. They, in turn, usually help him improve the software over time. It's a collaborative, cooperative thing. He may not get paid, but he gets something important out of it.

The third type is the person who just enjoys programming and works on projects he likes. He may be a college student or he may be an IT worker who's bored with the stuff he does at work. He releases his code open source because he wants to meet people and work with others like him. He gets a great social benefit from this phenomenon.

Note that all three types CAN make a small amount of money from open-source by selling copies on CD, T-Shirts, swag, books, etc. Their main living is in their regular jobs, though -- NOT open-source.

by techrepublic

I was just looking for this response. You're exactly right, and this is what a lot of people don't get about OSS.

I'd say most OSS developers do get paid for their work, which is the answer to the original poster's question. They get paid by companies using their software, because they are employed at those companies (or one of them.) The company gets a high return on their investment because of the collaboration with other programmers, being paid by other companies. In this way, a company gets a whole team of programmers working on a project for the price of one.

OSS benefits everyone involved.

by goofytek

1/ it cost Nuffing to make it available FREE downloads online,
that way it gets tested on many Different Hardware PC's,with reports back for any changes needed,
2/AVG,IrfanView,are enjoyed world wide now,
3/AVG was first at looking inside compressed files
ZIP,RAR etc,which Symantec Norton/McAfee missed on
That is why AVG is numero one in Antivirus today,
4/ AVG has no problems in selling its PRO version to anyone now,
IrfanView was A University Student's Project
which has grown & put the University on the MAP now,making them proud about it all,
FREE Software like Open Office is because others
can improve it,as its open source code,
VirualDub was for Programmers own usage at first
now others have added addons,making it GREATER
DVDshrink,Free to do DVD copying to fit DVD-R
Popularity is makers fame chart,
with its numbers off satisfied users,
Lots are fed up with Symantec as it breaks XP-SP2
Only Norton Utilities works,
when PC breaks we use safe mode to fix it
VoptXP Defragmenter & JV RegCleaner run in safe mode,others do not,Useful tools
byee retired techie Keith

by gracedman

From my perspective as former CTO of a Managed Service provider, Strategy director of a Telecomm consultancy and the maintainer of an open source project, I've looked very seriously at this subject.

There are serious issues regarding corporate use of Open Source as long as such projects are only based upon volunteer effort and have no guarantee of continuity. These are the non-technical issues that CIOs, CTOs and Directors must consider when making a product decision.

Revenue from providing support services for ones own product is possible but difficult. It has an inherent alignment flaw. The better the community makes the software, the less support it needs the less income there is to continue development.

I believe the most sustainable approach is to latch software development to a separate revenue stream. That is, the software becomes an enabler of a separate revenue stream such as hardware or service provision. I can illustrate with real world examples.

We founded the Open Source Development Corporation (http://www.opensourcedevel.com) to channel corporate funding into open source software development initially for the open source network security management project ISCS (http://iscs.sourceforge.net). This should make financial sense to both hardware manufacturers and service providers.

Let's look at the hardware vendor. They may produce a network security appliance but then, when their client needs a large, enterprise management tool, they may refer or resell an expensivem five or six figure third party tool like Solsoft. That's another $60K or $200K obstacle to their sale. It is also money that will go to someone else's pocket and cannot be used to buy more of their hardware.

By collaborating with the ISCS project, they have a much less expensive alternative that reduces the barrier to sales of their hardware and leave more money available for hardware purchases.

There is a similar story for service providers. ISCS drives down the cost of managing security by over 90% in most instances over those third party tools that cost five and six figures. Instead of investing in these third party tools and having to recover that cost somewhere in their client support contracts, they can support the ISCS community for far less money, have a more efficient tool, reduce the cost barrier to their sale of services and reduce their operational costs at the same time.

In all these cases, ISCS becomes the enabler of hardware and services (the revenue streams) and thus justifies an investment from those revenue streams for its ongoing development.

OSDC is still an experimental financing model. If it appeals to anyone, please do not hesitate to use the contact links on the web site.

by future1investor

Not a software developer in the core sense but often when I find a really great or useful freeware, I'll contribute to the cause or buy one of their other products.

by future1investor

I've been telling people for years about the drawbacks of continuing to support Symantec with their often inferior product. It looks good and that is mainly a marketing ploy.

Grisoft's AVG AntiVirus is in my estimation tops because it actually does catch viruses AND they update frequently (sometimes daily). Which shows why they are catching what Symantec waits too long for.

by rojackson

I'm suprised OpenWorkBench hasn't been mentioned. It is the Old ABT WorkBench which has always been considered far superior than MS Project for leveling, etc. Niku has put the client in the public domain.

If you're looking for MS Project equivs in the OS Community this is the puppy.