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Why I stand up for Stallman

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mahesh2k:
In principle, I am really attracted to everything Stallman stands for. I just can't put food on the table that way though... :( I wish I could.

--- End quote ---

Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress/Automattic/Akismet Developer) is one person who managed to make money off GNU philosophy. So i think it's possible, but it's lot harder than traditional business. Canonical, Red hat are other examples for making profit with GNU/OSS.

Making money from free software is no different than making money with brick-mortar business of selling sea-sand, filtered river water but here your business has no secret recipe and invites more competition but still you can make money. It's hard in software industry because there are some hidden variables that needs more attention otherwise making money like big corps is not possible. 

rxantos:
Both Canonical and Red Hat are bad examples of making money creating GPL software. As they make money not of their work, but of the projects (and work) of other people. If at all they are an example of how to make money exploiting the people that released their software under GPL.

Most of the honest people that do make money of creating GPL software do on four ways:
- Premium support. Where you get paid to help people use your software effectively and/or to program private additions.
- Dual licenses. Where you offer one license GPL and another private for a fee. (aka MySQL and others)
- As part of a package you are selling. For example hardware.
- As a way to test the tools of a system you use internally for profit. For example gcc and notepad++. They do not make money from the compiler, but having a huge base of people that use the compiler means they can eliminate bugs and thus have more reliable tools.

Either way, you do not make money on the GPL software directly. You can see it like frosting on a cake you are selling. You do not sell the frosting, but it helps sell the cake.

EDIT: Made a mistake. Instead of posting a reply, created a new topic. Which I do not know how to eliminate.

mahesh2k:
erm. Thats not a bad example, thats how gnu encourages people to make money with free and oss.In gnu/oss you're letting people reuse and remix, charge for your work. Thats freedom,not exploitation.You agreed to it in license.
Exploitation exists with cnet, softonic type distribution channels where they host your closed source free software by stealing and killing your search engine existence.

mwb1100:
Both Canonical and Red Hat are bad examples of making money creating GPL software. As they make money not of their work, but of the projects (and work) of other people. If at all they are an example of how to make money exploiting the people that released their software under GPL.
ate.
-rxantos (November 06, 2011, 12:24 PM)
--- End quote ---

I don't know about Canonical, but doesn't Red Hat actually employ several important contributors?

Eóin:
Plus you don't actually have to pay Redhat to use their software, you can recompile the sources yourself, or use CentOS.

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