

Two innovative revenue models for a free piece of software - mattyfo
http://blog.digsby.com/archives/693

======
pj
I know I'll probably absorb an 8 point hit to my karma for saying this, but
all the innovation around how to monetize free software is a bullet point that
it doesn't work.

I have been considering building my own home lately and while at the hardware
store, i picked up a thick book of home plans. As I flipped through, I
realized, this isn't a book of home plans, it's a catalog for plans that you
can buy. So I thought, are they _selling_ this? There's nothing in it of
value, just pictures of more things that you have to buy later. I looked at
the back and sure enough, the catalog itself cost $10 and they dont even have
the prices of the home plans themselves. If you want the blue prints for the
house, you have to pay MORE money and those cost $60 or more.

And so I started thinking of course, like any hacker would... I've been
looking for examples of industries that give away the product of their work.
Here was one in architecture and construction. Not only are the blue prints
not free, but the catalog of things not free isn't even free. So it's like,
two layers of _not_ free in the same industry.

Can you imagine architects giving away their blue prints? Essentially, that's
what source code is, it's a blue print for a product. It's an encapsulation of
a lot of work, research and development, experimentation, and energy. If
architects gave away the blue prints for homes, then architects would have
trouble eating.

I know, people say, you can't pay for passion. If people are passionate about
software, they'll do it for free. But I'm not so sure that's true. I think
there are reasons other than money and passion about software to write
software, popularity for example.

Here's the rub, every other popular industry gets money in exchange for their
contribution. "If you're good at something, don't do it for free."

Of course I wonder, "Why am I so opposed to Open Source?" Am I insecure about
my code? Am I delusional? If so many, seemingly rational people, are pro Open
Source, why am I so closed?

It's a real debate inside my head. I don't think it's insecurity. I have no
problem writing code that is open and viewable to people who pay me to write
it. I would have no problem writing open source code for a company that was
paying me to write the code. If it's their code, and they are paying me to
write it for them, please, show it to the world -- better for me. I've written
enterprise code that never got used outside the company and wished I had
something to show people. "I built this badass system for nuclear plants, you
should have seen it!" But of course they can't...

I'm just thinking of the logical conclusion... what are the long term
consequences of FOSS? I think about incentives here. I think about comparisons
between teachers and athletes for example. We say, "We should pay teachers
like we pay athletes." I've actually considered being a teacher. Everyone
tells me I would be a great one. I really love this stuff. But why should I
encourage people to go into a field where I know they will have a tough time
eating because there are too many people giving away free labor? How can
engineers pay for food if no one is paying them?

Why is this so difficult for me to understand? I'm not stupid. I'm pretty
smart. Why doesn't something that seems so obvious to so many other seemingly
smart people not make sense to me?

Compare our industry to Medicine and Law. It's actually _illegal_ for people
who aren't doctors or lawyer to dispense medical advice or legal advice. These
clever professions engineered these laws to protect their industry. Oh, I know
lots will cringe at the thought of that. I know the thought is that stuff like
this subsidizes crappy coders through artificial scarcity. I'm still not
convinced the scarcity is _actually_ scarce, because the production of the
product depends on the consumption of scarce products, but I digress...

I think the debate about the flamewar over web programming being stupid is one
ramification of this issue. Web programming isn't actually easy. It's easy to
a point, just like carpentry is easy to a point and plumbing is easy to a
point and electrical work is easy to a point. But it's also easy to be
dangerous. It's easy to biuld homes that fall down and plumbing that starts
leaking next year and wire a home to catch fire. If you don't have training
and education and experience, it's easier to make mistakes.

I see so many people without a background in programming write poorly
architected code that performs like a dog and just breaks... it breaks because
some wanabe hacker just jumped in and started hacking without knowing wtf
(s)he was doing and it ends up costing the company paying for the work more
money later on. And you can't blame the consumer. They don't know. They don't
know if they give someone their credit card information whether or not that
company actually gives a crap about security and if they do, they can actually
implement good security protocols. And don't say open source helps with this,
because plenty of open source products have _huge_ security holes. I see
people complaining all the time about XSS vulnerabilities in word press
plugins and with something like that, I could easily write a keylogger that
would send your credit card number typed into a wordpress hacked online store
right to my database... Probably lots of .cn sites are already doing it...

Anyway, I'll stop ranting now...

~~~
bilbo0s
Actually,

I used to be involved medical software. And, yes, you do go to federal pound
me in the a$$ prison if MEDICAL software you create has bugs in it. The whole
FDA approval thing cuts two ways, and it is a VERY sharp blade. That's why
most software engineers won't write such software. How long could they stay
out of prison using PHP or Python? Imagine a trauma center's server going
down. Yep! Off you go to prison son. A missed tumor because your imaging code
did not bring out enough contrast. That's good for 7 - 12 years. The lack of
guarantees in the floating point code alone is probably enough to get a lot of
these guys 5 to 10.

And yes, it has happened . . . several times!

These sorts of laws would make you code like your life depends on it . . .
because it does.

Be careful what you wish for. That's all I can say.

~~~
pj
wow, that's crazy. If a doctor makes a mistake like that they don't go to
jail! how does that work?? it doesn't even make sense!

~~~
bilbo0s
As I wrote above:

Punishments are generally so harsh because it is considered fraud. The
defendants were selling software that didn't work. They either knew it did not
work, in which case it is pretty much straightforward fraud, and God help them
if someone dies. Alternatively, they did not know that the software did not
work. In which case they committed fraud when they represented themselves to
the health care organization that purchased the device as being qualified to
make a determination as to the efficacy of the software or device. Again, God
help them if someone dies.

But all of that is really beside the point.

The fact is that in order to get your software FDA approved you signed off on
literally thousands of legally binding sheets of paper. The short version of
these sheets of paper is that you guarantee, for instance, that the software
ran an 8bit lut through a 10bit colorspace so that the full range of that
10bit colorspace would be visible in the 8bit window at one time or another.
That is actually a fairly standard guarantee that medical software makers have
to give. If your software does not give the appropriate contrast at a given
setting, then the FDA knows that you and whoever else signed that sheet of
paper lied. You could not have tested it for all values. This is fraud.

Or let's say your software flips images left for right. You guessed it, there
is a slip of paper you and a lot of other people sign indicating that your
software will not do that. You also gave that slip of paper to the FDA to get
FDA approval. Later some poor nurse somewhere is prepping the left leg for
amputation instead of the right one. The doctor cross checks with the FDA
approved software, and verifies that the problem is in the left leg. And . . .
do you see where this is going? This too is fraud. And it is criminal in the
United States. You WILL be prosecuted.

------
fohlin
The rant on Lifehacker just about sums up my feelings:
[http://lifehacker.com/5336382/digsby-joins-the-dark-side-
use...](http://lifehacker.com/5336382/digsby-joins-the-dark-side-uses-your-pc-
to-make-money)

"Optional" crapware in the installer just takes advantage of the fact that
most people just click through. It's bad and it should be discouraged.

------
huhtenberg
Either model is hardly innovative.

The installer bundling has been used by the shareware people for _ages_ as an
alternative for paying for the application. From recent notable examples -
Trillian IM introduced the exact same bundling over a year ago.

The CPU stealing add-on is not exactly an innovation either. The very idea is
actually covered by a patent held by a company called Gomez (may be not them,
can't remember 100%). The fact that I have to _disable_ it (instead of
optionally _enabling_ it) is a reason enough not touch this Digsby thing with
a long pole.

Also calling this lovely add-on a "research module" is nothing short of trying
to conceal and obscure its real purpose. It is there to generate money by
reselling my CPU time. Period. It does not matter if it is not running when
the laptop is not plugged in. And I am sure as hell if it was called "let
other people use my CPU when it is idle", no one would've enabled it ever. So
they are effectively tricking people into using it, which in turn doesn't sit
right with me.

------
jdrock
Disclaimer: I work for the company that develops the grid technology Digsby's
using, so I suppose I have some bias.

I think Digsby has recognized user's feelings on this issue and their latest
update addresses these feelings directly. The new version makes our grid
technology apparent to the user. I think the fact they addressed the issue
head-on counts for something.

I also feel that it is important for "free" software to find a revenue stream.
While there are several examples of truly free software being sustainable,
there should also be a place for alternative revenue streams for companies
that want to make software available to users at no direct cost.

Yes, users need to know what's going on. This is uber-important. But assuming
they do, alternative revenue streams are a good thing for everyone, IMO.

~~~
embeddedradical
what is this grid technology, and can i supply processing horsepower and get
paid?

~~~
jdrock
It is Plura, and while you can technically get paid for it, it's not really
worth it for an individual. However, if you can bring hundreds or thousands of
computers to the grid by embedding it in an application, then the payments can
be significant.

------
makecheck
It's probably hard to sum this up in any law, but what you basically want is
for products and services to do exactly what they seem to be designed for,
with absolutely no other effects. At the very least, a product with "side
effects" wastes time, because you're dealing with details that you shouldn't
have to care about. In the worst case, of course, the side effects cause
actual harm.

And this isn't limited to PCs; for instance, I'm really annoyed when my gas
pump throws up a prompt "do you want a car wash?". Why no, actually; since car
washes have absolutely nothing to do with gas pumps, you can safely assume
that if I'd wanted a car wash, I would have gone through other channels to
request one.

------
riffic
The biggest lie is that Digsby is Free software.

