{"id":15,"date":"2006-03-30T07:36:08","date_gmt":"2006-03-30T15:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/?p=15"},"modified":"2006-03-30T07:36:08","modified_gmt":"2006-03-30T15:36:08","slug":"is-open-source-software-sustainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/is-open-source-software-sustainable\/","title":{"rendered":"Is open source software sustainable?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, a genuinely concerned coworker expressed concern that &#8220;not paying for software [may] ultimately kill the industry&#8221; because it encourages people expect something for nothing.<\/p>\n<p>For those who would like this and other common concerns about open software answered, I recommend  reading <a href=\"http:\/\/people.mech.kuleuven.be\/~bruyninc\/linux\/economy-oss.html\">Open Source-onomics<\/a>. Here&#8217;s a list of concerns it addresses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Open Source is not economically viable&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Not paying for software will ultimately kill the industry&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Why will programmers continue to contribute code if they can&#8217;t make money from it?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Even Open Source development involves effort, so there has to be payment for that effort&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Are Open Source programmers writing themselves out of their jobs?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;But free isn&#8217;t natural. There&#8217;s no such thing as a free lunch.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Is software a commodity?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Who will invest in software development if it doesn&#8217;t yield a return?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Open Source may have a niche, but proprietary commercial products will continue to rule&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Customers will never trust something that is free&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Open Source may release value, but it doesn&#8217;t create value&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For those who would like even more detailed reading, I recommend David Wheeler&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dwheeler.com\/oss_fs_why.html#fears\">Why Open Source Software? Look at the numbers!<\/a>&#8220;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently, a genuinely concerned coworker expressed concern that &#8220;not paying for software [may] ultimately kill the industry&#8221; because it encourages people expect something for nothing. For those who would like this and other common concerns about open software answered, I recommend reading Open Source-onomics. Here&#8217;s a list of concerns it addresses: &#8220;Open Source is not &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/is-open-source-software-sustainable\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Is open source software sustainable?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","category-programming","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaredrobinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}