Open Source Shareware - can it work?

ricardo · Post by **ricardo** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:22 am

To be honest, i see more moral implications in things like open source, etc. (Usually the sell some strange 'romatic' idea about freedom and that kind of teenager stuff to get thousand of coders work for free, but the guys on the top are making big bucks, be sure of it. Its just another business model, just a business. not any "Robin Hood's fight for the freedom", thats a lie in my point of view).

pdwyer · Post by **pdwyer** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 7:15 am

Open source is like a virtual Kibbutz to some it seems

PB · Post by PB » Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:09 am

> Not even when Olivia Munn is on!!!

You know I had to look her up in Google now, don't you?

Kaeru Gaman · Post by **Kaeru Gaman** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:44 pm

me too... never heard of her...

Rook Zimbabwe · Post by **Rook Zimbabwe** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 3:41 pm

I feel for you guys... no G4TV??? I could not live without G4TV... Ninja Warrior, Attack of the Show, Ultimate Banzuke, sometimes XPlay... Great Stuff...

As far as the Open Sores business model. Yep... I tend to agree that the people on the top are making money. Because their apps are for high end business and most corps won't hire programmers unless they are dirt cheap and fresh out of college... So they pay people to support Linux and the special programs written for their corporations!

In the end, it is all about who gets paid!

Kaeru Gaman · Post by **Kaeru Gaman** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:03 pm

Rook Zimbabwe wrote:I feel for you guys... no G4TV?

I live in Germany, this is in Europe.
we already have too much American productions on our german TV-channels.
I'm glad we don't have American TV-channels.....

ricardo · Post by **ricardo** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:05 pm

Kaeru Gaman wrote:
Rook Zimbabwe wrote:I feel for you guys... no G4TV?
I live in Germany, this is in Europe.
we already have too much American productions on our german TV-channels.
I'm glad we don't have American TV-channels.....

I have one German TV Channel here in Argentina (DW), so looks like its a revanche? he he

Kaeru Gaman · Post by **Kaeru Gaman** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:07 pm

ah... sorry Ricardo.
when I say "American" I mean "US"...
to the others I would say Argentinian, Brasil, Canadian, whatever...

in Germany, when we say "Amis", we mean US, no others...

Foz · Post by **Foz** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:50 pm

Business software and programmers is a funny thing.

A business will only pay peanuts (or half peanuts) for their own programmers to build the custom software for them. And they hate shelling out on anything that the programmer needs.

On the flip side, if you are SELLING them software, and you are charging an extortionate amount (I mean over $200,000 for a simple bit of software) then the same business will gladly pay for it and force everyone to use it, even if it's actually a pile of steaming dog turd.

But that's business

ricardo · Post by **ricardo** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 5:12 pm

Kaeru Gaman wrote:ah... sorry Ricardo.
when I say "American" I mean "US"...
to the others I would say Argentinian, Brasil, Canadian, whatever...

in Germany, when we say "Amis", we mean US, no others...

Yes i know.
However, what i was telling you is that now we are reciving some channels from europe in the TV in the past years, so, maybe its time of the revenge he he

veganisafreak · Post by **veganisafreak** » Mon Jun 23, 2008 6:05 pm

Okay I've thought about everyone's replies and I think I'm going to go with ordinary shareware, and perhaps selling the source code on top of that. Now I just have to write the thing.

I might give away my asteroids game if I can find the time to convert it to PB (BB2D has Data Execution Prevention problems, ie it suffers from software rot). I'd just love to give something back to the community.

BTW, I'm not going to apologise for my questioning the ethics of closed source. It's always good to question the widely accepted way of doing things.