Open Source, Closed Documentation? 605
sunset asks: "Recently I was motivated to look at WebGUI which looks like a pretty cool open source project. However I was having trouble making it work with Red Hat 8.0 which includes Apache 2.0. This seems like a reasonable thing to want, as Red Hat 8 has been out since September and Apache 2 has been publicly released for close to a year. Checking the WebGUI community discussion forum, I found that
someone else had already inquired about this. Following the rest of the thread, you learn that the product's vendor considers this information to be proprietary, and that you must pay $50 to join their Support Forum to get the information. It gets better. The associated Membership Agreement for the Support Forum includes the clause 'You shall not to share [sic] the information contained herein with any other party.' So if I join up, I am locked out of sharing valuable information with the open source community about how to install this open source product. In the end I found out what I needed to know without giving up my rights or my hard-earned bucks, but frankly this attitude from the vendor pisses me off. Am I alone in this? What do you think?"
Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Write a HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where's the motivation for Open Source? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd hate to state the obvious, but if you want to make the opensource community attractive... there needs to be money involved somehow.
RedHat charges for support, some charge for documentation. Aside from the hobbiests out there, you expect large companies to throw away time and money into opensource, and getting NOTHING in return by making everything 100% free?
Did you really expect a free lunch? You know the saying I hope
--Zuchini
It bites, but big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
Since it is open source, one could argue that all the documentation you could possibly need is already available to you.. just read the source.
Is it a little underhanded, yes. But there's nothing terribly unethical about it.
Depending on the license of the software (site is already too hosed for me to find it myself), there's nothing stopping you from forking your own branch of the source, documenting that, and continue on your merry way.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Spoiled much? (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quoting Sarah from the list:
Of course, selling the manual is a completely different matter. What they're doing isn't selling the manual; they're selling the manual and then telling you that you can't share the information.
These guys are shooting themselves in the foot. The main strength of open-source software is that open source empowers the user community. By segmenting the user community into those who pay vs. those who don't, one hobbles a large segment of the user community. It doesn't help, either, that someone publicized their behavior on Slashdot.
I certainly hope they "get it," sharpish.
How is this new? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perl works on a similar model. Larry Wall gets paid by O'Reilly & Assoc. to maintain perl. He adds new features, releases the code for free, and everyone's happy. The only stipulation is that O'Reilly gets first crack at the new documentation for their Perl books. I own several O'Reilly books and they're worth their weight in gold. I'm also happy to know that by purchasing these books, I'm supporting OSS coders.
NO IT ISN'T!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Their response is "Figure it out yourself or give us $50 for the manual. We GAVE you the damn car for FREE!"
Ask Slashdot has become a bitch forum (Score:5, Insightful)
This really is a shame, because the idea of Ask Slashdot is very valuable. Editors simply should not let articles that are not *questions* through. Articles that contain one long string of complaints about someone followed by a random "question" tacked on the end to make it fit the format do not count.
Re:It bites, but big deal. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, they have a reasonable expectation to try to make a profit. Nobody gets paid just because they invented something.
I know its a nitpic, but that belief is why corporations believe they can sue you, if you come up with a different way to do the same thing, and people by your product instad of theirs.
Re:Silly goose (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
considering the only way for them to make money is to charge for support, this makes sense to me
Even so, a lot of open-source stuff has *really* sucky documentation.
Case in point: cdrdao. Burning an audio CD over the holidays became a horrible and frustrating exercise. Fired up KonCD. Wouldn't do an audio CD because I didn't have cdrdao. Downloaded and installed cdrdao, then tried again: "Error: could not map /dev/scd0 to an SG device."
To this day, that error message remains a mystery, and the cdrdao website [sourceforge.net] provides a reference section somewhat less useful than trying to run KDE on a Pentium II. cdrecord finds the CD-RW drive and burns to it happily, there are no problems with the hardware configuration. Couldn't find any explanations of the possible causes of that problem on an otherwise happy system.
Installed arson. Well, arson didn't work at all, because it was passing "--device" to cdrdao, instead of the correct "--device 0,0,0".
Finally, late at night on the 24th and planning on slapping a couple of custom CDs of old family memories under the Christmas tree, I burned the CD manually using cdrdao and a toc file which I wrote myself. It's all well and good that I can do that, but most users would never be able to, nor should it be expected.
Moral of the story: The only thing which sucks more than the documentation is the graphical front-ends.
Hence my continued conjecture that Linux isn't ready for the desktop [glowingplate.com].
WebGUI.nl provides open support for it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spoiled much? (Score:2, Insightful)
Paying for support is fine. Paying for a manual is fine (even in electronic form). But, having to sign away your rights to share your knowledge with other users is an entirely different matter.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with them charging for support as such but I think they're going a little too far. It seems to me that if they want $$$ for support, it would be in their best interest to have their software installed on as many systems as possible. Charging for simple installation support is a good way to keep that from happening. It sounds like they're shooting themselves in the feet with their policy.
Most vendors will at least give simple installation assistance or allow it to be given by someone else. I'd be happy with seeing a list of "here's how to install it on _______" instructions and having to pay for anything more involved than that.
Re:They don't get it. (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem is... (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest problem with open source as I see it is an entitlement mentality that just because someone wrote something cool, I should be able to use it for free. Being a developer that owns my own company, I have found this amazing realization that I need food. It's really a good thing. And to get food, I need money. Therefore I exercise my rights under the laws of this country to charge people to use my hard work to make their lives easier, and send me money so I can eat dinner. It's really quite a convinent arragement that has worked for quite a while.
I find that these guys have struck on something ingeneous, and have actually been reading the reports on the practical problems of Open Source software in the marketplace. The biggest problem is support. You need to have a team of experts on staff to deal with it, because M$ won't come out and fix it for you. This is really expensive from a resource point of view, because you then have to cover the HR costs of these people even when they're sitting idle, because you will need them in a pinch. Dumb arrangement. Therefore charging for support is absolutely ingeneous, and is a great model, I think. INCLUDING the documentation. We happen to give away ours for free, and charge for licensing in commercial products. We are looking at a QT type dual-license model so that we can stay in buisness. For all their detractors, I want everyone to notice that they are still in buisness. And important point since if you're laying cable with a bunch of Mexicans, you find yourself too tired to program.
Software is inherently expensive to produce. Open source has been subsidised through tax dollars via the university system (student loans, grants, etc). Before you bitch about people having to pay for software, why don't you think about the fact that people who don't have crap to do with Linux, etc, had to pay for it's construction...
Re:I do not see the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
"They do however refuse to give you free support, unless you cough up some money - which makes perfectly sense to me."
The problem, as others have pointed out is NOT that they sell the manuals. It is that they forbid you to pass on information that you obtained from the manuals.
RMS started the GNU project because NDAs on software made it impossible to "help one's neighbour." NDAs on documentation, Gawd help us, are no different, so this is certainly contrary to the spirit of free software.
Once again, not because of sold documentation, but because of the NDA attached to it.
-Gareth
Re:Free Software needs Free Documentation (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps the next book he releases will be available as a free download, then. Or perhaps not.
It's painfully obvious that "free" and "open" are terms better applied to other people, especially when you're trying to pay the bills.
Or you happen to be comfortably funded by MIT.
Come on (Score:3, Insightful)
Not everything can be free... if you think it can, then write it all yourself. And, no, writing a text editor in PHP/MySQL (apparently the preferred combination for *any* programming project on Slashdot) will not work. (Before you flame, I am certain that such a beast exists, although it does seem a bit ridiculous to me). Do you realize that corporations are doing you a *favor* when they release products under an OSS model? Do you realize the huge amounts of money it takes for a commercial entity to create quality software? Do you realize what a fight it is to get something open sourced in a corporation?
Please don't take all of this for granted. Corporations are there to make money (hell, *people* are here to make money) and they have a right to do so.
Open source != open everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maintenance is, after all, 80% of cost. (Score:2, Insightful)
I briefly looked over the link, and it did seem that installation problems also required the fee (but I could have very easily overlooked something). If installation support can only be obtained with a fee, then this is just not good buisiness...for the company or customers. However, if it is *just* for support after installation, this is good business practice for the company. If the customers like program, they will pay to fix it if/when it has an issue, while simultaniously dramatically reducing that %80 cost percentage for the business.
IMHO, it should be free code, and pay for all support, other then installation support, if you need it. It's one of the few ways a company can make any money with open-source.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a crude NDA (Score:4, Insightful)
Certainly you're not allowed to make photocopies of O'Reilly books and hand those out to others, but you aren't prohibited from sharing the information within. The expression is protected, the information is not. If I ask you a perl question, you're allowed to look up the answer in your O'Reilly book and answer me. If you ask me the plot of a movie I've seen, I'm allowed to tell you even if you haven't paid to see the movie.
In this case, the
sounds pretty far out, almost NDA-like.An NDA for information about an "open source" project, is something I haven't heard of before.
They make money via support. (Score:1, Insightful)
The ideal business model (correct compromise between consumer needs/rights and corporate profit-making) would be to charge for packaged or subscription software -- enough to make profits -- but to also include the source code for the product, and to make all the tech support for it entirely free.
Then craft a license which states that the customer has the right to modify the source code for their own personal bugfixing and use, but that they cannot redistribute the full modified source or modified binaries (diffs are okay, for the sake of sharing improvements with people quickly). That way you (the company) reserve that right and can continue to make profits from it.
In the US, You Can't Sign Away Your Basic Rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Fork It (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about best practices or business plans or anything like that...it's a guy who got software for no cost whining because the vendor has copyrighted the documentation and charges for support.
P.S. My answer then will be the same as it is now..."If you don't know how to use your FREE software, pay someone who can teach you. Don't whine."
The difference is the license. (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than going with the standard copyright protection (you can't distribute the docs yourself), they've gone with a much more restrictive NDA-like approach of "you can't talk about the things in the document"
In almost every other case involving this kind of agreement, I've felt that this has a chilling effect on the community, and is nearly unenforceable. How much did I know before I bought the manual? How far I can I go telling my current employer (esp. if I'm contractor) about the configuration?
This grey area tends to set up an area for "selective enforcement", also known as abuse.
I'm not saying these particular folks will do that, just that that's what these kind of agreements lead towards.
$.02
-Zipwow
As I understand the article the complaint. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I agree.
This is like O'Reilly saying, " You can't divulge any of the information in this book."
I'm sorry, but as my granny used to say, " Fuck that shit!"
Give a man a fish and you feed him for day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Teach him to fish but make him sign an NDA first and, well, you're a shit head.
As it happens I've taught people to fish, for money. I assume some of those people have taught other people to fish, perhaps for money. Well, I *got* my money for what *I did.* They are getting money for what *they* did. The idea that I could forbid them from doing this is ludicrous.
What if a university did this? "Yeah, we'll teach you Java, but don't you dare think that means you can make money by teaching it yourself afterwards."
KFG
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hi. I'm an artist. I want to use Gimp. I can't read its source code. Your attitude sucks.
It's one thing to sell information on technique, it's another to render it unusable until the documentation is purchased. It's counter-productive if the people who use it can't or won't improve it if they lose interest.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Letter of the law... agreement...etc... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have to definitely agree with the charging of the fee for support.
That company has made the source freely available to those who would use it. They work on it and improve it, fixing bugs as necessary. But the support itself costs money. If they were just another open source coder, then I'm sure they'd more than happily help you for free and maybe a thanks. But they are a company and they are charging support fees.
This is definitely within their right to do so in both the spirit and letter of open source. Though whether or not it agrees with different peoples' versions and understandings of open source is another matter.
As for documentation, what kind of documentation is being referred to? A help file? A Howto? Or a custom tailored document to help the user?
As for the having people basically sign a NDA to not disclose how they were shown to perform the install, that is something which is beyond the scope of "open source".
The reasoning is that open source covers the accessibility of the source code by the masses in a way which the masses can understand. If the code is beyond the means of the masses to understand, assuming it has not been obfuscated, then they require support to assist them with getting the code/app to work with their system. This help is billable and could very well be restricted information. Not from a security standpoint, but from a commodity standpoint. Ie, it is the model upon which their business is based.
One can think of it as buying software which comes with basic instructions which works for some, but doesn't for others. You can always pay more to obtain support and/or documents to better assist you, but you are not allowed to copy that document since it is copyrighted and is essentially the incentive for people to purchase support.
So I would agree with your assessment with the contractor example.
Some might point out that RedHat/etc are charging for support as well in a similar manner. Though I do not know if they are having people NDA'd.
Take with big whopping grains of salt for IANAL.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
OK. Give me all your art for free. You must also provide step-by-step instructions on how you created the art. You must also provide information on what the art did for you and what the art should do for me. If you ever have a show in an art gallery, I should be able to video tape it and give away the videos, even if you charged for admission. Anything that you I can conceive of that you can produce, you MUST provide for free.
THAT attitude sucks. It's tantamount to slavery - that's kind of a loaded word in the USA, but I don't know what else to call it when you want to mandate what someone produces and you don't want to pay them.
If you can't read source code, I'll bet you can pay someone else to read it for you. Or perhaps they'd take some custom art in exchange. That's the cool thing about a market economy.
Re:I don't see a problem with this (Score:2, Insightful)
The alternatives of paying for support
are:
1) To sell proprietary product, which is
worse.
2) To go out of business (essentially to have no product at all).
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Case in point: cdrdao. Burning an audio CD over the holidays became a horrible and frustrating exercise. Fired up KonCD. Wouldn't do an audio CD because I didn't have cdrdao. Downloaded and installed cdrdao, then tried again: "Error: could not map
You're not a coder right? (Wild guess.) Then join the project, volunteer to work on the docs, since you have freshly in your mind a clear picture of exactly what's wrong with them and how they should be fixed. Or, if you simply can't figure it out, you can ask on the development list and add the answers to the new docs you're writing.
Too many people get the idea that open source is written by a bunch of fairy godmothers who just like giving things away. Wrong. Open source programmers do it for their own benefit, satisfaction or whatever, or they do it for money. Instead of whining, try offering some of the latter, there are plenty of good people who would be willing to give you excellent value for it.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummmm, excuse me, but if you're a contractor, and I hire you to write something, that's a work for hire. Unless we both agree that I cannot disseminate the stuff that I paid for, it's *mine*.
Yes, you put that bit in your contract, and that's ok. It means that we both agreed to it. However, *I* would never hire *you*, with that in the contract. I wish you well - and when I see you on the corner, holding a piece of cardboard looking for spare change, I'll just smile and walk on. If *I* hire somebody to do something for me, I sure as heck will own it afterwards, and I'll be able to do with it what I want.
As for the "free software, paid documentation", I'd suggest actually *reading* the source code, and writing your own documentation for it. Then you can freely disseminate *that*, and laugh at trhe silly people who are trying to shake users down for the documentation. But then, that's just me, being obnoxious
Everyone PLEASE note this thread (Score:5, Insightful)
If we all spent a little more time helping each other out - JUST LIKE THIS - and a little less time snickering and saying "Can't get it to work? I could. You must be a dumbass", the community would be a LOT healthier.
I don't know how many Linux IRC channels I've been in that practically have a 'You must be this ->XXXXX- arrogant to get in' bar on the front door.
To both of you: Thanks for providing a wonderful example of EXACTLY what this community is supposed to be about.
A loophole in GNU GPL (Score:3, Insightful)
Its clear that there are a few holes in the GPL and I think it might be time to make changes. The GPL was intended so that developed software could be used by a wide group of people and compaines. Recent laws (such as DMCA) have restriced some of the rights that were implied when the current version of the software was written. One of thouse is the right to reverse engineer the code which accroding to my IP lawyers, is now illegal even if you have source code unless you get premission. Another hole is the NDA type agreements and those are related to some of the hiding behind trade secret laws. The GPL needs to address all of these and it needs to soon before some developer gets nailed. For example if I develop something for KDE and I steal the idea out of Gnome, its quite possible for the author of that part to sue (and win) under current US tradesecret or DMCA law even though Gnome is GPLed and its license was written with the intent of having its bits reused elsewhere.
Let's say you've just bought a device. Say a NBX100 from 3com. Now how do you know if its running GNU software or not? If they hide the copyright message, you won't know will you? At least they left in one small text message that is very gnu tar specifc. A grep GNU on their exe image shows a positive match as does a grep on "You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License". So far attempts to get the source have not been productive but I did go to great lenghts to get explicit permission to reverse engineer the code from the persons whos name is on the copyright because any attempt to look at the binary code could be a DMCA violation under current law because the GPL doesn't grant that permission.
The GPL needs a anti-NDA and a reverse engeering clause added to it at once.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything. Is the documentation so complete that it could not use a few words from you? Document how to shade, how to install, how to load and save files. Anything at all.
"I'm all for people sharing their ideas on techniques, but basic functionality of a product MUST be documented. "
No it MUST not. What is this some law of physics? It will get documented when people get off their asses and contribute and not one minute before that. Go ahead, learn something the hard way, experiment, cry, curse, spit and when you figure it out DOCUMENT and SHARE.
"it doesn't matter if the price tag is 'free' or not."
What nonsense of course it matters. If it did not matter you would have paid $700.00 for photoshop and would not be bitching about the crappy documentation.
"How can you possibly expect free software to succeed if people can't use it?"
People can use it. You can't but other people can and do.
"That problem alone could kill open source."
What nonsense. Nothing will will open source. As long as there is one programmer writing code there is open source. Do you see the usage of open source products declining from year to year? Is the linux market getting smaller, are less people using gimp every day? Give me a break and think about what you are saying before you speak.
What's the difference between this and a book? (Score:2, Insightful)
The point made by sendmail is that they need a way to support development. People who are not willing to develop should pay those who are. I suppose the question is: "where does it stop?" Should the product be unusable without the paid for help. Maybe that's a spot where it would be good to establish some open source standards of minimal usability that is expected without pay.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
No. You don't. It's FREE software. "Free" means that it doesn't take rights away from the user, and it doesn't impose additional rights on the developer. What else would you think "free" meant?
If everybody makes an obscure interface for their app just so they can make a few bucks on a manual, then who's going to adopt it?
THEN USE SOMETHING ELSE!!!!!!!
It's NOT 'to share information' (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny - I always thought the whole idea was to share source code.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't agree with their license terms for the documentation, then suggest an alternative method for the license that still allows them to keep a revenue stream. Don't just advocate the disruption by someone that most probably has nothing to do with development and makes no contribution to the maintenence of the source. That sounds completely hypocritical and goes against the most suggested opensource business model I have heard of over the last 8 years ( give away the source and make money on the support).
Formal Response (Score:1, Insightful)
There are more examples for this (Score:2, Insightful)
it is not just WebGUI. There is more free software
that follows the "free source - payed documentation" scheme:
- jBoss is a free application server. However it is
hardly usable without the documentation which is
not free.
There is a free documentation project, but it
is available only for outdated versions.
- Blender is a great piece of free software but
trying to work with it without documentation is
a pure waste of time.
(However, I am not sure whether this is a
business model in this particular case.)
- OpenGL and other libraries are open to use but
require documentation in order to be used.
(Here You have to buy the book.)
- gcc is free. Learning C without a book or
teacher is nearly impossible.
What I want to tell You with this examples is:
- Not everything which is for free to get can
also be used for free.
- It is not a bad thing [TM] to give away the
source and keep back the docs.
However, if You do so, You should make clear
that You have to buy the documentation to
use the product.
- You have no right for free documentation.
(hard, but true)
- Any documentation which is not part of the
free product can be distributed with a separate
license. Therefore, it seems OK to me that
there is a nda for a installation guide.
- If it is really important, someone will figure
out the needed information and distribute it
for free.
However, stating that a product is completely
free to _use_ should include a free and good
documentation for the product.
Providing commercial support is another story...
Greetings,
peer review (Score:3, Insightful)
Learning how to use that source is what they are charging for. Since it {the documentation} is distributed as a separate item, it can have whatever license/restriction that they want for it since they wrote it. SInce it is clearly stated, I have no real problem with that.