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Linux Software

How Do You Sell Linux Software? 112

Posted by Cliff from the finding-your-market dept.
smelroy asks: "My software company recently released a Linux port of our business instant messaging product, but we are not sure of the best way to sell it, since to many people selling Linux software is an oxymoron. Users on each end of the computer knowledge spectrum associate any and everything Linux with free. Even when we tried to get people to beta test it for us they said, 'It runs on Linux so why isn't it free?' Another comment from a reporter in response to our telling him of our Linux release was 'So it is open source then right?' So my question to the Slashdot community is when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop that people will pay for applications and not always assume they are free? Better yet, where are the people who feel that way now?"
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How Do You Sell Linux Software? More

How Do You Sell Linux Software?

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  • Marketing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cuyler ( 444961 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMtheedgeofoblivion.com> on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @08:45AM (#4650047)
    A good marketing technique would be getting your company's product posted to the front page of slashdot...
    • What I think you should do, is release it for free for personal use (and if it's a good program, many people will (hopefully) start using it, they find bugs, you solve them -> you get a better and more stable program, wich the industry will notice) Companies however would have to pay a licence (and since they are your intended clients, you wouldn't loose money from the free personal version anyway) This is imho how software SHOULD be sold... We can't buy eg maya, photoshop,...(making people use illegal software) but the industry can...

  • Aha (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Outland Traveller ( 12138 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @08:55AM (#4650073)
    Maybe the problem is that the world doesn't need yet another proprietary instant messaging platform.

    No offense, but IM is infrastructure that should be under control of a standards body, or at the very least open source and distributed, not jealously guarded by a bunch of companies each with their own extremely evil EULA.

    Perhaps your customers rightly recognize this state of affairs. I know I do, and that's why I prefer Jabber for IM.

    I and the people I work with purchase all kinds of linux software, from development tools to high-end graphics applications, to games. Perhaps your problem isn't linux, it's your product.

    • Re:Aha (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The world could use another IM system, or in other words: The world could use one working open IM system. What do we have now? There are ICQ/AIM, MSN-Messenger and Yahoo-IM on the proprietary side and Jabber on the open source side. The commercial systems work, but they are not interoperable and you can't have your own private IM-system on a detached network (desirable because of reliability and security considerations). Jabber on the other hand has yet to be scaled to publically usable proportions and is far from being considered "acceptable for mission critical applications". While I would certainly like to see one unified system which meets the requirements of a public system and a company-wide closed system alike, I realize that there is a market for a controlled IM-system which is independant of an internet service. I doubt that the advertised system could be that system, but I wouldn't dismiss this business idea so fast. The window of opportunity is probably very small though and the manpower which Microsoft and AOL can put into this to catch up or jump in before you makes it look like quite a gamble.

      • Re:Aha (Score:4, Insightful)

        by JabberWokky ( 19442 ) <slashdot.com@timewarp.org> on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @01:25PM (#4651891) Homepage Journal
        I dunno - some pretty damn big names have thrown in with Jabber. IBM and Oracle sell their own implementations (non-open source but open-protocoled) to multi-national corporations, and they (IBM, Oracle and their customers) are rumored to know a thing or two about scalable enterprise level software. Some of the big cell phone companies use Jabber as their back end protocol for text messaging services. Washington DC is using it as the backbone for their emergency communications system...

        You also seem to have a common misconception. Jabber is not just an IM protocol, but rather a complete protocol for the routing of arbratrary data across networks and through various gateways and firewalls. The IM protocol is just an example of what can be done with it.

        I'd say it's considered "acceptable for mission critical applications" - simply because major companies with the funds to pick and choose messaging systems are already choosing it. Sure, it's not a popular download on the internet among teens and twentysomethings, but to extrapolate its usability from the fact that it's not 'hip' is a ludicrious act.

        --
        Evan

    • Re:Aha (Score:2, Insightful)

      by XiC ( 207670 )
      Uuuuuhm Jabber uses a open protocol, the application can still be proprietary work.
      So this ain't a answer to his question, and making money by working on software isn't an evil thing to do.
      Maybe they have build an messenger based on Jabber and did some work on the Open Jabber Deamon thingy....
    • ...first read "The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary [oreilly.com]" by Eric S. Raymond. There's also an online version [tuxedo.org], but I urge you to buy a paper one [oreilly.com], becuase it's really a great book, and you seem to be exactly the kind of person who needs to read it. (Of course, I'm talking to smelroy, the original poster of "How Do You Sell Linux Software?" question.)

  • What? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @08:57AM (#4650083)
    ...You want free advice?

  • Never (Score:4, Interesting)

    by phaze3000 ( 204500 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @09:02AM (#4650100) Homepage

    So my question to the Slashdot community is when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop that people will pay for applications and not always assume they are free?

    Hopefully never - when people use GNU/Linux they will realise that Free software is better for a whole host of reasons. Once they've had their eyes opened to this, then using closed-source proprietary software becomes a much less appealing proposition.

    • Re:Never (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Oh please. First, closed-source does not have to be "payware" and open-source does not have to be free (as in beer). Second, there are many application fields where open-source and freeware still have a long way to go before they even catch up with the commercial software world. Paying for software does have its place. For example, just because you can get by with GIMP doesn't mean Photoshop isn't more cost-effective in a business situation. In some fields, open source is at a significant advantage, most notably security/encryption, but generalizing that to all applications is simply wrong.
      • When did I mention anything about cost?

        People aren't going to want a closed-source product because they've realised that Free software is inherently better. The cost really doesn't enter into it - as you rightly point out, cost-effectivness is a much bigger issue.

        • What "people" have realized "Free Software" - which is not the same as Open Source software because as it has been pointed out there are Open Source projects out there that are not free - is better than closed source (which again does not necessarily have to cost; or cost a lot)? Have you walked into Staples or Software, Etc. lately?
        • People aren't going to want a closed-source product because they've realised that Free software is inherently better.

          Oh FFS, take off the clown glasses and take a look at the real world.

          There's a reason people use Photoshop over The GIMP, Macromedia Dreamweaver over emacs/vi/pico, etc. They're superior products.
          • Is that the same reason they use Windows over Linux? Or Outlook over KMail? Or IE over Mozilla? Whether software is Free or proprietary has no impact on its overall quality-- except that proprietary software almost certainly has less possibility to become higher quality unless its owners make it so. Almost every example you can name of a successful proprietary package has two things a corresponding Free package won't: 1) unified support for proprietary protocols (things like device drivers, etc), 2) maturity-- most Free Software packages just haven't been around that long. Give them time (and a similar budget-- yes, we must pay programmers to write Free code) and they'll get there. Then we'll have good software and freedom.

            • Re:Never (Score:3, Interesting)

              by ceejayoz ( 567949 )
              You've just proven my point. The original posting stated that "Free" software is "inherently better" - which is untrue - as you say, Whether software is Free or proprietary has no impact on its overall quality.

              p.s. some people use Windows over Linux because it's more practical - I've used both and find Linux's UI to be irritating. It has vast potential, but Gnome/KDE need to put some money into UI testing.

              p.p.s. I prefer Outlook over KMail, but Mozilla over IE. I'll use the best tool for the job at hand, whether it's proprietary or "Free".
              • And my point was that you are unfairly dinging Free software for a quality problem which is mostly related to the maturity of the package in question. If you had the same level of investment, maturity, etc, the Free package would be inherently better because it is Free.

    • Re:Never (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zeugma-amp ( 139862 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @09:17AM (#4650156) Homepage

      I use Linux at home exclusively and as much as I am able to at work, but I don't have any problem with paying for a product that performs well and is well engineered.

      Given the nature of the way things work in the Linux world though, If you are trying to sell me a product that already exists in open form, it had better be much better designed or supported than open source alternatives. It had better have good documentation too, or I'll just puzzle through the piss-poor excuse for documentation that comes with many (if not most) open source projects instead.

    • I think that I'd have to support this obvious idiocy. Yes, blah blah gnu blah, free software blah. But guess what? That's what Linux users expect. And if they don't get it they'll develop something or extend something that exists into what you offer. They're that sort of folk.

      So though I disagree, he's right. You won't be able to *sell* your packages traditionally.

      Whatever you release should benefit the community as a whole, or at a minimum won't ensure vendor lockin by providing an client accessible and extensible codebase.

      On the other hand, if you're able to sell IM infrastructure and implementation to a client, that plus services like on-demand improvements, etc, and all a service contract can offer might ensure good revenue.

      Basically if you're providing ongoing services you'll get ongoing revenue. If you don't, well, they'll render you irrevelent. That's the GNU way.
    • Hopefully never - when people use GNU/Linux they will realise that Free software is better for a whole host of reasons.

      I'm sure you enjoy the odd game, right? Did you ever buy one of Loki's games? Did you pirate them?

      Loki failed because although they released good software, and the Linux community loved them, no-one actually bought anything from them. We all love free software, but please don't forget that companies can't produce software for free.

      Proprietary and non-free software have their places in the computer industry just as much as free software does. I can't comment on the specific software the question is about, because I don't know it, but if a company wants to sell software they've written, there should not be (barring licence considerations) any reason why they shouldn't be able to, nor why they shouldn't be taken seriously for trying.

  • Perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by moonboy ( 2512 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @09:02AM (#4650101)


    Perhaps you could release a scaled down version of the product for free to help garner interest and produce another version with more bells and whistles for sale. Also, I think the traditional model for making money off of "free" software is to charge money for support and services associated with implementing, running and maintaining it.

    Just my 2 cents. :-)

  • ...should listen to these other guys. FREE BEER! Whoo-hoo!

    In all seriousness, I do agree with the poster about how there are so many IM standards that it's getting stupid now. But I disagree with them telling you that it should be open source. Not everything for Linux needs to be Open Source, because not everything for Linux requires an active group of people to fix it. There's a concept of responsibility/consequences that should go into effect. If you don't want to release the source, then fine. But you'd have to realize that many users will grumble about it, because many users are assholes.

  • People will buy software.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @09:23AM (#4650177)
    If there is a compelling reason to do so. Lots of people have bought programs like Oracle or VMWare for Linux.

    Expecting to sell an instant messenger to anyone is a different story. You have low-to-no cost competition from Lotus, Microsoft Exchange and Jabber.

    Instant messenging is a mature product that has already begun to consolidate into a few big players.
    • Lots of people [netcraft.com] have bought Zeus [zeus.co.uk] too, even with open-source free alternatives like Apache.
    • My department currently has bought Real (now Helix) Server, SPSS Web Server, VMWare, and a course content delivery system (mainly for the course content), all running on Linux. If you make a product that is better that free alternatives, those that need that improvement will buy the software.

      Helix server is an excellent example of Linux software sellling, from a user stand point. I can stream all 3 major media types (Real, QT, and WMF) from one server, with one set of accounts, one set up issues, etc. and it's worth it to us for that alone.

      Do somethig unique (as the parent has said) and it will sell, same as in any other field.

      Linux games have sold - UT, Quake, as you're paying for something unique.

      Cross platform is good to, as is lets those of us who like a product pick what we want to run it on. I hate finding a product is Windows only, as it means I most likely have to find yet another machine, with yet another OS license to run it on, instead of just putting it on our load balancing linux cluster.
    • I have a collection of (closed source) Linux games. I buy them because there are no reasonable open-source equivalents, and I like to have them. Quake 3, Alien Crossfire, Jagged Alliance 2...

      However, I heavily weight open source into my decisions. If there is *any* open source version (and free as in beer is also a factor), I'm far more likely to get the open source than the closed source version. Sorry, but I've had enough issues with the damn HZ and clock ticks breaking timing on closed source games with my redefined HZ in 2.4 and the new 2.5 HZ value (which, BTW, apparently breaks just about *all* old closed-source Linux games).

      Linux is simply not particularly accessable to closed source, and there's a strong culture around open source. You can try to see your product, but remember that when Acme Software comes along pimping their roughly equivalent open source product, you may be up shit creek...

  • How Do You Sell Linux Software? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Iamthefallen ( 523816 ) <Gmail name: Iamthefallen> on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @09:24AM (#4650184) Homepage Journal

    Make Good Linux Software?

    Do I prefer to pay money for good software rather than use some buggy unsupported hack? Hell yeah.
    Problem is, there's a lot of good, free, open source software for Linux. If you want to sell something to that crowd, it better be damn good.


    • it better be damn good.

      Yes, indeed.

      As others have said, you have to demonstrate, to your market, some genuine value added for your product. (OK, sometimes you can get away with perceived value added, but you'd better sell the business not too far down the road.)

      An excellent product is a good start, but is insufficient to guarantee business success.

      Admit to your limits of expertise: go out and pay for some good marketing expertise.

      Ideally, you would have surveyed the marketplace prior to developing your product. You would have a much better idea who it is exactly that would buy your product. If it's techno Linux geeks in mid-level IT, then you'd find out what they read and what pushes their buttons. If it's people like yourself, then you have a leg up understanding them. But you also run a higher risk of deluding yourself.

      A friend in business once told me that you need more than just a vague warm and fuzzy feeling about your market. You need to have names and phone numbers of actual people you've talked with about your product and who would be willing to lay down cash to get it if you made it.

  • Server and client Linux (Score:4, Insightful)

    by martin ( 1336 ) <maxsec.gmail@com> on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @09:28AM (#4650202) Journal
    Perhaps is the server AND the client were available for GNU/linux you'd have a better chance.

    Also providing a cut down 'free for ever' version would help get it through the front door.

    ???
  • If you must go for a model where your software needs to help pay for itself, there are a number of incentives you can try. In the windows world, try-ware and shareware are very common and businesses run successfully on that model. (Eg: JASC, ACD Systems.)

    Linux is going to be a tougher nut to crack, even just on licence-religion egangelism alone. That said, a product should sell itself once a user gets to try it and likes it enough. That means you should find a way that lets the user try it for free. Trialware would be an interesting concept under Linux, both socially and on a technical level. (There is no safedisc2 or Nullsoft install wrappers to make life for pirates a bit more difficult, assuming you think protection is worth such effort.)

    And for once, this isnt a half-bad Ask Slashdot, in that it exposes liabilities in the Linux marketplace that deserve some attention. Free/Open evangelists on a religious crusade to free all software IMO need to learn tolerance for other models of software creation and dissemination.
    • I'm **waiting** for a way to make money selling Linux-based software to small businesses; especially those that have hardware they do not want to replace yet again and have decided to get out of service agreements with their hardware vendors because they can no longer afford to upgrade all their desktop OSes every three or four years.
      • IMO the key to making money in the Linux Market is a really killer app.

        Marketing dosent work on tech-savvy customers I think, if someone is savvy enough to choose Linux as their desktop OS (with all the advantages and liabilities that brings) then you cant sell them a reinvented wheel.

        I know there is 2 pieces of software i'd love to see for Linux desktops: First, a replacement or api-level emulator for XFree86 that had some speed and got rid of some bloat. Second would be an extensible and configurable file-manager utility with some truly advanced features (no just rehashing crappy Windows concepts) that wasnt irretrievably tied into some huge WM I dont want to run. I'd pay money for *good* software like that on Linux. All IMO of course.
  • As pointed out previously there is already a reasonable market for chargable Linux desktop products VMware workstation [vmware.com] and CodeWeavers CrossOver [codeweavers.com] spring to mind.

    On the sever side the market is much more mature, you can get Oracle on Linux [oracle.com] and DB2 for Linux [ibm.com] if you want a database. For mail and workflow Lotus Domino [lotus.com] is available amongst many others.

    IMHO these are either recognised mature products or fulfill a new and/or unique function. A new IM tool does niether of these.

  • Just because a program is open source, does that necessarily mean it has to be free (as in beer)? Why cant a company sell its source code along with its executables? I am only casually familiar with the GPL, would selling the source code violate the license? I think this could be a valid business model that wouldnt make the zealots angry. Perhaps even distributing the binary and source without a makefile so you can run it fine and also see how the code works, although recompiling and making changes is going to be quite difficult.
    • if it was GPLed, you could not prevent redistribution, even if you did sell the source. open source includes more than just GPL, but stopping redistribution of source code and adding other restrictions seems to conflict with the idea of open source in general.
    • How do you expect to sell the source code to a project and then maintain new releases for whom you sold it to? Outside of keeping your lawyer on the ball; what physical measures do you have in place to prevent them from releasing your source publicly; or selling it themselves?

      I am all for open source - within reason. Infrastructure and server-oriented software - BASELINE, systems functionality frameworks - allow the entire support community to work for the security and 'uptime' we all desire. However, I really don't feel that applications software that you wish to sell or make a profit on should be released in this manner. For example, you have CAD software specific to a chemical manufacturing process. There are only a few thousand facilities in the world that use this software. What, really, is to keep one facility from buying it and then sharing with others? What? I really, really expect a reasonable answer. I know I'm going to get a "EULA" answer, and probably from someone who has previously harshly criticized EULAs.
      • There's always copyright. Just because you give them the source, this doesn't give them the right to sell it, or derivitive works (the executeable)
      • Well the EULA to some extent. I expect the same things that keep closed source software from being released publicly, the fact that it is morally wrong or illegal to do so. I like to believe that we still live in a society where the only reason people do not do things is because they believe they will get caught. I was not asking "why cant we sell open source in a manner that will perfectly prevent abuse," I meant why cant we sell Open Source Software like we do other software that is not under the GPL. Like I said, I am not familiar w/ the details of the GPL, just the general spirit. I guess when I said "open" I really meant something more along the lines of "viewable," but that does bring up issues of changing/improving the source, and whether those changes could be made public or whatever, things which could be worked out (ONE method could be having the company control all changes to the source tree somewhat similar to the way the linux kernel runs). Maybe in that sense the GPL will restrict you too much.
        You should not make assumptions about my views on EULA's. I feel EULA's, like all contracts are fine until they overstep their bounds. Using a EULA to prevent people from taking your program or source and reselling/redistributing it is fine. Using a EULA to give a company permission to see what kind of porn you happen to like and selling this to companies is overstepping their bounds. Using the fact that most people are apathetic to what is in a EULA and using that to a company's advantage is overstepping its bounds. It just seems plausible to me that the source code could stay in an open state while a company can still make money off it.
        • People do sell software with source included, but it is still closed source.

          If you want the code to be open, where anyone can legally use without paying for the source, then you get back to the support and customization business model.
        • I like to believe that we still live in a society where the only reason people do not do things is because they believe they will get caught. Amen to that; and I won't assume your view on anything unless you tell me. It's true that not all of us are apathetic or ignore EULA's - I've helped a few senior engineers word theirs more clearly. I believe that source code could stay in an open state but I'm not sure we have controls in place to allow open software to be adequately sold. I am almost tempted to say the same technology many posters here are vehemently opposed to - like DRM and copy protections - should be something researched as an effective tool to protect without eliminating the opportunity to view the source code.

          Here's a question for y'all, and I hope someone has an adequate answer because I haven't read the GPL or GNU or any other open source license or derivative: if I distribute a PDF file, which is for all intents and purposes uneditable or even for that matter an e-book style version of my source code with my product; does that still make it open source even if the source itself is not immediately editable?

          • Alternatively; what if I strip all the comments and formatting, and rename all the varables to random meaningless sequences? The code will still compile but won't be much help for understanding or improving the program. I looked this up a while back, so I've forgotten where I found it but the answer is apparently 'no'; source code doesn't count if it's been obfuscated or is delivered in some unusable form.

            I'd love to know what the situation would be if anyone ever managed to write a useful program in INTERCAL [wlug.org.nz] and tried to release it under GPL :)

      • Outside of keeping your lawyer on the ball; what physical measures do you have in place to prevent them from releasing your source publicly; or selling it themselves?

        Copyright, and (in the US anyway) punitive damages. Although there are certainly problems with punitive damages, they do make it possible to make an action MUCH more costly than what anyone could hope to gain through that action.

        Additionally, most companies will go to great lengths to avoid being involved in this kind of lawsuit, if for no other reason than the effect it will have on their stock price.

        For example, you have CAD software specific to a chemical manufacturing process. There are only a few thousand facilities in the world that use this software. What, really, is to keep one facility from buying it and then sharing with others?

        Greed? Seriously, lets just look at the situation here:

        "Hey, I know we're competing companies, but I just paid for this great software package that has really increased our productivity, and they gave me the source code to it. I was just wondering if you might be interested in getting it for free?"

        Are you insane?!? Do you have even the slightest clue of how businesses operate? That's never going to happen! And in the rare instances where it might, like if multiple facilities are owned by the same company, having the source or not isn't going to be the deciding factor.

        I know I'm going to get a "EULA" answer, and probably from someone who has previously harshly criticized EULAs.

        And here it is! Regardless of how I feel about it, though, software companies have been doing exactly this for decades, especially in niche markets like the one you describe.

        • Are you insane?!? Do you have even the slightest clue of how businesses operate? That's never going to happen!

          This is very true but I should have said "sell", not share. If I have 40 facilities but only one facility buys; I am pirating/stealing most software if I give everyone a copy without buying the appropriate licenses. On the other hand; is one license or one copy given or sold to me good enough for an open source model inasmuch that I now can give or resell my own copies? I am certain that in this case it is entirely dependent on the license and EULA models. But if it is not "freely distributable" is it still open source? I guess that question should be left to the purists.
    • Distributing source without a makefile won't work. Makefiles are easy to put together.
    • GPL says you can't sell rights to use a GPL'd piece of software. You can sell the software itself, but anyone can make copies of it and sell/give them away on his own. Also, when sold in binary, the source has to be either part of the package or available for free (beer).

      So if it's a small package and easy to download, expect about 10 sold copies (assuming that it's good anyway)

    • First, there are tons of "Open Source" licenses, and not all of them grant rights of redistribution. In fact, the default is that they don't; meaning that if a license doesn't specifically grant rights to distribute, you don't have them.

      Second, the GPL specifically says that you can charge no more than the cost of physical transfer for the source. It also states that you can charge whatever you want for binaries, warranties, or other added value, and that you only have a responsibility to provide source to those you have distributed binaries to.

      While the GPL is not the license I would choose for software I really wanted to make money on, there is certainly nothing in the GPL that precludes making money.

  • 1. Would all the people bashing this guy for wanting to work on YAIM, do so if it was free/open? Nobody seems to complain as much about reinventing the wheel, when the wheel is free, no matter how useless it is.

    2. Would all the people bashing this guy for asking about software models under Linux please realise that the IM thing, though pertinent to the submitter, probably isnt to others who might find discussion on the Linux software market informative. Thats what a forum is for.

    Sheesh. I guess its worth losing a bit of karma to point out hipocracy.

    • > Nobody seems to complain as much about reinventing the wheel, when the wheel is free, no matter how useless it is.

      Hmm, FAQ says not to say 'me too'... But AntipodesTroll is right, aren't we kidding ourselves a bit here? A lot of open source software is basically reverse engineering (albeit often at a fairly high level) of a successful commercial idea that has been developed with corporate money. Open Office may be open, but the development path is largely defined indirectly by MS. Ghostscript is great precisely because, in terms of functionality, it does exactly the same job as a proprietary PS interpreter. And isn't Linux, and, even more so, BSD, essentially a clone of a successful non-MS OS?

      Open source coding may be original, slick, efficient, cool, portable or whatever, but how many of the user-level applications do something genuinely new, how many think outside the (essentially MS but a bit Berkeley-defined) box? Looking around my system, the only candidates that spring to mind are Emacs and Apache :-)

  • Perception of free (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @10:15AM (#4650396)
    Users on each end of the computer knowledge spectrum associate any and everything Linux with free. Even when we tried to get people to beta test it for us they said, 'It runs on Linux so why isn't it free?' Another comment from a reporter in response to our telling him of our Linux release was 'So it is open source then right?

    I think this might be an "urban legend", or perhaps your choice of sample for your researched was biased in some unintentional way. For example, Oracle is available on Linux, and it's very much a pay-for product. Oracle, as far as I know, haven't come under any serious pressure to make the Linux version free (speech or beer) - at least not any freer than it is on any other platform. I don't think anyone seriously expects MATLAB or Houdini or any other serious application to be free on Linux either.

    If you face any expectation of no-cost it's most likely because MSN, ICQ, AIM and all the rest are free. You're better off positioning your product as something other than IM/chat and selling it on what it does that free chat doesn't.
    • But Oracle is seen as a moving target for the PostgreSQL folks, and MySQL as well. And those products fill in all the lower end uses for Oracle. Oracle is forced to keep moving or else the 'free' products will catch up.

      Plain 'selling' software will always run into that problem in a GNU world.

      • Re:Perception of free (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Jason Earl ( 1894 )

        Welcome to the world of software. Many software products that used to command astronomically high prices can now be replaced with commodity Free Software products. In fact, this is what is driving Linux adoption as well. Many companies are finding that they can deploy Linux instead of a commercial operating system and save money, and so that is what they are doing.

        People that are using Linux already are an especially hard sell. After all, once you start using Linux and the wide array of Free Software tools you are very likely to experiment Free Software solutions before paying for commercial ones. For example, instead of buying a proprietary instant messaging service they will almost certainly try Jabber first. For one thing, it is probably easier to "apt-get install jabber" than to purchase and test a commercial product.

        I lurk on the PostgreSQL mailing lists and we get quite a few Oracle deserters, and the reason for this is simple. PostgreSQL has gotten to the point that for most uses it is good enough.

    • Oracle is different.

      People who buy Oracle have typically bought a machine specifically for that purpose. Rather than buying it because it runs on Linux, they'll use Linux because it runs Oracle. They are already considering paying for Oracle before they've even selected an OS.
    • think this might be an "urban legend", or perhaps your choice of sample for your researched was biased in some unintentional way. For example, Oracle is available on Linux, and it's very much a pay-for product. Oracle, as far as I know, haven't come under any serious pressure to make the Linux version free (speech or beer) - at least not any freer than it is on any other platform. I don't think anyone seriously expects MATLAB or Houdini or any other serious application to be free on Linux either.

      While I agree that this guy stands little or no chance because every other IM around is free, says people pay for software like Oracle so they will pay for other software on Linux is a bit misleading. Super high-end business apps like Oracle have always been pay, and businesses will pay for them because they know how good they are. That doesn't translate down to the desktop at all. If you look at the software available for the desktop for Linux, the expectation is very much that it must be free. This is (I believe) one of the things that hinders gaming on Linux, most people who use Linux expect everything that runs on Linux to be free.
  • I for one will ONLY pay for GPL software since that is the only software I OWN after I pay for it.
  • If you face any expectation of no-cost it's most likely because MSN, ICQ, AIM and all the rest are free. No, I face an expectation of 'no cost' because the Linux distro disk they have for their new file server says that the software itself is free and only reasonable costs for media (the CD) and distribution should be paid for; like the days when the guy stood in front of your work's cafeteria with boxes and boxes of $3 software because the program itself was either free or some form of shareware; and often tossed after the first few game levels in many cases.

    I would like to see "time-locked" shareware Linux software releases; and I bet some of the office software will end up like that if [ooooooh, ahhhhh, rays of light and whatnot here] "Linux on the Desktop" ever becomes prevalent. I'd also looove to see a lot of games - particularly MP games so you guys can go to the local LAN party and show off your latest RedHat/Debian box and then frag some of your boys - get ported because it would probably be like porn was to videotape.

    Do I see any of that happening in the near future? Not really, and partly because I think not one of us can take the risk.
    • I'd also looove to see a lot of games - particularly MP games so you guys can go to the local LAN party and show off your latest RedHat/Debian box and then frag some of your boys - get ported because it would probably be like porn was to videotape.

      The only MP game I play that isn't ported to Linux is Counter-Strike, and that's mostly because Halflife is so freaking old that Sierra doesn't see a point in making the port. It still runs just fine on Linux, though.

      But Quake (various versions and derivatives) and Unreal Tournament (and UT2003) are both ported. So was Tribes2.

      If you're not into FPS, I've heard that Civilization and StarCraft both run on Linux. StarCraft isn't ported, but I believe Civ3 is (RTS isn't my thing, so I haven't really payed attention).

      My point is, most of the people I know who actually know Linux (as opposed to just downloading the Mandrake ISOs and trying it out for a week) have been LANing on Linux for over a year without any serious issues.

      I would like to see "time-locked" shareware Linux software releases; and I bet some of the office software will end up like that

      I really don't think that's ever going to happen, at least not in the same sense that it has happened in the MS world. It really doesn't work, for one thing. People don't like time-locked software, it's even more irritating than nag-ware. It's fairly uncommon for people to pay for shareware. Generally they either crack it (if it's time-locked), ignore the nag screen (if it's nag-ware), or go look for another "free" app that fulfills the same need. Feel free to ask some shareware developers if you don't believe me.

      The WineX guys seem to be doing just fine, though. Same with CodeWeavers. Perl (IIRC) has 2 full-time developers supported by donations, and Blender quite likely will also have a couple of donation-supported developers soon. Mandrake's donation thing seems to have worked as well.

  • thresholds (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zogger ( 617870 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @11:11AM (#4650745) Homepage Journal
    --you offer it in different thresholds, and that's about it. Free to hobbyists, support for the payers. Software is worth paying for once it actually works as advertised for the customer, that's the pain threshold, that is usually classed as alpha or beta or full release-stable. Stable that is sold should come with the ability to actually get ahold of a human being in a timely manner for any troubleshooting questions or contracted/requested work on a feature enhancement, etc. Those with their cash transferred to you get their feature enhancements and problems bumped to the top of the line obviously. And the docs NEED to be written (the final draft) by an english major, someone who's task is to stand over the engineers once the coding is finished and it's time to finalize the man pages and docs with a clue by four until everyone is satisfied the docs are understandable and thorough and accurate. A small paragraph where every other word is an acronym is *not* a working doc to anyone except a coder. I've seen that phenomenon way too often with linux programs. Assume people who might be interested in purchasing the full release are not "all" coders, proceed from that point.

    I know I pay for software for BOTH the convenience of having it on a quality made cd and ALSO because I then have a working dead trees manual that doesn't require me burning out my printer. I like the convenience of owning the cd, I like most of the time reading docs from a book, not on a screen. Some do, some don't care, that's just my "paying customiser" opinion. Free is free, a lot of people enjoy downloading constantly and compiling and whatnot, a lot more want the thing to work and be right there and easy to install (or reinstall) and have a reference manual. That's the part worth paying for, and keep the costs reasonable enough. This is like the clueless music/movie sellers. Instead of selling zillions of 5$ cd's, which they could, they make less money trying to sell 20$ cd's. Clue-less morons. It's called getting greedy, only works for a short time, then people do something else, yes?

    Another thought, your program must be useful and functional to a degree at least two steps above whatever else is out there. Not one step, at least two steps better, or don't try to sell it.

    Now that that's out of the way, I think it's better to just make your money admining linux in the commercial arena, then work on your custom coding and app development the same as almost everyone else is, spare time or allocated free time at your employers. The basic concept of "sharing" needs to be drilled into the bean counters heads as the long haul way to cut costs and get "more", but sharing only works if it's two ways. Everyone benfits by shared code, so the company can concentrate on building and selling their widgets. By using open source as the BASE of a company's IT, they save money. By finally bingoing that a little across the board sharing is what's allowing them to save money, perhaps they will cut some slack and allow a little company time to be used for your interesting app. That's the difference between leeching and sharing. Leeching-only as a concept is just not cool, either short term or long term. Your company benefits from open source in general, and they get first dibs on the product, useful for their business, and score brownie points as being a "friendly" and ethical company in the gestalt of society as it were. They develop a "good rep". With todays business climate, public perception is important. People are skeptical of businesses now, with dang good reason-a lot of them are shall we say less than forthright with their numbers and pretty dismal in the ethics department.

    If there's no way to do this and you absolutely need to make your money off of your new application, then it must be customizable to a degree that large companies would pay for the application, it has to have a bona fide usefullness that is unique, perhaps security? That part I don't know, too many variables and wildcards. Usually in software there's the full release, then "release lite" to the non paying hobbyist public, that seems to be what is working now for some people. You offer the customized features for a customized premium in cash.
  • I have always wondered why even with today's massive storage media, vendors still insist on having a seperate package for each platform supported by their product. This is exactly why commercial games on Linux failed. Too few Linux users were willing to pay for software, so hardly any stores were willing to waste the shelf space.

    Your product runs on Linux? Great. Put a penguin on the box and ship it. End of story. Same for OSX, get Steve's permission and put that puffy blue X between Tux and that other OS's logo, and ship it! Don't tell me that massive box isn't big enough for 3 CDs.

    Isn't one of the idioms of user interface design that users should never have to know or care about the implimentation?

    On the other hand, earlier posters are right. What the heck are you smoking? The last thing this world needs is another proprietary IM system.

  • So my question to the Slashdot community is when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop that people will pay for applications and not always assume they are free?

    You seem to miss the whole point of free software.

    I am one of people who will pay for applications and always assume they should be free, by which I mean that they should give me enough freedom -- see The Free Software Definition [gnu.org], What do you mean by Free Software? [debian.org], or The Debian Free Software Guidelines [debian.org] (or The Open Source Definition [opensource.org], which is basically Debian Free Software Guidelines rewritten).

    My question would be: when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop that people will always assume that software should be free?

    Think about it -- the answer will surely be somewhere between your question and mine. If you want to sell proprietary software working under free software operating systems, which exist only because some people have rebelled against proprietary software world, then you will have to find out which of our two questions the answer is closer to.

    Better yet, where are the people who feel that way now?"

    They are probably running Windows or Mac.

    I don't really think people who use totally free software operating systems -- be it GNU/Linux, GNU/Hurd, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc. -- on their desktops, which, mind you, still often means many disadvantages in cooperation with proprietary software world (e.g. Microsoft Office obfuscated documents format), would like to use your proprietary software (which has nothing to do with paying for it), because such a software is exactly what they are trying to be free from.

    I am using only free software today (and I have paid lots of money for some of it) on my servers, as well as on my desktops, and this is how does it look like for me: running Debian GNU/Linux with Apache and mod_perl plus PostgreSQL or MySQL is easy -- as long as it produces HTML, we are compatible with the rest of the world (even Microsoft browsers under Microsoft OS will have no problems at all) -- but using GNU on the desktop can be much more problematic. There are websites which use ActiveX, there are people who send MS Excel or MS Word documents in email (even if it's HTML written by MS Word, when I look at the source code, I don't know if I should laugh or cry), there are people who send different presentations and other data in the form of Microsoft Windows executables, et cetera, et cetera, every day there is some problem.

    So, why do I use free software on my desktop, you may ask me? Because I strongly believe in my freedom, which I value much higher than my convenience.

    This is why I will never use your proprietary software, and this is maybe why some of other people will never use it as well. Of course, I can speak only for myself, but I believe other people, who use exclusively free software desktops, do so because of different reasons than their convenience, as well.

    And this is why I would suggest you targeting proprietary software to people who use proprietary software, which, after all, sounds quite obvious, but this might be exactly your problem here. If you want to target software to me, or to people like me, take a look at GNU Philosophy [gnu.org] and Debian Social Contract [debian.org] to have some idea how do I choose my software. I wish you good luck.

  • Ok, I think we could actually learn something here if we abstract away a bit to talk in general about Linux software. To me, as Linux is UNIX-based, you could probably get away with charging thousands (10s? 100s?) of %currency% for some Enterprise solution, if you kind of sell it as: runs on these UNIXes, including Linux. You're not going to get away with the shrinkwrap model on Linux, as you noticed there's quite a mindset against it.

    Alternatively, you could sell services. That seems to be where most of the money is going to be soon anyhow, and that way you could still get away with giving away (most of?) the code. There are several examples (too lazy to find & list) of companies who are making money (and who have been featured on /.) this way. Sell support, installation, training, and customization services, and you should do well. Then you can get the kids who love to tinker familiar with your product without them breaking any laws (as a few of them actually respect copyright), and they can then get the companies they go to work for to buy what they are familiar with. Probably not going to work in your case, but I think others could benefit from this sort of model. Of course, you could give away the client and then sell "enterprise-class" monitoring software to control how they chat. But then again, that's being done right now anyway.

    I'd suggest circulating your resume. ;-)
  • know the differences between most major licenses, and they know that not everything that runs under Linux is GPL'ed.

    Must agree, though, that there needs to be a larger demand than under proprietary OS'es, especially when there is so much that is free for Linux. I myself, bought a copy of the commercial version of Tuxracer for Linux. So I guess "here" is the answer to where are people like that.
  • Whan was the last time someone brought some windows software, well maybe a few games but seriouly home users never buy software if they can help it, and companies will try to put of buying software for as long as possible.
    Winzip, Textpad, trial software etc...

    (BTW I don't own a single pireted piece of software)
  • Several posts have mentioned the shareware model--lots of small independent programmers use it, and some fraction of them actually make money.

    You can get really useful info online from the Association of Shareware Professionals [asp-shareware.org]. They have lots of tips for developers and distributors.

    I went to one of their annual conferences when I was almost ready to market my little Mac shareware app. It was a lot of fun and very informative, despite the predominance of Windows people. Hmmm, let me reword that. Some of my best friends are Windows people. What I mean is, I learned a lot about things like marketing, security, setting priceing, etc. that are platform-independent.

  • ...and just sell your product as a product that happens to run on Linux as well as other platforms. It can run on other platforms right? Keeping your product limited to just one platform isn't "A Good Idea" in this day and age.

    You really need to think about why anyone would, from a business perspective, bother with your product at all. If the only card you've got is "IM using Linux", then just check out now while you've still got your money. That's not a strong card to play in this market.

  • I actually spend far more on Open Source software than I ever have on Closed Source software. At minimum I buy every other SuSE Pro release (at $80 each), and it's quickly becoming every release as my income increases. Additionally, I'm much more likely to throw down some cash for a game that's ported to Linux, so long as it's at all interesting to me.

    For a Windows-only game, though, it's got to be something that I ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE before I'll even think about buying it, and even then there is some debate before I do. In fact, only 2 games have overcome that barrier since I started using Linux almost 3 years ago: Morrowind and Diablo 2, and I only got D2 because it was on sale.

    Additionally, I have no intention of upgrading beyond Win98SE, and my last bit of pirated software (MS Office 2k) hit the round file in January. The only non-OSS apps I use on Windows are Nero and PowerDVD, both of which were bundled with hardware.

    I know plenty of other people that feel the same way. Unfortunately for you, though, I don't have even the vaguest interest in IM, free, proprietary, or otherwise. But the market does exist, and it's growing. You just need to find some people who are a little more serious about it than those who download a couple of ISOs just so they can say they run Linux.

  • Loki went out of business, but they did sell too. They ended up with a few hundred of my dollars, because I had no problem with buying games. And I know I wasn't their only customer.

    What that means is that there is already a market, an you can sell software right now. (Whether you can sell enough to cover your costs, I can't say.)

    The catch, though, is that some types of software are more sellable than others. Games don't really compete with each other (you can't just substitute one game for another), which can't be said for an "instant messaging product." It sounds like you're competing with a lot of free software, whereas Loki was not.

    Furthermore, communication tools are different from games in that the values that make people flock to Free/Open software, are at stake. What I mean is: nobody wants to be locked into your proprietary communication product. That is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be commoditized and made transparent, unlike a game. Few people will ever feel "stuck with" a game, so buying a proprietary game isn't risky. But for a communication product, the risk is so high, that your product would really have to be outrageously good for me to even consider buying it.

    So maybe the question of "How do you sell Linux software?" is answered with "By selling a product that doesn't make users feel at risk from proprietary lock-in."

    That, of course, only applies to users who use Linux because of the Freedom advantage. Those who use Linux simply because it's cheap, or because it works well, are really just like the users of any other platform. If you're targeting those users, then your question is equivalent to "How do you sell software to computer users?" And my answer is: Beats the hell out of me, that's why I still have a boss. ;-)

    Oh.. another idea: I haven't heard of this working yet (how's that for a disclaimer?!) but you can in theory sell non proprietary software, using methods such as Street Performer Protocol. i.e. You get the money in advance, then release it as Free. That removes the lock-in threat.

  • I have the two of them locked in my basement.
  • Even if your product did make inroads, some good person would clone it as an 'Open Source' project, and your proprietary product would die.

    This is a Good Thing(TM), despite you and your company's desire to line your wallets at the expense of your users.

    In other words, do us all a favour and keep your proprietary garbage from polluting our nice free operating system, thanks.
  • I think this is because the impression that that the OS leaves is reflected on whatever software is run upon it.

    Linux leaves the impression of a free and open source environment and people think that because linux is like that, all of it's software should/is too.
  • "...when is Linux going to be prevalent enough on the desktop..."

    Hopefully soon.

    "...that people will pay for applications and not always assume they are free?"

    Hopefully never.

    "Better yet, where are the people who feel that way now?"

    Some people, including me, think that linux is prevalent enough already, but I don't think anyone wants to pay for it yet.

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