A hearty “Fuck you!” goes out to John Robb today for dismissing open source as one of the Top Flops of 2001, saying You get what you pay for.
I guess he would probably extend that sentiment to open source books, too.
Yes, most open source programs are crap. Most closed source programs are crap. Apache, Samba, Mozilla, Python, Emacs, OpenSSH, JBoss, Tomcat, Ant, Red Hat Linux with Ximian GNOME — I use these on a daily basis, and I’m most definitely getting more than I paid for. Manila, Opera, UltraEdit, Mac OS X, iTunes — I use these too, and happily pay for them. (iTunes isn’t free, it’s just bundled, so I’ve already paid for it.) As any good investor will tell you, the key is to find the pockets of excellence where you get more than you pay for.
John Robb responds. Much more politely than you might expect. What a guy. Someday he’ll hire me, and then we can argue in person.
Dave Winer: The problem of course is that [open source advocates] set the expectations too high.
Eric Sink: I bought into this hype in a big way [producing AbiWord] … [but] I’m not bitter.
Shelley Powers: Overhyped? We haven’t hyped these efforts enough!
dev(E)iate: I use open source because it works for me.
Amen.
Daniel Berlinger: This is the religious war that replaced the OS wars.
Dave Winer (in private email): There’s nothing on your site that refutes what he said.
OK, here’s something:
And calling open source a flop doesn’t make it one.
First, John is (presumably) only talking about open-source-based businesses, like Red Hat. Volunteer-based open source development is as strong as ever. But he doesn’t say that; he just paints all open source with a broad brush, putting altruistic developers and venture capitalists in the same boat. That’s silly.
Furthermore, John is thinking only of the dom-com-era business models that relied on giving stuff away for free in order to GetBigQuick in order to aggegrate eyeballs in order to magically cash in later or whatever they thought they were doing. Those were obviously a failure (obvious now, not obvious then — and there were a lot of non-open-source-based companies trying the same thing for a while).
That’s why most serious open source businesses (Red Hat and Ximian come to mind here, but there are others) now have much more traditional loss-leader-based business models. Red Hat gives away Linux but charges for documentation, training, support, and consulting services. Ximian gives away Evolution but charges for add-ons, like their Exchange connector. JBoss is free but up-to-date documentation is only available in hardcopy (for a price). Etc.
I’m sure John was thinking all of these things and more (he’s a smart guy), but the way he expressed it so nonchalantly just raised my hackles.
PressPlay FAQ. Distinctly less than you pay for.
- Windows-only. Specifically, 98, ME, 2000, and XP. No 95 or NT. Certainly no Macintosh.
- WMA-only, playable by Windows Media Player only.
- No handheld music players. No iPod. I got 7 CDs for Christmas and haven’t listened to any of them… directly. I open the CD, rip it in iTunes, sync with my iPod, and put the CD on the shelf until the day I switch music formats and have to re-rip it.
Music is streamed at either 20 Kbps or 32 Kbps depending on your modem speed.
With iTunes, I can consistently find trance music streamed at 128 Kbps. Ditto WinAmp.The streams allotted for your billing period do not carry over [to the next month].
Use ‘em or lose ‘em.You can use the pressplay Sync/Restore feature to restore your downloads to one additional computer at no extra charge.
Gee, thanks.If you have used sync/restore already, please contact Customer Care to redownload your tracks.
I liked music better before it required tech support.- Music expires and must be renewed every month.
If you have not been online since the rights for that track renewed for a succeeding month, you may be prompted to connect momentarily to acquire the license renewal.
Or not. If you choose to cancel your pressplay membership, you will lose the ability to play the downloads that you acquired through pressplay at the end of the period you paid through.
Oh, and you don’t get your money back if you prepay and then cancel.If the track has streamed for more than 30 seconds, the stream is counted against your membership.
Even if transmission is interrupted by slow servers, faulty modems, or annoying kid sisters.Each time you initiate a download, pressplay will display the number of downloads remaining for the month and a confirmation that you wish to download the selected track. If you do not have enough downloads remaining to download the track(s), you will be asked if you want to upgrade your membership. If you choose not to upgrade, or you already have a platinum membership, you will have to wait until the beginning of the next billing period to download the track(s).
The unused downloads allotted for your membership period do not carry over to the next month.
pressplay’s current licensing agreements with the music labels only allow two tracks to be burned for each artist per month.
Any track that has the burn icon displayed in the Options column of the search results can be burned to CD.
So not every song can be burned.You can burn a track as many times as you like, but each burn counts towards your membership, regardless if it is the same track.
Presuming, of course, that the publisher has decided to allow you the privilege of paying for the privilege of wading through the privilege of burning it.The unused burns allotted for your membership period do not carry over to the next month.
PressPlay Privacy Policy. Actually, I liked music better before it had a privacy policy.
Dave Matthews Band: Pay For What You Get.
work ourselves, fingers to the bone
suck the morrow, drain my soul
pay your dues, and your debts
pay your respects, everybody tells you
you pay for what you get
