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- | ====== A Business Case for Free Software ====== | ||
- | A Personal Account by Rijk Ravestein. May 11, 2020. [[https:// | ||
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- | This work is licensed under a [[https:// | ||
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- | ====== Summary ====== | ||
- | This paper presents a case study of a grassroots attempt to produce and deliver Free Software in a fair and just business setting. The balance sheet is promising. Revenue and profit is being made. At the same time it is painful to discover that commitment and support for Free Business grassroots from Free Software institutions is completely lacking. This is worrying because a lot is at stake. While Big Tech makes big bucks with Free and Open Source software, Software Freedom is further marginalized. For the Free Software Community to survive it must break free from libertarian sentiments and fight its battle into the very center where money runs the software world, the Free Market Economy. | ||
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- | ====== Introduction ====== | ||
- | I am a software developer for 35 years now. I've worked on proprietary products for large corporations in the past, but was so disappointed with quality and culture that, when I acquired the financial means, I gave it all up to practice my profession the way I think is right. Of course it helped that my children are grown up, the mortgage is paid off, and my wife and I are satisfied with a modest lifestyle. From 2013 on I'm producing my own flagship product under [[https:// | ||
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- | ====== Vision ====== | ||
- | While producing Free Software, I found that to actually make it work in a fair and just way, one needs extra measures besides a Free Software License. Like it or not, strong moral, social and political views are needed as well. To claim and exercise Freedom you need direction, purpose and a guiding compass. | ||
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- | ====== Action ====== | ||
- | You can talk the talk of Freedom, but what obstacles do you encounter when you actually walk the walk? What if your ambition is to have real impact with the Free Software you authored? What if you want to make organizations choose your Free Software above proprietary alternatives? | ||
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- | Those were the questions I asked myself, and to get answers I decided to walk the walk myself and see where it took me. The Free Software that accompanies me on my journey is [[https:// | ||
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- | ====== Libre Business ====== | ||
- | To really make my Free Software work, I designed the social fabric in which I hoped it could excel and do justice to everyone involved. This implied doing business with real money, contracts and obligations. Enter the “Libre Business Model” as explained in a sort of manifesto in the sections below. | ||
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- | ===== Why a Libre Business Model is needed ===== | ||
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- | ==== Be part of the pack ===== | ||
- | //Make it easy for organizations to adopt Free Software.// | ||
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- | * If we are serious about Free Software, we must also be serious about being accepted as sustainable solution providers in the now dominating Free Market however flawed it may be. | ||
- | * To be accepted, we must offer our Free Software Solutions in a solid corporate framework where contracts, invoicing and all other bureaucratic elements are according to legal standards. | ||
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- | ==== Ethics in, ethics out ==== | ||
- | // Create Free Software with Justice for All.// | ||
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- | * The very same ethics that are fundamental to Free Software, must also be the core of our business conduct. | ||
- | * In a Libre Business Model, business partners cooperate to deliver a Free Software Solution in united responsibility, | ||
- | * Business Partners are Free Agents and have the freedom to do business on their own account at all times. | ||
- | * The Libre Business Model dictates financial transparency and non-exploitative behavior. | ||
- | * To discourage shady deals by unsolicited men-in-the-middle, | ||
- | * Money is made, not abundant at the expense of our fellows, but sufficient to financially compensate Libre Business Partners fairly for their community services. | ||
- | * Since the standard of living is different in different parts of the world, and not every organization has the same financial resources, pricing may be too high for some. Therefore, motivated participants must not be excluded for financial reasons, but will be accepted with the payment they can afford. | ||
- | * We invest in long-term commitment and sustainable relations to bring Free Software forward. | ||
- | * Shareholder value is not a monetary entity, but the shared ethical and social commitment of all Free Software Community members. | ||
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- | ==== Help Free Software Professionals ==== | ||
- | //Help Free Software Professionals make a living by lowering the threshold for engaging in Free Software Development.// | ||
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- | * There are many skilled and highly motivated Free Software Professionals around the world. Since there are very few full-time Free Software jobs, it is very hard for professionals to live their dream and make a living off Free Software. | ||
- | * A Libre Business Model enables Free Software Professionals to engage in development and support activities in a flexible way. Even a few hours spread over the week can be made worthwhile. | ||
- | * Professionals can adopt a cautious strategy and watch for a tipping point where one could for instance cut down a regular full-time job to 3 days a week, and work 2 days a week for one or several Libre Business Model implementations. | ||
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- | ==== Prevent Tragedy of the Commons ==== | ||
- | // | ||
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- | * Organizations consuming Free Software as “free beer” act against their own interest. | ||
- | * Producing Free software does have a cost in terms of effort and resources used. | ||
- | * When costs are not compensated, | ||
- | * A Libre Business Model values the intrinsic motivation of Free Software producers and provides a framework in which they are compensated for their efforts and resources used. | ||
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- | ===== Designing a Libre Business Model ===== | ||
- | //The Libre Business Model is an application of Free Software Design Patterns.// | ||
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- | * Concepts like Decentralization, | ||
- | * //With Free Software users control their own computer instead of being controlled by their computer.// | ||
- | * Likewise, a Libre Business Model is designed as a distributed federation of small business units, or individual professionals, | ||
- | * //In a Libre Business Model partners run their own business instead of being run by a business.// | ||
- | * A distributed design facilitates fail-over capability. Partners can take over each others work when one of them is unavailable. This makes Free Software Support sustainable. | ||
- | * The Libre Business Model leans heavily on a [[wp> | ||
- | * //Trust is the most valuable equity of a Free Software community.// | ||
- | * [[http:// | ||
- | * //The Libre Business Model is congruent with Free Software Design Patterns.// | ||
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- | ====== Libre Practice ====== | ||
- | I am the owner, and in 2015 was the sole employee of [[https:// | ||
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- | As it happens Datraverse BV is also the owner and creator of [[https:// | ||
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- | ===== Management ===== | ||
- | // | ||
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- | * Datraverse owns the [[https:// | ||
- | * Datraverse produces installation binaries and a comprehensive [[https:// | ||
- | * Datraverse manages the [[https:// | ||
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- | ===== Subscription ===== | ||
- | //Business is fueled by recurring subscription fees from community member organizations.// | ||
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- | * Organizations get Community Resident status, by paying a one-time enrollment fee and yearly subscription amounts. | ||
- | * [[https:// | ||
- | * Community Residents are entitled to free, as in “free beer”, [[https:// | ||
- | * A flexible [[https:// | ||
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- | ===== Fair Share ===== | ||
- | // | ||
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- | * [[https:// | ||
- | * [[https:// | ||
- | * [[https:// | ||
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- | ===== Legal Steward ===== | ||
- | // | ||
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- | * [[https:// | ||
- | * Development and Translation Partners sign the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) as created by the [[https:// | ||
- | * Dutch tax law allows Datraverse to transfer money to individual professionals who don't have a legal business entity themselves. | ||
- | * A list of money transfers to Dutch citizens is sent by Datraverse to Dutch Tax Office yearly. The money transfer total automatically appears as income on the person' | ||
- | * Dutch Tax Office does not need a list of money transfers to persons outside The Netherlands. Persons are responsible to handle transfers according to tax laws in their own jurisdiction. | ||
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- | ===== Ambitions ===== | ||
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- | * Scale up to a federated practice in which many independent professionals can make a living by giving end-users a great [[https:// | ||
- | * Inspire other Free Software Communities, | ||
- | * Hand the Libre Software Practice over to a younger generation. | ||
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- | ====== Results ====== | ||
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- | ===== Financial ===== | ||
- | There is revenue and profit from subscription fees and SLA contracts. | ||
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- | ===== Members ===== | ||
- | To date, the SavaPage Community comprises 16 subscribing organizations with a total of 48,000 participants. | ||
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- | ===== Partners ===== | ||
- | I employed a GNU/Linux administrator part-time, contracted a self-employed administrator for several SavaPage implementations, | ||
- | * //Sad to say that all three partners eventually were unable to meet the requirements inherent in a business environment and eventually resigned.// | ||
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- | I sent dozens of introduction emails to persons who promoted themselves as Free Software Advocates and on their web site invited anyone to contact them. | ||
- | * //Nobody replied.// | ||
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- | ===== Allies ===== | ||
- | The [[https:// | ||
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- | > //“It looks like the user manual is nonfree (non-commercial is nonfree). If that gets fixed, the entry should be linking to the repo or a tarball of the source code. On its face this looks like an entry promoting a service rather than describing a free software project. The Directory is for free software, not for services that use free software. Directory entries should be for individual software packages, but if multiple packages are useful in conjunction there could be a category or perhaps a tag.”// | ||
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- | For the record, SavaPage is a Free Software Service meant to be deployed on one’s own premises. It is a comprehensive Print Management Application consisting of 10+ personal and 10+ contributed projects on https:// | ||
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- | [[https:// | ||
- | * //The dominant angle was how business could profit from Free Software instead of how to start a Free Software Business.// | ||
- | * //None of the talks addressed a way on how Free Software developers could earn a living.// | ||
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- | ====== Conclusions ====== | ||
- | A Libre Practice does not distinguish itself from a regular business when it comes to recruiting and marketing. Although SavaPage succeeded as proof-of-concept and is successful at a small scale, is it very hard to get people involved and get enough traction to become a sustainable Free Business factor. | ||
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- | ===== The Walk of Freedom ===== | ||
- | Where does Freedom take us? Can I exercise my Freedom and at the same time limit yours? No, I can't. Fortunately there is such a thing as society to prevent that to happen by enforcing justice. Can I extend the Free Software you authored and use it to exploit and curtail the Freedom of others for my own gain? Yes, I can. The copy-left licensing does not prevent that to happen as long as the extension is copy-left licensed as well. Can I use the Free Software you authored to save or make a lot of money without paying you anything in return? Yes, I can. I guess we all feel the injustice of these liberties. But how do we deal with that felt injustice? | ||
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- | ===== Freedom Advocates ===== | ||
- | The Free Software Foundation (FSF) was founded in the mid eighties with Personal Computing becoming mainstream. In that context Free Software and the GPL made perfect sense. Thirty-five years later, the technological and social landscape has changed completely. However, on major points the FSF still seems to live in the old days. The Freedom part of the Software is still viewed from a personal [[wp> | ||
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- | In the nineties the social void of Free Software was filled by the [[https:// | ||
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- | The enormous success of Open Source has marginalized the voice of freedom advocated by the FSF. While Silicon Valley and Wall Street are served with unlimited libertarian freedom, at the same time these actors kill user freedom on an unprecedented scale. You could say that the trick to fight copyright by using copyright law itself, is neatly applied to the Free Market by Open Source simply by taking the liberty. To paraphrase Karl Popper' | ||
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- | How does the FSF react to all this? Basically it tells us [[https:// | ||
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- | On their 2019 web page about [[https:// | ||
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- | FSF executive director John Sullivan states in his speech “The business case for copyleft” at [[https:// | ||
- | > //The GNU General Public License (...) protects the commercial use of software and code: the opportunity to profit from technology is inherent in the idea behind user freedom. Not only are copyleft licenses freedom respecting, they have monetary benefits including (…) you benefit from someone else fixing bugs and building off of your code.// | ||
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- | Who is FSF protecting in this case? The company that cashes in on the source code, or “someone else” from the Free Software community who creates, expands or repairs the code, obviously without getting paid? And what about the end user who is ultimately exploited by GPL supported services. It’s obvious that FSF is struggling to determine its course of action. | ||
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- | What about the FSFE? They seem to have their own trouble to deal with business, although at a slightly different level. It is remarkable to see that [[https:// | ||
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- | ===== Beyond Copy-Left ===== | ||
- | Recently, various socially and economically restrictive licenses have been published to address the felt injustice inducted by copy-left licenses. In my opinion these alternatives only contribute to randomness and a lack of clarity for all involved (apart from the fact that they are also very difficult to enforce). | ||
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- | I think we should not inject social or economic restrictions into copy-left licenses. If people misuse Free Software for non-free purposes, you can morally condemn them, but prohibiting this practice is beyond the jurisdiction (and capacity) of the copy-left owner. | ||
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- | Despite all concerns, copy-left must remain the crucial precondition for user freedom on all levels. This implies that malpractice is not only about license violations but must also be addressed in a social economic context. I suggest that the best strategy to prevent malpractice is to make Fair and Just Use of Free Software the norm and best choice under all circumstances. | ||
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- | //The Libre Business Model and Libre Practice presented in this paper are modest attempts to make the implications of defending user freedom visible and a subject of discussion.// | ||
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- | ===== Human Factors ===== | ||
- | Delivering Free Software Services to customers requires social and business skills that many technically skilled persons seem to have trouble with. | ||
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- | ====== The Road Ahead ====== | ||
- | Are FSF and affiliates able to read the signs of the times? Can they reclaim leadership for the cause of user freedom? Can they counter user exploitation? | ||
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- | An encouraging initiative though is the FSFE campaign [[https:// | ||
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- | If government ignores to provide a level playing field and goes the easy way, the same old companies will be selected as preferred supplier over and over again. In that event smaller Free Software Practices will have no fair business opportunity to participate in code production and services. | ||
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- | For Europeans like me to it’s very hard to fathom the libertarian motives which seem to be ingrained in American culture. Historically, | ||
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- | For the Free Software Community to survive it must break free from libertarian sentiments around Personal Computing and fight its battle into the very center where money runs the software world, aka the Free Market Economy. Like every emancipation movement, we must claim our socio-economic rights and take on our duty to contribute to a comprehensive Free and Open Society in our own unique way. | ||
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- | We are currently insufficiently organized to take up this fight effectively. However, I am convinced that social mobilization will follow if we are able to communicate the right social analysis. | ||
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- | We, the Free Software Community have showed to be tremendous resourceful and resilient in the technical field. Now it’s time to show our social skills and commitment. Now it’s time to conquer the Free Market. We must not turn our back on society but look it into the eye with self confidence. We must unite. We have nothing to lose but our insignificance. We have a world to win. |