Paying for free and Open Source

When talking with other people about free and open source alternative software I often get asked how those companies behind such products make money. - It is nice that people worry about how other companies make their living - but sometimes they have concerns investing time into a product that maybe does not exist any more within two years because there no more founders.

I want to emphasize what I think is the core idea of creating software declared as free and open source:

You should pay people for implementing the features you like and fix the bugs that you suffer from - you should pay for effective work - and not for ??? (maybe doing something new and innovative, doing nothing, doing something else, ...).

This is like planting a tree - you pay somebody for planting it and then you let it be on it's own.

Yes, there is a certain amount of money needed to provide the infrastructure that allows you to offer the appropriate software downloads and some amount of money needed for media (for your working data and backups as well as for the case, someone desires a CD). An option is to put that sum into the amount you are charging for your work or into the amount you charge for support contracts.

But anyway, the Open Source way is just another business model. Nowadays most companies providing software free and open source do earn their money (in addition to charging for the work) selling support or for additional (non-free) features. I see this as a form of software leasing. You pay a certain amount for support which you expect to need more in the beginning. When the product is well established and you don't want or need to invest more you stop buying support but you still have the product.

Another different model is the complete rental of software as a service. - Well there are also people that go fine with that.

With the ordinary licensing model you were used to pay for the existing thing, but the company can/could plan better and in general you have many people contributing with the license fees to a common pot of money that is - or could be - used for bug-fixing and new innovative enhancements. What today many people have a problem with is that they can't be sure what happens with their money because there is no contract that says how the money from license fees has to be invested/used. And I think this is one main reason for the run to open source. Another reason is the higher dependency from the other company because companies don't have the source code and in case the vendor goes bankrupt they can't do the maintenance on their own. - However there are also companies who sell the source code in addition to the normal license fee.

The lack of open source software is that people have to get well organized if you want to have - let's say 50 people contributing each with a small amount of money for implementing a larger feature that all 50 would like to have. But the advantage is that if you got organized you have a better influence on the product as everybody gets implemented what he/she pays for. And: With the open source strategy you usually get a bigger community with some implementing features themselves for their (and maybe also your) need. The amount of developers working on the product is simply higher.

So for you as customer or vendor - check what model fits best for you - if you trust the vendor (in being innovative in the future) and he also sells you the source code (open source is not necessarily free) their is either nothing bad with that model.

Related posts: The Open Source movement, The Open Source idea, The license keys, IT projects cost explosion, The small software vendors, The community.

Why I switched to Ubuntu

Before talking about why I left Fedora I want to emphasize that Fedora is also a great distribution - I like it in general, especially that

• there is no general focus on being used at server or workstation - so can be used for either purpose. - For Ubuntu there is a separate image for servers (even if I guess that the difference is "just" in the default packages being installed and I can't change that during install process).
• I can choose my desired focus at installation (of being a server, developer machine etc).
• I liked the graphical firewall configuration tool more (over those available on Ubuntu).
• GSmartControl installed by default (will also be available for Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala).
• I prefer yum over apt on the commandline because yum offers better output.
• There were more updates for Fedora than for Ubuntu, so I also had the impression that security updates were available faster - but this might be an impression only.

But nevertheless I have chosen Ubuntu for future notebook installations because (in the order of relevance):

1. My mobile internet stick (from "Three") was not working on Fedora 11. I tried a lot of manual operations to get it to work, but nothing helped. On Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, it was a plug and play thing. Either less clicks than on Windows.
   
2. A lot of applications I use are already available as package in the repositories (e.g. Freemind). Some of those I had to install "by hand" on Fedora. There are simply more packages available for Ubuntu than for Fedora (maybe because Debian-based), so less manual installations of separate rpms/debs not available in the repositories are needed.
   
3. It was less tricky to get Skype to work (especially mic problems under Fedora). Although I got Skype to work even on Fedora 11, there were less manual changes needed on Ubuntu.
   
4. There are a lot more cool applications in the repositories that I had not available on Fedora (at least not just with a few clicks). Just to give an example: With "Alien" it is either possible to convert rpm packages to Debian/Ubuntu packages - so you can get and install Fedora packages on Ubuntu as well.
   
5. It seems that there is more Ubuntu on the clients than Fedora and it seems that the community is larger.

Most of the reasons for chosing Fedora also apply for Ubuntu. And as I already mentioned, both distributions are good - and if you are coming from Windows you also might like Linux Mint - I gave it a short test and for the Mobile Internet Stick for instait was either less clicks than on Ubuntu. Linux Mint is Ubuntu-based and is compatible with the repositories of Ubuntu with a main goal to provide a more complete out-of-the-box experience by including browser plugins, media codecs etc. - so Linux Mint is a hot tip for newcomers. Maybe I will switch to Linux Mint in a few months. ;-) - However, it tries to be more Windows-like (which I maybe don't want now being familiar with Linux ;-) ).

Related posts: Why I have chosen Fedora, The operating system, Why Linux?, Going Linux, Small Business Boom, Distribution choice.

Installing your PC from scratch

I was used to hear that from time to time it is needed to install your PC from scratch. From my experience this applies only to Windows PCs. My Linux machine at home "survived" already 2 major system upgrades which is comparable with getting your Windows 95 upgraded to Windows 2000 to Windows XP without having to setting it up from scratch over this time. The only difference is that there is not so much time between major version releases for Linux.

And what I lately noticed, when a Windows PC has to be installed from scratch (there is no real difference either for Windows 7 here): You loose a lot of time searching for and downloading the newest version of all the tools and applications you have installed and used over time. With the application repository (or repositories) on Linux this task is much faster (and can be either automated). Not talking about the fact that a lot of applications on Linux are already there with the default install without having to install them later. For one that does "just" E-Mail, Web-Browsing, Instant Messaging, writing documents, viewing and editing images, burning CDs/DVDs, viewing videos gets everything needed with the default installation (just for MP3 and such some codecs must be installed afterwards - at least for most distributions).

Related posts: The operating system, Why Linux?.

Your holy machine

One of the arguments that I hear from people who want to emphasize the advantage of web applications is usually that you can access your application and data (e.g. webmail) from every computer.

But think of it: What are the PCs you really trust? For me it is a very few not more than 3 or 4. When I am at a customer or at a friend or somewhere else - the only PC that I really trust is the one that I bring along.

And thinking of GTD, on a different PC you will not have your keyboard shortcuts configured and other options set that allow you to be efficient. You can't really be highly productive without having setup your personal environment with the tools, settings and shortcuts that give you a boost. Being on a foreign PC sometimes my problems already start when grabbing the mouse as many may have different mouse acceleration settings than me.

Using a USB stick with your portable applications installed and configured is not a real solution as it binds you to a particular OS to be found at the client at least.

So it really makes sense to take your machine with you. With the rise of netbooks it even got easier to carry your machine with you. And you will have it configured to make you most productive and efficient.

Related posts: Web vs Thick client, The mobile device, Web application security, Pros and cons of cloud solutions, User lock down.

About Dell

"Finally" I can tell a little about personal experience with DELL hardware and their service:

The issue: After about two months the motherboard of a DELL Latitude E5500 suddenly broke. That was quite clear after not getting any noise from the fan, HD and no BIOS message. Just the CAPS lock blinking. Called support hotline and explained what happened and what I already tried.

For the guy on the phone it took a longer while to identify my guess that it must be the motherboard, but anyway - better to be sure. The last thing to figure out was the particular main board type that was built in because there were two options. I didn't know in detail because it was DELL assembling the thing, not me.

To keep a short story short: "Next business day" to DELL really means "fix on next business day" - it's not just the first reaction on next business day. A guy from a partner company came to me / to the notebook with two spare boards and repaired the notebook. Other "local" support contracts expect that you bring in the thing to some shop in your more or less neighborhood.

It is really a pity, that the quality of computer hardware parts in general is not what it was 15 years ago. Unfortunately I see the reduced quality everywhere. Therefore a good service is essential nowadays.

Related post: The hardware, Going Linux, Ubuntu compatible hardware, The Dell Latitude 2110 and Ubuntu 10.04.1, The truth about hardware support.

Windows 7 RC

I needed a Vista test workstation today and as there was none available in our office I needed to install one on my own. As for my tests I thought that Windows 7 should be ok also I got a Windows 7 RC and installed that. - I was curious of the changes, as I found also a benchmark on the net comparing with Ubuntu - and that promised core improvements in Windows 7.

But after the installation was finally finished I got several update notifications with a certain delay after restart. And after it seemed to have applied them and asking me for restart I had to wait a good while because on shutdown it "configured" the updates.

What I still do notice is that after startup the machine is not really started up. Disk access is hanging around still a while starting services in the background. That is annoying since a very long time and I love to know that if Ubuntu/Fedora/... is up, it's up and I can work.

Well, and I was curious about the applications that come along with Windows 7 - here is the list:

• Browser (IE8)
• Windows Media Player
• Paint
• Desktop Notes
• "Snipping tool" (a little screenshot tool)
• Wordpad
• Notepad
• Calculator
  
• Audio Recorder
• DVD Burner
  
• Fax Viewer
• XPS Viewer
• Tool for remote desktop connection

That's it - not much. Now I would have to install a bulk of other software. I just installed the VirtualBox Guest additions and - guess what - I wasn't asked for administrator privileges. I think too many people were annoyed by that dialog alwayss popping up on Vista so they removed it probably - or it was just a bug that this dialog didn't come up.

From the first impression I think they have cleaned up the system in comparison to Vista. So at least some important system settings seem to be more easy to find.

I tried to run the DVD Burner but it told me that my video card does not meet the required minimum requirements. - DVD Burner and Video card? - mmmmhhhhh. - Well, that just sounds familiar to me remembering installation of some applications under XP...

I did not do further general testing because I did not found any really exiting news - but for some, a better performance (at least when there is still nothing installed) is already exiting enough...

Related posts: Why I have chosen Fedora, Why I switched to Ubuntu, Why Linux?, The Microsoft logic.

The License keys

Arriving in the office today I got notice of a notebook that a customer brought in and it should be reinstalled. Unfortunately nobody can find an install CD that is matching the license key labeled to bottom of the notebook - neither the customer nor our technical staff.

...yes, it is a Windows installation. Variants of license keys must match the variant of CD used.

It is typical - especially for home users - that they do not find their (correct) install CDs when needed. Unfortunately many people are not well organized.

Similar things happen to different type of software pieces. For instance, I used the Wise Installation System software and we have bought an upgrade a long while ago. When I later reinstalled my development machine I first had to install the older version, enter the license key and then - you might guess - upgrade and enter the new update license key. I do not know if current versions are still made this way. When reinstalling a complete machine you can easily get in rage entering (typos included) serial numbers.

There was a time when I argued against software automatically connecting to the internet and automatically retrieving their license from the internet. But now I think this is maybe the less annoying variant. - However, we also have bought software in the past designed that way and often we had to argue that the old machine was replaced with a new one and that they can be sure there is still only one license used.

What companies do to ensure that people do legally use their product caused me to avoid commercial software wherever possible. And indeed even on my Windows machine at work I use mainly free and open source software. This is the best way from avoiding pain when reinstall is required.

Related posts: The Open Source movement, Paying for free and Open Source, The Open Source idea.