Yes, there are many thorny issues to be discussed there, and a personal
meeting would be awesome, but that's not going to be possible anytime
soon. But I think that a bounties system like this one could work
really well.
As for getting paid for writing open source software, I think that a
lot of people who use Pd would be willing to give money to get the
features that they want. Sure anyone could do it themself, but
oftentimes its much easier to pay the person that is already deep in
it. Also, there are a lot of good coders writing things for Pd, so if
someone likes the code that someone is cranking out, paying them would
encourage them to crank out more code.
All this almost makes me want to get a full time job so I can start
paying people!! ;)
.hc
On Saturday, Jan 24, 2004, at 22:57 America/New_York, Josh Steiner
wrote:
i think its a good idea, definitely should be explored. the gnome
project recently (with the help of novel/ximian) setup some "bounties"
which seem like a good way to do this:http://www.gnome.org/bounties/
another method is that like the freenet project uses: they hire a
fulltime developer paid entirely by donations to a central fund. as i
think olaf pointed out, this requires someone with the power/will to
decide who to hire and how to rate their performance... sounds
somewhat political and sticky.--
____________________________________________________ independent u.s. drum'n'bass -- http://vitriolix.com
PD-dev mailing list PD-dev@iem.at http://iem.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-dev
Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to
realize his wishes.
Now that he can realize them, he must either change them, or perish.
-William Carlos Williams
From: "Hans-Christoph Steiner" hans@eds.org
I think that a lot of people who use Pd would be willing to give money to get the features that they want.
I don't think so. None of the average Pd-users is voluntary (??is this the right word??) willing to pay a Cent. Yes, if someone really needs a feature and is willing to pay for it, then he will give money for it, sure, but I never heard that happened. People pay artists/composers for their work and applications using Pd... but programmers don't see any of that money, only if they are programmer and artist in one person.
it is good that Pd is free and open source, in that way there is no financial barrier to use it (only technical, ....) BUT: i still dont understand, why software should be free at all??? i think the main reason is, that it is still unusual to pay via internet or bank transfer, and that there is no copy protection and people have no scruple about stealing software. so solving those two problems: 1) finding an easy way of payment and 2) making it unpossible to do illegal copies would give a totally new view of the software/programmer/Pd/money problem.
Then "a lot of people" would be willing (because they had no other choice) to pay for Pd like buying a chair at IKEA. So my suggestion would be to talk about the price of Pd.
Marius.
Hallo, marius schebella hat gesagt: // marius schebella wrote:
Then "a lot of people" would be willing (because they had no other choice) to pay for Pd like buying a chair at IKEA. So my suggestion would be to talk about the price of Pd.
Do you mean this serious? If Pd would cost money I would stop developing with and for it.
BTW: Sourceforge donations can be directed to individual developer's, too. This came through SF's site news in December:
"Besides projects accepting donations, users on SF.NET will be able to do so, as well. Again this is an ''opt-in'' feature. Starting today, if a user replies to your email with helpful information, responds to a support request, or is just overly helpful to you, you can now give him/her a few dollars to show your appreciation. Given how much time one can save with the guidance of a knowledgeable developer, this new system is a good way for everyone to win. "
So if someone wants to try to get money, just opt-in.
ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
From: "Frank Barknecht" fbar@footils.org
Then "a lot of people" would be willing (because they had no other
choice)
to pay for Pd like buying a chair at IKEA. So my suggestion would be to
talk
about the price of Pd.
Do you mean this serious? If Pd would cost money I would stop developing with and for it.
what else should be free then??? why does not someone build a car for me??? I appreciate your involvement in social ideas. and students and other needy people should always have free access to basic needs of their life like a bed, a place to live, food, public health system, education, (including computer education and software)... but i am talking about business people who earn their own money. yes, i think Pd should have a price.
so please explain to me your decision to stop developing, if pd would cost money. do you think some people in the "Pd Mafia" would get rich at the expense of others??
Marius.
Hallo, marius schebella hat gesagt: // marius schebella wrote:
what else should be free then??? why does not someone build a car for me??? I appreciate your involvement in social ideas. and students and other needy people should always have free access to basic needs of their life like a bed, a place to live, food, public health system, education, (including computer education and software)... but i am talking about business people who earn their own money. yes, i think Pd should have a price.
so please explain to me your decision to stop developing, if pd would cost money. do you think some people in the "Pd Mafia" would get rich at the expense of others??
Well, nothing is stopping you or anyone else to sell Pd CDs or provide password-protected download areas for Pd and sell the passwords. This is already possible with Pd's current license and with every open source license as the GPL. Enterprises like Redhat or Suse/Novell earn quite a lot of money this way. I just wonder who would buy your Pd if its available "for free" (as in beer) on Miller's site, on Sourceforge and so on, so you'd have to provide some added value like ease of installation.
What I am talking about has been talked about almost to death since the Free Software movement started decades ago: I don't want anyone to restrict my rights of using, changing and giving away free software. That's why I'm almost exclusivly using open source software. I "pay" for this software in providing my software as Libre software myself, in doing free support here and such. I even buy Debian CDs from time to time.
My own coded contributions to Pd are licensed as GPL. You're free and even encouraged to sell them (they already are sold on some Debian CDs and maybe Suse, Mandrake,...,too), but you'd not be allowed to hold back the rights and obligations I as primary author attached to my sources: Provide source code, allow royalty-free redistribution, allow changes, and put any changes you made under GPL again.
I know Pd has a different license, but if someone comes along and restricts usage of Pd to those people who bought Pd, then yes: I would be gone, and I'm sure lots of others would be gone, too. And if someone would try to restrict usage of *my* GPL'd code to those who pay him, then I would call my lawyer.
ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
marius schebella wrote:
what else should be free then??? why does not someone build a car for me??? I appreciate your involvement in social ideas. and students and other needy people should always have free access to basic needs of their life like a bed, a place to live, food, public health system, education, (including computer education and software)... but i am talking about business people who earn their own money. yes, i think Pd should have a price.
can we stop this endless offtopic flamewar before it grows? go read up on libre vs free software on gnu.org or opensource.org ... these are important distinctions which you seem to be munging up.
On Sunday, Jan 25, 2004, at 12:56 America/New_York, Josh Steiner wrote:
marius schebella wrote:
what else should be free then??? why does not someone build a car for
me??? I appreciate your involvement in social ideas. and students and other
needy people should always have free access to basic needs of their life
like a bed, a place to live, food, public health system, education,
(including computer education and software)... but i am talking about business
people who earn their own money. yes, i think Pd should have a price.
- free software provides many benefits, including cheaper development
http://opensource.org/ IBM, Apple, Sun, etc.
- digital media and the internet eliminate scarcity "The Future of Ideas", by Lawrence Lessig http://lessig.org/
We need to make a model for earning a living that heeds the massive
benefit of the lack of scarcity and programming freedom. Basically
people could pay have software bettered, rather than the current model
of the other way around. This is already happening. For example, some
software has been 'bought' into being free:
http://www.blender3d.org/Foundation/?sub=History http://www.swelltech.com/virtualmin/
Other groups put development targets with price tags on them: http://www.gnome.org/bounties/ http://www.sourcesupport.org/
Others rely on the 'Gift Economy', ie donations. I know of an online
filmmaker, who I have been ask not to divulge, who has made over
US$100,000 from donations alone. Once this idea catches on, I think it
could be very powerful.
TightVNC: http://order.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=AWD&&
-Hans
Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to
realize his wishes.
Now that he can realize them, he must either change them, or perish.
-William Carlos Williams
marius schebella wrote:
it is good that Pd is free and open source, in that way there is no financial barrier to use it (only technical, ....) BUT: i still dont understand, why software should be free at all???
That's a good point. I have some code (i.e. externals) I don't want to give away for free (because it took so much time to code them), but the impression about the average Pd user one gets when reading the mailing list suggest that selling closed-source Pd externals is something one would get 'killed' for. My solution was to switch to Max/MSP. There seems to be a completely different attitute towards open-source among Max/MSP users. Nobody cries "where is the source code?" in case I release an external without sources and nobody complains when I decide to sell my stuff instead of giving it away for free. But I also see the point that having to pay 500,- USD for Max is to much for some people. On the other hand I find it a reasonable price because I know how much work it is to even support such a big software.
Olaf
Hallo, Olaf Matthes hat gesagt: // Olaf Matthes wrote:
That's a good point. I have some code (i.e. externals) I don't want to give away for free (because it took so much time to code them), but the impression about the average Pd user one gets when reading the mailing list suggest that selling closed-source Pd externals is something one would get 'killed' for. My solution was to switch to Max/MSP. There seems to be a completely different attitute towards open-source among Max/MSP users. Nobody cries "where is the source code?" in case I release an external without sources and nobody complains when I decide to sell my stuff instead of giving it away for free.
I just want to point out that there are two different "free"s involved: On is free as in beer, the other free as in freedom. Max/MSP users - Reaktor users seem to be even worse - often don't want this freedom to look at and change the source. They feel that they don't need it, and in fact they do not need it. Thus they are less inclined if at all to demand it. Many Reaktor users even buy patches, go figure!
But at least in the Windows world, it is certain, that a *lot* of users just want the "free" as in beer. There are hundreds or thousands of cracked copies of Reaktor, Live, Cubase and similar tools installed. When I saw Robert Henke from Ableton explain "Live" in a presentation, he was asking the audience to at least look for a crack, that works, because a bad crack leading to crashes would have a bad impact even on Ableton's image: "I know you do this, but make sure you do it right."
I just don't want to be a part of this habit. This simply is another world I don't want to be involved in (anymore). This might also explain your impression of getting 'killed'. Doing closed source software is not part of this world, it's like: "On December 3rd 2001, he tragically left our world".
ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
Hi all, just a few cents:
- It's incredibly great that PD itself is free and it should be free as in
freedom as long as Miller wants it to be that way. We all know about the benefits of that fact.
- Personally, i'll have to find a way to dedicate my time to performing
music and developing for real-time systems AND make my living. That currently involves a trade-off between programming shitty commercial stuff for a lot of money and programming interesting musical stuff for no money.
- Consequently, i set up PayPal buttons on my website so that people can
steer me from the bad side to the good side. I'm very grateful about the donations of the two persons (one Max, one PD) that made use of it in the last months. These individuals shall have extra personal support whenever they need it.
- Given that, 100$ within 5 months can't pay my rent, so i'll have to charge
some money for upcoming developments. None of the current packages will be involved, including flext, but some large future packages will. Clearly, these will have functionality that none of the currently published PD-related stuff has, otherwise it won't make any sense.
- Considering my experiences of the last years, there were tons of bug
reports (which is great!) but no suggested patches to the source code, so i don't see a real point (apart from a political attitude) to publish the source. I'll yet have to find a way to support the various linux distributions, but it should be doable with minor restrictions. The open-source idea is great but has to be balanced with the facts of life, which involve suitable ideas being stolen and commercially used by others.
- Earning a bit of money from that will give me a lot of further motivation
to contribute to the PD kernel and other free stuff as well. Needless to say that there will be discounts for my stuff for various kinds of personal or institutional circumstances.
- I'm live performing a lot (60 concerts last year) so i want to rely on a
stable system - i'm not so much interested in academic discussions. Comparing the quality level between Max and its 3rd party stuff and PD with extensions leaves no choice open. I'd rather pay a few bucks and save my nerves rather than having a shitty interface along with clicks, pops and beer stains. If some money were involved to back the PD developers this would certainly change for the better.
good gain! Thomas
----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Barknecht" fbar@footils.org To: "pd-list" pd-list@iem.kug.ac.at Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 12:11 PM Subject: Re: [PD] Re: [PD-dev] SourceForge "Donations"
Hallo, Olaf Matthes hat gesagt: // Olaf Matthes wrote:
That's a good point. I have some code (i.e. externals) I don't want to give away for free (because it took so much time to code them), but the impression about the average Pd user one gets when reading the mailing list suggest that selling closed-source Pd externals is something one would get 'killed' for. My solution was to switch to Max/MSP. There seems to be a completely different attitute towards open-source among Max/MSP users. Nobody cries "where is the source code?" in case I release an external without sources and nobody complains when I decide to sell my stuff instead of giving it away for free.
I just want to point out that there are two different "free"s involved: On is free as in beer, the other free as in freedom. Max/MSP users - Reaktor users seem to be even worse - often don't want this freedom to look at and change the source. They feel that they don't need it, and in fact they do not need it. Thus they are less inclined if at all to demand it. Many Reaktor users even buy patches, go figure!
But at least in the Windows world, it is certain, that a *lot* of users just want the "free" as in beer. There are hundreds or thousands of cracked copies of Reaktor, Live, Cubase and similar tools installed. When I saw Robert Henke from Ableton explain "Live" in a presentation, he was asking the audience to at least look for a crack, that works, because a bad crack leading to crashes would have a bad impact even on Ableton's image: "I know you do this, but make sure you do it right."
I just don't want to be a part of this habit. This simply is another world I don't want to be involved in (anymore). This might also explain your impression of getting 'killed'. Doing closed source software is not part of this world, it's like: "On December 3rd 2001, he tragically left our world".
ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
PD-list mailing list PD-list@iem.at http://iem.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
Hallo, Thomas Grill hat gesagt: // Thomas Grill wrote:
- Given that, 100$ within 5 months can't pay my rent, so i'll have to charge
some money for upcoming developments. None of the current packages will be involved, including flext, but some large future packages will. Clearly, these will have functionality that none of the currently published PD-related stuff has, otherwise it won't make any sense.
You certainly have a point here. (I also bothered you with bug reports and never paid anything.) It is very difficult to make money as developer of free software if the business model is based on selling this software. One of the most popular examples is Paul Davis, author of Ardour and Jack. He devoted about 5 years solely to developing Ardour and financed this from his own money which he once made as one of the founding developers of Amazon.com. This money is more or less gone now, so Paul also is looking for a way to squeeze some money out of the Ardour project and currently he is considering selling in-depth documentation. He probably cannot sell Ardour anymore, because several other developers wrote code for it as well.
I also don't have a good answer.
Personally I think, that more public funding should go into open source software. Like Miller probably developing Pd as part of his university appointment or like the EU is paying for the AGNULA project. Free Software is in the public interest.
This also is a conflict between "sciences" and "economy". If there were only commercial software developers than a lot of projects wouldn't exist, the same goes for science: there are a lot of things which wouldn't be a topic of research because their economic value is small or non-existant. Like some kinds of music can only survive because of public funding (also indirect through things like public radio stations giving composers of experimental music a job.)
ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004, Thomas Grill wrote:
- Given that, 100$ within 5 months can't pay my rent, so i'll have to charge
some money for upcoming developments. None of the current packages will be involved, including flext, but some large future packages will. Clearly, these will have functionality that none of the currently published PD-related stuff has, otherwise it won't make any sense.
Hi,
I think this discussion is very interesting. One thing that I start to understand is why it is so hard to build up a developers community in pd.
But, no matter what features your software will have, selling software depends on marketing and brands (I mean, if Windows wasn't that well known and used, who in the world would buy this crap ;) ?)
So you are taking advantage of an infrastructure and a market value that is built up on the fame of Miller Puckette and on the work and support of dozens of others.
Well, unfortunately I can't help you to find a job that makes you happy and pays your rent, but I think, that selling commercial addons to pd might not be the job that makes you happy either.
This doesn't mean that I am against your plans, not at all, but I doubt that it will work out.
Guenter
- I'm live performing a lot (60 concerts last year) so i want to rely on a
stable system - i'm not so much interested in academic discussions. Comparing the quality level between Max and its 3rd party stuff and PD with extensions leaves no choice open. I'd rather pay a few bucks and save my nerves rather than having a shitty interface along with clicks, pops and beer stains. If some money were involved to back the PD developers this would certainly change for the better.
i'm sorry, i've seen max crash so often that i'm laughing on this one.
as a performer, i never had a crash ( nor pops ) with my over-patched pd.
ciao, sevy
On Sunday, Jan 25, 2004, at 05:07 America/New_York, Olaf Matthes wrote:
marius schebella wrote:
it is good that Pd is free and open source, in that way there is no financial barrier to use it (only technical, ....) BUT: i still dont understand, why software should be free at all???
That's a good point. I have some code (i.e. externals) I don't want to
give away for free (because it took so much time to code them), but
the impression about the average Pd user one gets when reading the
mailing list suggest that selling closed-source Pd externals is
something one would get 'killed' for. My solution was to switch to Max/MSP. There seems to be a completely
different attitute towards open-source among Max/MSP users. Nobody
cries "where is the source code?" in case I release an external
without sources and nobody complains when I decide to sell my stuff
instead of giving it away for free. But I also see the point that
having to pay 500,- USD for Max is to much for some people. On the
other hand I find it a reasonable price because I know how much work
it is to even support such a big software.
So you would take Pd and all of the contributions of so many people
without paying, then feel justified in charging someone else for your
additions to Pd? The best way to 'pay' for Pd is contribute some of
your own labor to it.
.hc
Olaf
PD-list mailing list PD-list@iem.at http://iem.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
"Information wants to be free." -Stewart Brand
On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 10:46:20PM -0500, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
So you would take Pd and all of the contributions of so many people
without paying, then feel justified in charging someone else for your
additions to Pd? The best way to 'pay' for Pd is contribute some of
your own labor to it.
The BSD license allows to take PD (but not all of the contributions), port it, modify it, close the source code and change the name. In the real world, it's called MSP, and its being sold as an addition to Max. Let me know if I'm wrong...
-- Marc
From: "Hans-Christoph Steiner" So you would take Pd and all of the contributions of so many people without paying, then feel justified in charging someone else for your additions to Pd? The best way to 'pay' for Pd is contribute some of your own labor to it.
That is, how I read the BSD licence. If you program for fun and honor and are not obtainig/taking any money, then why complain later, that someone else is presuming upon your good nature...?
There is this contradiction, on the one hand people programming good stuff, heroes of our times, giving their work away for free (...) and on the other hand people, who also would like to support this great software product, but cannot effort working for no money. The world is not a big communisitc kibbuz, but rather an (american) slave market.
Of course I like the idea of free software, but there should be a modus to pay people for their job. My first thought is to make Pd cost some bucks. My second thought is a general pot for opensource software. Pd and all the extensions have a worth, and to ignore that is stupid in my opinion.
Hmm, wait, ... biggest plus of Pd is its open source structure, I agree with that. Everybody has the possibility to expand the software for his own purposes. And I see the point, that if you put work into it, then why should you pay anything...
f..., what a conclusion...
Marius.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Well, guess what? IANAL but reading the PD licence (http://www.pure-data.org/about/pdlicense - see bellow for relevant part) one definitly gets the idea that you close the source downstream.
"...Modifications to this software may be copyrighted by their authors and need not follow the licensing terms described here, provided that the new terms are clearly indicated on the first page of each file where they apply. ..."
GPL is IMHO the only way to go, but I guess you can however do what you want to do.
Note however that even GPL doesn't _forbid_ you from selling your work it only prevents you from keeping the source secret from *your clients*
marius schebella wrote: |>From: "Hans-Christoph Steiner" |>So you would take Pd and all of the contributions of so many people |>without paying, then feel justified in charging someone else for your |>additions to Pd? The best way to 'pay' for Pd is contribute some of |>your own labor to it. | | | That is, how I read the BSD licence. If you program for fun and honor and | are not obtainig/taking any money, then why complain later, that someone | else is presuming upon your good nature...? | | There is this contradiction, on the one hand people programming good stuff, | heroes of our times, giving their work away for free (...) and on the other | hand people, who also would like to support this great software product, but | cannot effort working for no money. The world is not a big communisitc | kibbuz, but rather an (american) slave market. | | Of course I like the idea of free software, but there should be a modus to | pay people for their job. My first thought is to make Pd cost some bucks. My | second thought is a general pot for opensource software. Pd and all the | extensions have a worth, and to ignore that is stupid in my opinion. | | Hmm, wait, ... biggest plus of Pd is its open source structure, I agree with | that. Everybody has the possibility to expand the software for his own | purposes. And I see the point, that if you put work into it, then why should | you pay anything... | | f..., what a conclusion... | | Marius. | | | _______________________________________________ | PD-list mailing list | PD-list@iem.at | http://iem.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list | |
"¢@æ^
On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 02:44:29PM +0000, Nuno Ferreira wrote:
"...Modifications to this software may be copyrighted by their authors and need not follow the licensing terms described here, provided that the new terms are clearly indicated on the first page of each file where they apply. ..."
Does it apply only to the modifications, or to the whole software with the modifications? Generally, the software license can only be changed by the copyright holder, but in the case of PD it might not be the case. It'd be nice if Miller could comment on this. -- Marc
hi
( 04.01.25 10:08 +0100 ) marius schebella:
BUT: i still dont understand, why software should be free at all???
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
- making it unpossible to do illegal copies would give a totally new
view of the software/programmer/Pd/money problem.
there are no illegal copies of pd.
miller has been most generous in sharing what he built with everyone who wants it. and this has enabled other people to 'stand on his sholders' and add features. and these people have also shared what they build.
imagine a world where instead of trying to turn everyone else into a revenue source, we try to help each other. we all benefit this way. it's hard to understand unless you do it yourself [give something away that is helpful to others].
you may think i'm naive and dismiss my thoughts. that's your choice.
perhaps this discussion belongs to some of the open source mailing lists, i believe it is not too different from similar problems with similar software and possible to categorize, that would make it easier than spend lots of energy on reinventing licences and marketing schemes ...
well, there is nothing to prevent you from building externals and selling them, but personaly i think it will make PD more confusing, (for most people it is allready difficult to find support...) and somehow i cannot think about Pd as about any usual software, it is about the way you work, supporting your own creativity is a basic.
the issue of open source software is not only economical question, (selling software does NOT support innovation) if you want to think about political consequences of selling software without source code, and you think it right way, you will inevitably come to the question : "how to make innovative production and distribution work together ?"
conclusion :
open source seem to have found a way to do just that.
it is harder way, but it seems to be only one preferring quality and
creativity before money.
it looks like there are still places and organizations being aware of
this, it just takes a lot of work to apply for funds, residencies and
grants.
why don't you try to propose workshop here : http://freebitflows.t0.or.at/
Ales Zemene
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004, john saylor wrote:
hi
( 04.01.25 10:08 +0100 ) marius schebella:
BUT: i still dont understand, why software should be free at all???
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
- making it unpossible to do illegal copies would give a totally new
view of the software/programmer/Pd/money problem.
there are no illegal copies of pd.
miller has been most generous in sharing what he built with everyone who wants it. and this has enabled other people to 'stand on his sholders' and add features. and these people have also shared what they build.
imagine a world where instead of trying to turn everyone else into a revenue source, we try to help each other. we all benefit this way. it's hard to understand unless you do it yourself [give something away that is helpful to others].
you may think i'm naive and dismiss my thoughts. that's your choice.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
- Ales Zemene +
- http://ales.mur.at +
- GSM +436769573397 +
- ICQ 215971050 +
++++++++++++++++++++++++
-
Ales Zemene -
Frank Barknecht -
guenter geiger -
Hans-Christoph Steiner -
john saylor -
Josh Steiner -
Marc Lavallée -
marius schebella -
Nuno Ferreira -
Olaf Matthes -
Thomas Grill -
Yves Degoyon