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Running a corporation in an open source world
by Shawn Gordon
Shawn Gordon is founder and president of theKompany.com, producer of a variety of open source and other software for Linux and other platforms.
Since I started theKompany in August of '99, we've had a growing presense and influence on a variety of things Linux. Being the first real company that was focused on KDE brought with it joys and frustrations and now over 2 years later, iIve experienced a large amount of both.
I came from the HP 3000 a couple years ago after 16 years, and I came to Linux because I was excited about everything going on and the possibilities, not to mention my dislike of Microsoft going back many, many years. My philosphy on the HP 3000 was to sell useful software at a reasonable price, and I wanted to bring this same philosphy with me to Linux. I didn't really care so much, or pay attention to all the licensing stuff; we were just planning to take care of our customers, and then give back various projects to the community so that we could be part of everything going on. The thought was to contribute infrastructure items, which we did, and build applications on top of them, which we've done.
So what has happened in that time? Well, we've come out with a lot of software, and sold a lot of units. We've got supporters so ardent they would take a bullet for us, and detractors so vocal that it makes me want to give it up at times. The main source of frustration for me has typically centered on the GPL license and the common misunderstanding of it by the general masses in the Open Source world. Sure, the basic premise is clear, but it becomes a bit murkier the more detail you have to spend on it. Let me give you some examples:
We sell one product that is GPL. On at least a weekly basis we get someone telling us that we have to give them the source code because it is GPL. Some of them become verbally violent and abusive when I point out that the GPL provides for us to charge for the source code, we just have to make it available, and this we have done. Some of these people even tried to hack our system to get the code because they thought it was their God-given right to have it. These are also typically the people who contribute nothing to the community.
I had RMS come to me on this product to make sure we weren't violating the GPL, and he admitted that we were not, but in the course of the conversation he proceeded to project onto the KDE project aspects of theKompany in a totally inappropriate fashion and was very negative about KDE in this regard. Now, to my mind there is far more corporate involvement and control over GNOME than KDE, but RMS chose to see things the way he wanted to see them in this instance and say that it was too bad the KDE didn't stand for freedom. Again, this had nothing to do with KDE, this had to do with just one of our banner products and the way we chose to implement and license it.
What is the net result of this? We won't use the GPL for anything anymore. It is far too frustrating to deal with; it is ambigiously worded in places that make it just too risky for a company like us. I've heard the arguments about selling services, but for what we are doing it just really doesn't work. Look at it this way. I can send 1,000 copies to a distributor who will put it on store shelves around the world. People will walk in, pick it up and buy it. Now let's say that the software was free (as in cost) and I just sell services. Well, now I can't put it on a store shelf and for every customer; I have to go and hunt them down somehow and persuade them to use our free software and then pay us for support -- but they should only really need support if our software is hard to use or poorly designed, which isn't the case or our objective.
Now the argument can be made for things like distributions and databases, but these are infrastructure pieces -- what about something like Erwin or Visio? The cost of dollar acquisition is tremendous and probably far outweighs what can be made in the short term.
Like it or not, Linux is headed on the fast track to the main stream. That means that more and more corporations are going to want to build software on top of it. This will be closed, open, mixed, variant, whatever, but it's going to be there. What is to be gained by alienating companies like us or someone like IBM with license jihads? We've got a fella on the KDE developer list that likes to lash out at me and some other KDE and Qt oriented companies on a regular basis, with no more logic than "we are comanies that are trying to make money, so therefore we are bad". I find his rants tiring and unproductive; it's like pro-life and a pro-choice proponents trying to bring each other to their point of view -- it's just not going to happen any time soon, if ever. What I find exceptionaly frustrating in these debates over "choice" and "freedom" is that they go one way only. As long as I choose the choice and freedom afforded by the GPL, then I'm ok, but if I choose a different style of choice and freedom (exercising my right to choose) then I now become evil.
I really like Linux, and almost without exception we have terrific customers and employees. think far too many people spend far too much time and mental energy tied up in license discussions when their creativity and focus could be spent building something fantastic for themselves or maybe the community, and I hope they start to think about tolerance, choice and freedom as flowing both directions, not just in their direction.
Each week, a member of the Linux community, sometimes famous, sometimes not, discusses an issue of interest in a Guest Essay. If you'd like to contribute, send your essay to us here.
Posted 18 March 2002