🚀 go-pugleaf

Robert Wilderspin wrote:
>dblake@dylan.ucsf.edu (Dave Blake ) wrote:
>>Robert Wilderspin wrote:
>>>Writing and selling books about GPL software is, in my opinion, also
>>>commercial support, so Jason's comment was correct.  Support doesn't
>>>only mean helpdesk work.

>>Right, but people like Eric Allman and Larry Wall are writing the
>>manuals. Their GPL software allowed them to write a manual that
>>will sell millions of copies.

>Although that's fine for some people on some software projects, that
>approach is impossible for the vast majority of programmers working on
>open source software.  How many people would buy a book on SCSI over
>parallel device drivers, or drag and drop protocols in Gnome?  Not
>enough to sustain half a dozen coders, I imagine.

Yes, but the coders do create a need for commercial support. 
In that sense, they have value for commercial support 
companies. At this point, any coder who can truly create
a product with a useful enough niche will be able to GPL code
and be paid for it.

In the examples above, some of the coders working on drag and
drop in GNOME are already paid GPL programmers working for Redhat.
The reason is that 1) it is good marketing and 2) there is potential
for commercial support of the product, and software consulting
based on the product.

The programmer has to be creating something useful to a large
number of people for it to work for him.

---
Dave Blake
dblake@phy.ucsf.edu