🚀 go-pugleaf

Code Monkey UK <codemonkey_uk@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Dave Blake wrote:
>>O'Reilly makes a ton of cash from free software as well.
>That making money selling books, not writing GPL software.

However, the authors of the GPL software involved typically write the
manuals, being the world experts on the subject. Then they get royalties.

>>You could pay a lot of the best hackers in the world to hack,
>>and occasionally have them do an industrial hack - like making
>>Applix's software run better under linux, or helping Oracle
>>and Sybase port to linux.
>Thats making money from consultancy, not writing GPL software.

Er, no. If you're hired to make something work on Linux because you're a
notorious kernel hacker, you're making money _because_ you've written free
software.

The author of a useful piece of free software should always be able to
find someone to employ him as an expert on it.

>>Red Hat PAYS the developers, and they WORK for Red Hat.
>>They may produce GPL code and have intellectual freedom,
>>but they are GREAT MARKETING for Red Hat and further establish
>>Red Hat as the number one commercial linux consulting firm.
>Thats nice of them, but how does one become a payed up Red Hat
>developer?  I take it its not a case of applying for a job and getting
>put on the payroll.

No; you write good free software, which brings you to their attention...

>>That then maximizes the market for software consulting.
>I don't want to be a consultent.  I want to create software.
>I *still* can't see how somone can make a living from creating
>software under the GPL licence.

Tell that to Larry Wall.
-- 
David/Kirsty Damerell.                       damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~damerell/ w.sp.lic.#pi<largestprime>.2106
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