Software For Ransom 288
rbp writes "I just received a message from Adam Theo on the Jabber Developers Mailing List about what he calls "The Ransom Model" for software publishing. The principle, according to the above linked site, is that the "rights to the source code remain restricted until a set amount of money is collected or a set date passes, at which point the code is freed". Seems like a very interesting way to make money and produce free software. I think it's worth discussion. Take a look at the Ransom Model webpage and join the Ransom mailing list! (You might also be interested in recent news about Blender)"
Reader Apreche adds a link to a Freshmeat editorial piece which draws on Theo's idea, writing "This has some obvious problems, but it is worth discussing. The biggest problem I see is where vaporware fits into the equation."
anyone seen trigger happy tv? (Score:5, Funny)
oh, sorry, thought you were someone else.
Re:anyone seen trigger happy tv? (Score:2)
Oh man that show is AWESOME!
Any one see Zach Galifinakis on Conan?
Zach: "So, is that show the 'Amazing Race' about white people?"
Such balls! haha
Ransom is such a negative word (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, a third party should step up to act as a broker and hold the money until the software is ready. It'll help protect both sides.
Eh, maybe its appropriate... (Score:5, Interesting)
As for a third party, is it really that important? I mean, they develop the software, you buy it. If at some point they don't make their commitment to release it to the world, then you just stop buying it from them. If you can't afford to take the risk of changing away from it later, then don't buy into ransom software.
Re:Eh, maybe its appropriate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Eh, maybe its appropriate... (Score:2)
Exactly how to you expect to get the balance sheet which shows how much money has been collected? To force the issue, you'd have to sue anyway...
Re:Eh, maybe its appropriate... (Score:2)
Tim
Re:Eh, maybe its appropriate... (Score:2)
Re:Eh, maybe its appropriate... (Score:2)
Re:Eh, maybe its appropriate... (Score:2)
We'll have to see how the market votes.
OTOH, do you really want, say, the Windows source?
Re:Ransom is such a negative word (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ransom is such a negative word (Score:5, Informative)
Besides, end users are not likely to ever see the term "Ransom". I expect this model will mostly be seen and used by the developers and their sponsors, investors, and distributors/resellers (to use those terms loosely).
Re:Ransom is such a negative word (Score:2)
Re:Ransom is such a negative word (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's a reasonable idea. It lets the developer set the return they feel they need to get for their efforts, while in due course giving "extra value" to their product (personally, I view assured eventual source releases as incentive to buy a program now, particularly one I can't live without).
I see it also can optionally tie this to a date after your major market is expected to have come and gone. That way it would function pretty much as copyright was originally intended to -- let the creator derive whatever "limited monopoly" benefit they can in a reasonable timeframe, then give their work to others to build on.
The one point where this gets a bit sticky is if it's an ongoing process where a program has regular upgrades built on the same codebase. Even so, releasing source when support for older versions is retired would be a reasonable thing to do (a la idSoftware), and the goodwill may well be worth far more in future sales than what little commercial value is left in outdated source.
Nomenclature (Score:3, Interesting)
As for vaporware, a refund should be guaranteed on nonperformance. Escrow works, but has transaction costs. One puzzle would be defining performance -- what about buggy code? Who decides it's up to spec? Would problems lead to a full or partial refund? What circumstances?
I'm sure these have been thought of; I'm just thinking aloud, and the random webpage won't load (wonder why). Neat, creative idea.
Re:Ransom is such a negative word (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ransom is such a negative word (Score:3, Interesting)
See Bruce Schneier's Street Performer Protocol
"We introduce the Street Performer Protocol, an electronic-commerce mechanism to facilitate the private financing of public works. Using this protocol, people would place donations in escrow, to be released to an author in the event that the promised work is put in the public domain. This protocol has the potential to fund alternative or "marginal" works.
http://www.counterpane.com/street_performer.htm
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_6/rasch
I"'m gonna do it!... (Score:3, Funny)
"No, man. You do *not* want to take this to the next level..."
I think we're forgetting something (Score:4, Insightful)
What happened to the "more eyes = better code" paradigm that so many Slashdotters and Open-/Free- Source gurus so frequently praise.
Listen, people -- if these new, deviant "random" coders start projects with expiration ("freed code") dates of 10 years down the road, no one will ever learn, improve, or assist innovation in the realm of software engineering. We will simply end up with thousands of under-funded vapourware applications, which in turn will stifle innovation for years to come when one considers all that *could have* been produced in the same amount of time with a more reasonable development model, such as Microsoft's Shared Source or ESR's Open Source.
Re:I think we're forgetting something (Score:4, Interesting)
A better method (Score:2)
Ideally this could be automated, ie the core developers could set how much they want a month and let it run itself.
In this case there is incentive for users to pay to keep the development open so that external contributors can help and so the software they use gets better faster.
expiration dates (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I think we're forgetting something (Score:4, Interesting)
I was going to do ransom on per-version basis though. Each new release would have to be paid for again (just the costs of that release) if they wanted to be able to base their software off the newest code base.
Re:I think we're forgetting something (Score:3, Insightful)
First, let's get the nitpick out of the way: Why do you call someone starting a new software project "deviant"? "Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software." [gnu.org] Surely this also includes the freedom to fork or start new projects.
Next, the vaporware point - there are two counter-arguments here. If you don't like giving money to vaporware, don't! Support released projects, if you feel it's worth it. Also, the page linked to in the article specifically mentions: "Details: In short, Authors (the programmers of the software) first publish their work under a Ransom License (a special proprietary license)." (My italics.) It's not about paying for vaporware, it's about buying software if you think it's a worthwhile investment, with the possibility that it may become Free in the future, with all the associated benefits.
I believe that this model may be suitable for a great number of projects. I am sure many people's gripe with Microsoft, RIAA et al is not that they sell their digital information as a commercial product, which we can choose to buy or ignore, but that the business model they use does not reflect the real costs. It costs a lot of money to design, code, and market a product, but then it's cheap to duplicate that product. Trouble is, we are made to pay for these items long after the amortised cost of development has been returned - hence the astronomical profits of some successful companies.
These factors apply at different scales to many different products - and some scales are currently out of reach for Free Software. The principle is that it does take an investment of time and money to do some things (whether you personally think they should be done that way or not), and that this method may be a good way to gain a reasonable return on that investment without locking the product into a higher price in perpetuity than necessary.
Yes, it's similar to copyright - you get a limited time to exploit a body of work in order to realise a return, but then it's available for The Public Good. Do you think a non-profit organisation could have made the LOTR trilogy without being able to deliver some commercial benefit to its backers? How cool would it be, now that it has made millions for the studio, if legitimate high quality digital copies were available for the cost of making the DVD?
I'll finish (finally) with an example - a group of programmers would like to create an advanced compatibility driver set for GNU/Linux, to match or beat the drivers already available for Windows, for a large range of hardware. However, to buy one of each piece of hardware for testing, to look at the detailed product documentation (which is all freely supplied by hardware makers, naturally), to write the drivers, test them, to have somewhere to do it, and to publish them will take money. Say, $500,000 - even if the programmer's time is gratis. More if they need to eat and/or sleep. With Windows, you pay for that cost, a real cost, in every copy of Windows you buy for every computer. Let's say it contributes $5 to the retail price. But with the Ransom model, you decide - is it worth $5 to me to have the advanced compatability set? If yes, you hand over your $5, and when the development group has been returned their $500,000, it becomes Free for everyone.
You still have the product that you decided was worth $5, except now it's Free software.
You may not have decided it was worth $5, but now it's freely available, you can get the benefit, some time later.
The developers were able to access the funds to this project because they were able to show how they would return the investment.
This project got done where it would not have been done otherwise, because of such backing.
Re:I think we're forgetting something (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, I think it's called learning. I've never understood it either.
M$ new marketing plan (Score:2)
Bill G.: I don't know...there's a lot of people out there who are seeing a lot of windows for free lately..
Great Idea (Score:2)
Street Performer Protocol (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Great Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
nagware (Score:2, Insightful)
But it *has* been thought of before... (Score:2)
It amazes me that nobody else has pointed out the obvious yet. We already have this model. In fact, in the US, there's even a provision in the Constitution for it. It's called intellectual property. Y'know, the thing that says you can't copy stuff, or use a patented technique, for a while after it's first created, and then everyone can have it? (Readers planning to rant about Disney and the extension of copyright dates may save their fingers; we all thought it, and it doesn't change my point.)
Before anyone asks me to go RTFA, yes, I realize that this does not make provision for also releasing the code when a certain amount of money has been raised, but this has happened regardless in some cases. (See, for example, iD's release of the code for their earlier games well before it would have been out of copyright. They were ahead of the game on shareware, and on that, too.)
still not good as good as opensource (Score:3, Informative)
Re:still not good as good as opensource (Score:2, Insightful)
Open source does not give any advantage simply because almost nobody actually reads the code.
In theory, yes you can read it, in real life however, almost nobody takes advantage of this to audit the code and search for problems.
The fact that open source allows you to read the code doesn't mean that people actually read it.
Re:still not good as good as opensource (Score:2)
OSS doesn't mean there won't be any vunerabilities, it means it will be easier to spot them when people go looking. It also means decreased time to patch. (and many other benifits)
Re:still not good as good as opensource (Score:2, Insightful)
First, the opensource model is great and all but it only serves right when is used to develop very common software, something almost everybody wants or something that can be built in small steps.
But there is a lot of software that simply doesn't fit the opensource model, because it will be used by very few people (which can't contribute with much developers, but surely can with lots of money), or because it represents a really big effort before a barely useful product and no group of developers could dedicate themselves to such kind of effort unless they are jobless.
This ramson model seems to fit the gap between the purely commercial software and the purely opensource software, and remember that a software fits in any class because functionality and target users, not only because the beliefs of the programmers. That includes technical beliefs.
Well it looks ok on paper (Score:5, Insightful)
The ramson model has one problem ... (Score:5, Interesting)
At some point you may either find the ransom is not what you expected (and way off the hooks) or that you have been left locked into a 100% propietary solution and have a huge cost to move to another one. Also, the "other" solution may not be arround, because everyone was using this "good looking" ransom app.
Re:The ransom model has one problem ... (Score:2)
No matter what the terms are, there will always be people who try to cheat some more longevity into their cut, but do you really care about having source for such people's products?? if they're not trustworthy on contracts, they're probably not writing trustworthy code either.
duh. (Score:4, Informative)
That nature being what? A lot of OSS developers do it in their free time, of their own free will and with their own resources. In a perfect world, yeah they would get paid, but holding the code until they get paid? Doesn't seem like the best way to go about it. What if their code sucks? No one will use it and they won't get paid. What if it is a cool app? Still no guarantee they are gonna get paid. Why would I throw money in their direction, in the hopes that the code gets released? What if it never does? What if they never hit their magic number? Can I get a refund? The cool thing about OSS is that the cool apps seem to rise to the top, people become interested and contribute their free time, thus enhancing the project. Money Grubbing doesn't enter into it as much. Why would anyone help out on a project where the code may never get released? I say ransom blows.
Re:duh. (Score:2)
Re:duh. (Score:2)
Yeah, I think that's a pretty bad problem. What would have happened to all the Blender money if they had been short of the $100,000? I assume it'd have been refunded, but what an organisational nightmare.
Re:duh. (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember during a telethon by a local radio station, they had a very successful bit called "Give Us Money or We Play the Carpenters." If I remember the exact rules, they had a certain number of Carpenters songs they intended to play (30-ish), and people could call in and buy up a song, keeping it from being played. It was working wonderfully until a small but vocal group of Carpenter fans started giving them money to play more songs.
Why not something along that line? You could implement a ransom system where the code is set to be released at a given date, but people could give money to shorten that date. Until the GPL does kick in, the goal is to make the code useful enough that people want to support it.
But I do see your point. If someone tries to do this, and then starts messing with the conditions of the agreement, or started getting money based on some feature he's promising to implement at some unspecified future date, the whole model would become suspect.
Money pit? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just a new way to do step 2 (Score:5, Funny)
2: ???
3: Profit!
Beer? (Score:2)
Personally, I have made lots of money selling and installing modified/original BSD software, and donated a considerable amount of that back to those projects.
The GPL prevents me from doing this, because I don't necessarily want to release the source code to the changes which I have invested in. And I certainly don't want to release my code under the GPL.
This 'ransom' thing prevents people like me from donating to the project at all. Ironic, really.
Two Questions... (Score:3, Interesting)
How does this affect me, a person who enjoys using Linux/Open Source applications, but have no need to modify them...I just install the binaries and run (yes, I do pay/support when asked)
Secondly, what's to stop some "evil corporation" from buying the rights to the software while it's still in the "Ransom" phase, and then "resetting" the expiry date, or the new Ransom amount?
Re:Two Questions... (Score:2)
Law: sound contracts/licenses written and reviewed by lawyers.
The word ransom is inciting this general fear of "what if the terrorist runs away with the hostage" kind of reaction. -- chill out, we're not on a battle field, this is a licensing issue, and if done properly, parties will stick to their terms till the end...
Re:Two Questions... (Score:2)
Re:Two Questions... (Score:2)
=)
I can just see it now.. (Score:5, Funny)
"Ya see Jimmy, ya gets the
Heh..
Re:I can just see it now.. (Score:2)
Anybody with half a brain would know that you'd release the
Re:I can just see it now.. (Score:2)
In this case... (Score:2)
where vaporware fits into the equation."
In this case, vaporware = "profit"
Given that you have marketed it correctly.
Just Like Drug Patents (Score:2)
Currently, afaik, drugs patents last for 10-15 years after which anyone can manufacture the drug with out the creators permission.
Re:Just Like Drug Patents (Score:2)
Drug patents are a hot issue to say the least. Prescriptions of Prozac dropped 80% immediately upon the end of its patent. A generic typically costs a fraction of the branded price. There's an industry wisecrack that the first pill costs millions, the second costs 30.
The ransom plan sounds to me more like a sort of layaway plan.
potential solutions to the main problems (Score:2)
2) Shifting release conditions. It seems to me that by paying for the software, you are entering into a contract with the copyright holder. They are licensing the product to you for a price and in return you get the right to use the product and the promise that when certain conditions are met, the product will be open source. If the conditions are changed, then the company has violated the terms of the license and the license holders should have a cause of action for a lawsuit for breach of contract. A reasonable settlement would be to make all the code open sourse at that point.
3) The name. Change it to GoalWare. The developers have a goal and the users have a goal. They work together as a team to reach it.
Re:potential solutions to the main problems (Score:2)
Wasn't this a Mel Gibson movie? (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't the ransom model... (Score:2)
Example: id software and Doom.
Why not just encourage donations? (Score:2)
Re:Why not just encourage donations? (Score:2)
--> insert generic "PayPal - Donate!" image here, and the sound of a thousand keyboards typing, "NO, you suckers! All this for free!" <--
Slashdotted...Here's the text (Score:5, Informative)
This model is fair, legally sound, practical, and easy to understand. In the Ransom model, the programmers are paid by the simple demand and quality of their work, not by selling copies of their work by creating artificial supply restrictions.
The problem that Ransom solves is that many open source developers work very hard on their software projects, and usually end up giving their work away, due to the nature of open source. I firmly believe that their social-mindedness and generosity do not qualify as reasons why they shouldn't be fairly compensated for their work. It is impossible to ensure payments through closed source software use, so the rules of publishing the software in the first place need to be changed.
Current models do not work since they are not fair to all parties. Purely "closed source" softwares not only severely restrict the user's abilities and freedoms, but also ignore the laws of value by ignoring software's ability for unlimited supply using a simple 'copy' command. Purely open source software removes any chance of reliable income from the programmer and leaves them to the whims of gifts and benefactors. Neither of these are acceptable.
Details: In short, Authors (the programmers of the software) first publish their work under a Ransom License (a special proprietary license). There exists the stipulation that the code will be automatically freed to a set Open Source License ([OSI]/[FSF]-approved or the public domain) once a set amount of funds have been collected from Contributors (satisfied users, grateful corporate customers, or distributors/resellers) or a set amount of time passes, whichever comes first. You can read details of the complete step-by-step process.
The public gets completely open source software, and the programmers are fairly compensated for the real work they do, not the amount of "copies" they sell. Public interests are protected by legally-binding guarantees and oversight organizations. You can read details of all features and considerations.
Issues: The current issues being discussed are:
The list of Ransom Licenses (such as:
The list of Free Licenses.
Whether Ransom should allow authors to completely hoard their source code until the full Ransom amount has been paid, not even selling restricted copies.
Discussion: All discussion of Ransom occurs on the Ransom mailing list, to which you can [subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage]. The list is not moderated, but you must subscribe to post. You can also [read and search the archives] of the mailing list.
Background: This project began as an idea from a friend, Eric Murphy, on how to finance a digital identity system (which has now grown into [PingID]). I took the idea and posted to [Crynwr's Free Software Business list] about it. This project is the final realization on how to achieve financial compensation for producing open & free software.
---
This is a valid model, used by Blender amongst other projects. However, I think the use of the term 'Ransom' creates a rather negative perception - do you really want an open source model associated with kidnapping? -- RichardDonkin
Perhaps a better name would be: 'Appreciation Model' or 'Threshold Model'. -- PipStuart
Interesting, but not new... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Street Performer Protocol and Digital Copyrights [firstmonday.dk]
There the idea is that the "author" promises to deliver his "work" (a novel, software, anything), as soon as he receives a certain amount of donations. Stephen King actually tried to publish a book like that, chapter by chapter, a few years ago, but I think he concluded that the time wasn't right for it yet.
King did it wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
If I downloaded at home and work, then I screwed his calculations. If people downloaded 20 copies to screw with the system, they succeeded.
If a writer just decided what the market is worth for the story/novel and asks for it, then they're being fair and the system is more likely to work.
Re:King did it wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
A better way that is known to work is serial publication in a magazine or newspaper. I am reminded of this because I was watching "History's Mysteries" the other night and they were talking about original manuscript pages from Uncle Tom's Cabin which was published serially in a newspaper. IIRC, a number of other famous American works were originally published in this manner and went on to do well.
In the 19th century it worked because newspapers were widely read, and it was unlikely that someone would go through the trouble to clip the stories and bind them to make a personal "book". Those who didn't get the paper heard word-of-mouth from people who had, and got the book when it came out.
I'm not sure how this could work on the web, because the works can be copied so readily now. Reading things on the screen is a pain, so people might not read the whole novel, and even if they did read it they'd send their friends the link, not a recommendation to buy it.
Things get more interesting when you have easy-reading screens. Combine that with exclusive distribution through one subscriber service, and you duplicate the 19th century serial publishing model.
Trouble is, the author still has to cut a deal with the publisher. So... this doesn't really compare with King's experiment which was direct to the customer. Also, King is King. Joe B. Hacker is "nobody" so even if he writes great fiction, how will he get people's attention?
Re:King did it wrong (Score:2)
Yup, that is EXACTLY what King did wrong. It made me wonder if he was trying something sneaky and back-handed, to pretend to empower new writers, and then demonstrate to them that "even Stephen King can't make this work". Perhaps he did so in collusion with the very publishers he pretended to spurn.
King is King. Joe B. Hacker is "nobody" so even if he writes great fiction, how will he get people's attention?
IIRC, the original SPP (or one of the variants that was floating around at the time) suggested that Joe Hacker should release the first few chapters into the public domain to convince people that his stuff is worth reading. Then he can ransom subsequent chapters one by one.
Re:King did it wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I agree. You need to decide up front how much money your project is worth. Base this on the number of hours invested and your experience/skill/creativity.
I know some authors may write one superb application that could have made them millions, but instead pays them for the effort they invested. That's unfortunate, but they are still rewarded as their reputation should allow them to raise their price / hourly rate next time around.
You must assume some risk to enter the scheme, but you're your own boss. You should get paid for the work you do, provided it's accepted and used by customers. If it's not, then do you deserve payment?
I think this is an excellent model for music distribution as well. The artists/studios etc. paid for the work put into producing and marketing an album. The quality of the work and the artist's reputation can be reflected in the price. Finally, customers eventually "own" the music, and can p2p it legally after a certain point, so formerly popular titles can be easily obtained after the event. It also discourages the unfair practice of bundling a load of garbage with 2 or 3 good songs and releasing the lot as an "album". Each track could be individually valued, with proportional contributions being made from each compilation sale.
Surely this is a good compromise serving everyone's best interests?
One final thought. Can you charge for successive versions. If you write an popular application and almost give it away (small ransome) can you charge each of the established users a small amount for the extra coding going into the next version, generating a lot of revenue for a small amount of work by virtue of the popularity of the app?
Re:King did it wrong (Score:2)
So.. ISTM if a ransomware product is worth buying, enough people will buy it to make the author's wallet happy.
mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the only model that makes sense to me in that it is clear, well-defined, and simple, yet complete. As the world "gets smaller", the information (knowledge) economy seems to be converging on a sort of minimum -- where the moment a piece of private information becomes public, it becomes public with a capital P (anyone who wants it will get it whether you like it or not). Digital technology allows the game of telephone to be played ad infinitum, and the message at the end of the line is the same as it was at the beginning. Sure, we can try to stretch the Copyright and Patent laws to fight this, but isn't the more intelligent solution to adapt to the new environment in a profitable way?
I have heard economists argue that "secrets" will become the most profitable asset in the information economy (as if they aren't already). This certainly applies to international politics and military affairs already.
In any case, it seems to me that SPP is in sync with all of this. And of course it applies to source code! I think that distributed development deserves a distributed payment system, based on SPP or something like it...
As for practicality, please note that SPP is not new or untested. Public Radio & Television, for example, has been doing it for decades: "We'll give you a quality stream of news/entertainment if and only if you pay us $X by date Y". And guess what -- it works. The government backs out of more of its commitment to funding public media each year, and yet the industry is here.
Probably the name is the worst part of the whole idea. I thought SPP was bad, but "Ransom" -- that's near idiotic -- the kind of name that makes great soundbites for the RIAA. Yeah, "Ransom" sucks. The idea of SPP is great though -- I just wonder why more folks aren't on the bandwagon yet?
BTW, the whole Stephen King experiment is an awful example of this, since there are so many external contributing factors. A fair first experiment with this concept would use a medium that is commonly distributed in digital format. While people do read from computer screens frequently, they do not tend to read novels on the computer. A more fair test would be in the distribution of music, software applications, software documentation, digital images, etc.
OK -- rant done.
Re:Interesting, but not new... (Score:2)
Not a completely original idea (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not a completely original idea (Score:2)
Hence from now on the only shareware I will be paying for is utility software, no applications. Luckily most of the application software is free as in speech or totally commercial, as in adobe or macromedia, or a game.
Caldera should try this method (Score:4, Funny)
Xopus no joy (Score:2, Interesting)
Missing the point (Score:2)
A bunch of issues (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm assuming that the binary must be free and freely distributable, otherwise, who would ever know about this project, and who, then, would donate money towards it. (Or, of course, this could have already been a commercial product that was not freely distributable, but that has a wide following.)
1) If a user does not care about every seeing the source code, he has no reason to pay for it, because again, he already has an unlimited right to use it as much as he wants.
2) Even if a user would like to see the source, he knows that it will one day be released, regardless of making a donation.
3) Even if a user would like to see the source as soon as possible, unless he can afford the entire ransom amount, he has no reason to believe that his donation will make the source released earlier: either not enough other people donate, so his donation is meaningless, or more than enough have donated, in which case his donation is unnecessary. (Do a google search on Kitty Genovese to see what I'm talking about).
Anyway, it doesn't seem like there is any reason for someone to donate, except for the same reasons they donate to OSS projects now. In fact, people might donate less, because nobody likes to pay "ransom" for anything.
Re:A bunch of issues (Score:2)
Donation fraud, reputation (Score:5, Insightful)
The server was slashdotted before I could read more than the front page (see Google cache [216.239.39.100]), so I missed the "step-by-step process" description.
People have mentioned concerns about sky-high ransoms, but the free market will vote with its feet so that doesn't worry me. Likewise, the problem of a programmer who raises the ransom after the initial announcement will be solved because people will get disgusted and won't pay.
But there's a problem of fraud. Joe Programmer wrote Foo Program and I've donated ten bucks to have the source released. But I don't know if Joe counted my ten bucks toward the ransom, or simply pocketed it. If I'm patient and trusting, I can wait for market forces and reputation to filter out the programmers who pocket donations.
But Joe can do better by posting a list of donations. For donors who prefer to be anonymous, he assigns them a number and emails a copy of the number to them, so they can verify that their donations have been counted. Anybody can grab a snapshot of the donation list and throw it in a spreadsheet to verify the current tally.
Anybody whose donation was ignored can gripe in some suitable forum (Slashdot, Usenet, wherever) and if there are enough gripes that don't look like kooks, Joe's reputation will suffer.
Re:Donation fraud, reputation (Score:2)
What I envisioned (and failed to make clear) was that the posting would list the ID followed by the amount donated, where the ID would be the anonymous number. Anonymous ID numbers could then only be aliased for anonymous donors who'd send in exactly the same amount.
Your idea of using the donor's public key is a good one, and gets around the same-donation-alias problem. Or anonymous donors could just invent long random pseudonyms, and the chances of identical nyms would be remote.
Dumb Users Might Break The System (Score:2, Insightful)
Salesguy: "Okay, yeah, the first thousand people to pay for this, get it... and so does everyone else."
Customer: "Even the people that don't pay for it?"
Salesguy: "Yup! That's how it works."
Customer: "... Why would I pay, then? I can just wait for someone else to."
Unless the ransom's low enough that the few people that really want it do pony up right away make the difference, it seems like people will end up waiting indefinitely. And forget about it when it doesn't come out.
You could maybe make the case that the instant gratification urge will win, and they'll want it right now even though they could have it free later, but I wouldn't be sure enough of that to put money on it.
This wouldn't apply to libraries and such, though, so maybe -- but what's really in it for those sorts of developers? The biggest draw I can see for this sort of license is for people who are going to deliver straight to the public. The cut-down version for the small fee draws them in, provides funding, and then once the ransom is met, you get a full release.
Good Idea, Bad Name (Score:2)
Ever played Legend of the Red Dragon? (Score:2)
Now there are tons of modules that you can get for that game. Its inspired a lot of creativity. Of course, he didn't do it just because it was ransomware. He did it because it was about to become abandonware.
This seems like a good strategy for companies. If he released another Dinkesque game he'd have an instant fanbase bolstered by the freeware engine and the knowledge that eventually it would become another freeware engine.
This is bad (several reasons) (Score:3, Interesting)
2. typical free software projects need external help the most in the very beginning. Most projects fail before the first working prototype is finished. Because of that, I won'd be contributing to ransom software; I can't even be sure that the software will be released as free software because I have no way to know how much money will be donated.
3. accountability. How do you know the author will not lie to you about how much money he made so far?
4. disincentive to cheat. If the author survival depends on this, he has an incentive to let you pay through your nose for updates and upgrades and new features, and you will probably hire him because nobody else knows the source code like him so he can be faster than others.
In my experience, free software projects work best if they are a) not paid for at all (you do it in your spare time) or b) they are paid for by one company who really needs this problem solved but you are allowed to release the software as GPL, too.
Even better: c) you start the project as GPL but get your work funded by some company who needs the problem solved. Many of my projects are category c) and it's really in the best interest of you (because you get the money and you get to write free software), the company (they get their problem solved and they get the source code and random people off the net will help them improve their software for free), and the world (because the world gets new free software as part of the creative commons world heritage). In contrast to the street performer protocol this is actually known to work in practice
Ransom with no demands - Transgaming (Score:2)
They've promised that, at some point, it all gets handed back to the community, but there has been zero discussion of when this might be.
Letting users have a word (Score:2, Interesting)
I think this could be a great way to get developers interested in things the users want like good GUIs, better usability, better manuals, Wizards. We users could set up projects and stock them up with money to stimulate developers which could compete with each other to see who gets it. The Free Software Foundation could administer the prize money to see that there are no scams or to redirect it (with previous consent of the clients) if there are no takers or the project dies for some other reason.
This could even work as a project inside a distribution like Mandrake or Lycoris. I'm sure there would be a lot of ideas on how to do this!
There would be a far better interaction between users and developers than what is even thinkable with closed-source software. I think that for a fraction of what we pay for closed source, we would get in much shorter time greatly superior OS Software.
I think this could be the missing link for letting OOS fly and fly away!
Thinking about copylefting my articles this way. (Score:2, Interesting)
On the one hand, I think I would do a lot of good to the community if I copylefted my article. A lot of people might read it who otherwise would never come across it. On the other hand, allowing the only copy to be on my website generates a lot of valuable traffic that helps to advertise my consulting business. But on still another hand, maybe having the copylefted version in the wild would do even more to publicize my business.
John Levon suggested that that particular article is probably best where it is. I'm thinking now that he's probably right.
But I have other articles that I am thinking of copylefting. I have started writing a column on cross-platform software development [byteswap.net]. My thought now is that I will copyleft my articles, say, six months after they are published. The one article I have posted so far is older than that, so if I decide to do this I will copyleft it right away.
That way there will be traffic to my cross-platform site [byteswap.net] from people looking for new articles, but ultimately they will have the most positive effect if they are picked up by linux distros, for example.
I'm still undecided about it, I probably won't make a decision right away. Yes, I want to help people. But I'm sorry to say that it's been challenging to be a self-employed software consultant since the dot-com crash. My articles take a lot of work to write, and I don't get paid for writing them, in fact I take a lot of time off to write that I could spend doing billable work for my clients. They are an effective advertising medium. The decision of whether to copyleft them is going to have to be based in large part on what I think would be best for my business.
Similar Stephen King's model (Score:2, Informative)
A trusted third party (Score:3, Interesting)
Otherwise the scheme would tend to generate mistrust on the public's side of the equation. Perhaps someone like the EFF or the GNU people could hold the rights in escrow until the appointed date/cash level is reached.
Personally I prefer that we could all just trust each other to be reasonable.
Will the eula... (Score:3, Funny)
micropayments (Score:2)
As an aside, I'd like to support the distro releasers as well this way, and here's the rub, for my pet distro and even the distros I don't normally use, it still wouldn't bother me to send them "a buck or two" now and then if it was cheap and easy for me to do this without incurring the high transaction fee financial pain threshhold. I'd like the ability to only incur ONE fee for supporting MANY projects, so the developers get the most loot, not paypal or another middleman. I don't mind they get "some" just make it low enough so that more folks might be interested because it's cheap and easy to do so. Like, you login and are presented with an extensive menu and set of checkboxes, your cash level to donate is carved in stone at that time for that transaction, depending on how many checkboxes you check, that's what % of your loot gets transferred, within some sort of minimum reasonableness, make it a dollar maybe. The default on the checkbox can be like any shopping cart, it's zero-empty, you can manually change that if you want say 1 or 2 or 3 to go one of your favorite projects, singles to others, or whatever, up to your limit for that transaction. Some folks got no probs dropping a franklin that way, other folks can drop a jackson and still be contributing at least something, and it can get spread out better/faster/wider.
Maybe this is too obvious.. (Score:2)
Vaporware... (Score:2)
From the article,
In short, Authors (the programmers of the software) first publish their work under a Ransom License (a special proprietary license). There exists the stipulation that the code will be automatically freed to a set Open Source License ([OSI]/[FSF]-approved or the public domain) once a set amount of funds have been collected from Contributors (satisfied users, grateful corporate customers, or distributors/resellers) or a set amount of time passes, whichever comes first. You can read details of the complete step-by-step process.
So, basically:
1)Write software.
2)Release software, but not source code (aka freeware).
3)Request donations, tell people that once you reach $X you'll release the source code under an open license such as the GPL or donate it to the public domain.
4)Once a certain amount of time has passed, or you've reached your goal of $X in donations, release the software's source code.
an old idea (Score:2)
Seems dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Software is released under a 'Ransom' license.
2. People don't buy the software, waiting for it to become free once x others have bought it.
3. No one buys the software.
4. The software never becomes free, and no one uses it.
It's wholly unfair that some people get to use it for free whilst others pay for it. Opensource developers SHOULD code apps because they like doing so, and because they're useful, and they should make their wages doing maintainance/individual projects for companies.
Re:open source software eats programmer jobs (Score:2, Insightful)
If a company uses open source software, they'll have extra money (saved from not having licensing costs). If they're smart, they can then use this money to hire developers to work on open source projects, giving back to the community which has given to them. It's like planting a tree when you chop one down; smart in the long term.
yeah right (Score:2)
Re:yeah right (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, some of them are [earthdayresources.org]
This is a hostile reference, it's true, but does not contradict that at least the world's largest timber company (which has a good incentive to plant trees) does in fact plant them.
As to the chip-on-shoulder complaint that Weyerhaueser "does not expand upon how many of those 40 million seedlings make it to maturity or how many of those tree farms are replacing our disappearing old-growth forests," eh, no comment at this time
timothy
Re:yeah right (Score:2)
It's like if a company wanted to tear down a bunch of beatiful old stone buildings (which by and large would be far too expensive to build today) to get the stone, and justified it by saying they'd build some tacky prefabs to replace them. Well, great, there's still a roof to protect you from the rain, but wouldn't you feel a bit cheated?
Re:open source software eats programmer jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Like Blender? You'd have to sell your self chea (Score:2)