An update on the controversy regarding the use by Canonical of the Ubuntu name for a closed proprietary project.
Both contributions are from the Autonomo.us mailing list
Bradley Kuhn wants to put the critique in perspective:
“Most software companies produce mostly proprietary software, and sometimes a little bit of Free Software. Many of these companies now talk a “good game” of being “pro Open Source”, but don’t release most of their stuff as Open Source and/or Free Software.
We should certainly criticize Canonical’s move. However, we should also realize it yields a more emotional response in us when an otherwise all-Free Software company has begun to dip its toe in proprietary software. Remember that IBM, for example — for all they do positively for software freedom — produces and licenses more proprietary software and more software patents each week than Canonical will in a year.
I know this pain well: I went through it with HelixCode/Ximian, Red Hat, and a host of other previously Free Software companies that became partly proprietary software ones. It hurts a lot because, as a software freedom advocate, one feels betrayed. I guess I’ve seen it enough that I expect every for-profit company to eventually switch to a proprietary software model in part. One can always make more money with proprietary software than Free Software, and for-profit companies serve only one goal: MAKE.MONEY.FAST. We should expect them to ditch any principle in front of them at the altar of greed, and just hope they do it later rather than sooner.
That’s what I’ve been doing with Canonical for years, and when I saw Launchpad go proprietary and now UbuntuOne, I just thought: “Oh well, here we go again. It was good while it lasted.”
Meanwhile, we should be careful to criticize these specific acts only and not condemn the whole company any more than we condemn part proprietary/part Free Software companies in other realms. Condemning people who do MOSTLY Free Software and some proprietary software as much as we criticize those who do MOSTLY proprietary software and some Free Software is out of proportion.”
Michael Bernstein reacts to the following point made by Bradley:
Thesis: One can always make more money with proprietary software than Free Software
“An objective and narrow reading of this statement is actually true. Margins on Proprietary software are higher than Free Software. The successful Free Software vendors are in many cases deliberately disrupting the market they target, shrinking its size (in terms of $$$) and taking a larger share of a market with thinner margins, which the more bloated incumbents are ill-suited for. Overall, less money is made.
It is only un-true for upstart entrants to those markets that don’t have any other reasonable way of entering a pre-existing market with established proprietary vendors. This assumes that the dominant proprietary offerings are actually ‘good enough’ in some sense, which they usually are.
The only other reliable strategy that works for existing markets is entering it from an adjacent one that you dominate (which, obliquely, is one reason new companies frequently try to establish new markets, however small). So in theory, if you dominate one market with a FLOSS product you could enter an adjacent market with a proprietary offering.”