I may move this post later on, but I was working on a project that involves a piece of open source software and thought to myself of the eternal question most people ask…
“Why create a Program and then Give it away for free?”
The idea was started long ago when everyone was first excited about learning how to use this new device called a computer. As small groups of people tend to do, they often worked together to exchange ideas and knowledge to work towards a common goal. How to Coerce that bunch of electronics to solve problems and perform actions faster than we could do so ourselves. Through co-operation they started the wave of software and technology that now floods our daily lives, for better or worse.
Eventually people began to take that idea and work out ways to make money from the latest ideas and inventions. It is part of some peoples nature to do so and I fault them in no way. For ideas need advertising to make them popular and the idea of a computer in every home would never have happened without the drive of an economic reward for pushing it into daily lives. Now it’s a part of our everyday culture.
Not completely gone though is the spirit of exploration that first started with the introduction of the computer. There are great programing explorers out there still that seek to expand upon what they feel is a great idea. They still believe in the ability and strength of the Many working Together freely and sharing ideas, versus the focus of a secretive team development process. That brings us back to the term Open Source Software.
The basic idea of Open Source software is that when you create a program you will offer it as free to download, free to use, and you will also offer the building blocks you used to create it for free so that anyone can look at the code and explore how you developed your idea for a program.
In return, anyone that uses your program or Idea is welcome to suggest or make changes as they see fit to expand upon your original thought and resubmit the program to the internet community, but it must be offered for Free. You can Charge to teach people how to use the idea, you can sell your own services to help them learn how to setup the program to fit their own needs, and you are allowed to make money by helping the public to understand how to enhance your own idea using open source software.
Though you are not allowed to charge anyone to download or use The Original Idea.
If you wish to make money from the idea of Open Source you Must first learn it, and then seek to Teach it to others, then you will understand that you do not make money from the idea, but rather from helping others learn how to use the Original Idea. The Original Idea is the Definition of Open Source.
