Cool article. You can call it what ever you like.... How about "Freeware Open Public Domain Source" ? :-) You can not lump shareware in it... because you (supposed to) eventually pay for it.

Is that not what you do anyhow, even with Open Source ? You pay for it with your time & effort to use it. You do not get the 24/7 support as some of the retail software users get, so you support it in house with your own staff.

A dollar for a download ? Sounds like to me you advocate the tollbooth mentality. Hey in NC they are thinking of placing toll booths along I-95 ! That's it, you charge people a toll to surf the internat highway around your site, and then you do not have to charge per download, just per log-in. That way if they do not buy anything... you still stick'em !

As for people working out bugs in the open source software they download, I am sure there is (should be if not) a way to submit back to the people in control of the actual source, the bug fixxes. That way everyone else can benefit.

Hey lets instead of "Open Source" lets call it "Share Source" or "YoursMine Source" or "TeamSource" or .....

G'Day !

There is an excellent term which hasn't been used in a long time. It was used a lot in Amiga circles...

"Public Domain" Software.

...a great term that says it all. However everyone seems to have dropped it.

Although the open source thing isn't all things to all people, I feel a little queazy that Alan's doing his soul searching in such a prominent position as JDJ editorial.

I think you were overly broad in your dismissal of the fact that the source code is open and freely available. One aspect that makes OSS so interesting is that it DOES include the source code. Having the source code means you can fix things, even if you may not attempt to do so. While we've never fixed a code bug in Eclipse, Apache, or the PostgreSQL database, we have done so for Tomcat, the JDBC driver for PostgreSQL and Jason Hunter's servlets code. Who's to say we won't need that code some day later.

Also, by having the source, nobody can take it away from you, and you can refer to sections of code that may do something you need to do elsewhere, so you can learn the techniques, and then use them in your own systems.

This was made quite clear with freeware like the high quality SwiftMQ JMS server. At 2.3, it was freeware, but since then, it's not. Without the source, we're forced to rely on working binaries, or on going from freeware to a regular license, which if free was the key, then the license is no good and we look elsewhere. Without the source, moving from JDK 1.3 to 1.4 can be a pain because there are incompatibilities at the API level, so the old binaries cease to have value, even though the code could likely be patched in a day's work. The source is key. It's also the reason why so many other eyes can look over the code and help ferret out bugs.

Lastly, the problem with $1 pricing is that you'd need a very good system in place to handle it. If it were mandatory to pay, then you'd need to police those who don't pay. Also, would you pay $1 for each revision (we'd probably not patch as often then)? And how would the payment be made. If we charged it, or sent in a check, it would probably cost an OSS group more to handle and process those transactions, provide receipts, record the transactions, etc.

Finally, as soon as we pay for something, the OSS group would become liable for the technology. This may seem like a small matter, but it's huge in the OSS world, where the source is given "as is." This is mostly acceptable because nothing was charged for the code, but if they charge and make money, they'd open themselves up to such suits in the future.

Anyway, I have no problem with OSS.