Freely ye have received, freely give?
January 11th, 2006I received an email a week or so ago with a proposal for setting up a virtual marketplace for services for users of OpenOffice.org. Services could range from simple to complex, for example:
- answering user queries
- researching and providing solutions currently somewhere in the public domain
- customised macro development
- OpenOffice.org integration services
- enhancements to the core OpenOffice product
The virtual marketplace would allow customers and service providers to group together to undertake work that would not be viable in isolation, but which would be viable when consolidated (100 people willing to pay €10 each could add up to an attractive €1000 proposition for a developer).
There would be some licencing conditions so that all work would eventually end up in the public domain.
As in all virtual trades, there would need to be mechanisms for assuring the quality of work, and ensuring that payment is received. However, the likes of Google Answers and eBay have shown that these can be overcome with sufficient ingenuity in the design of the marketplace (although some researchers for Google report the virtual marketplace is only good at driving down the value placed on research).
While I was thinking about this proposition, Simon Phipps thudded an email into the OpenOffice.org marketing discussion list about the economics of open-source communities (it’s also in his blog). His contention is that in open-source communities:
Each member is responsible for covering their own costs and because of that there’s a level playing field for all participants, and use without contribution is also OK.
(I personally feel some responsibility to contribute back to open-source communities whose products I use, but Phipps would just see that as my non-monetary reward.)
Phipps’ position is one many in the open-source world would relate to, and explains the unease many open-source folks feel about ideas like the virtual marketplace proposition. So, do I encourage our budding entrepreneur, or discourage her from diluting the free software message?
January 23rd, 2006 at 6:19 am
Very interesting post. We rely on donations to offset costs, but freely give help and advice on our site. There are times however where paying clients must get priority.
I have been working with osCommerce a lot lately. After coming from a Perl background and then working a lot with WordPress, it struck me how much more commecial the arena around osCommerce is. People want to sell all of the modules and templates and so forth.
I find it just a bit off-putting somehow. I don’t mind when people want to sell something, but I guess when you take an open source product I usually try to give something significant back as well.
Another example, I use notetab, a great plain text editor from http://notetab.com where you can get a free light version and low cost pro version. There is a guy who sells a couple of add on products for that that cost more than the product itself. People who have bought the add on’s claim great love for the products, but something seems wrong to me in that model.
I guess the issue is … is there a business model to support it? If so, as you suggest there may be, the market will decide if the convenience is better than self found information or collaborative contributions from the community.
Anyway, great site and I like your fold menu plugin. I pointed out an oversight in your documentation in another post that I am sure you will delete after reviewing it.
Don