Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-09-05 01:17 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-09-05 01:17 am
Entry tags:
Open source vs. Non-Profit, the food truck edition.
Imagine a cookbook. A cookbook isn't necessarily the best metaphor to use here, because of US copyright law regarding recipes, but then there are some similar US rulings that apply to computer programs' front ends as well. (Since I'm in the US, those are the laws I'm most familiar with.)
The cookbook might be published, with pictures and extensive written instructions on how to assemble the dishes. Anyone who wants to use the cookbook would have to buy a copy, or borrow a copy from someone who had bought it, or perhaps obtain it illegally.
The cookbook might be posted online by the creators, free to read for anyone who had internet to get to it, and free to use for basically whatever. (Though the creators might take a dim view, and a legally supported dim view, of someone else lifting not only the ingredients list, but also the pictures and the writeup, and claiming that they, and not the originators, created all that.)
The cookbook might not be available anywhere outside the creator's kitchen, not for pay and certainly not for free. Those are family recipes! How dare you! Or perhaps it's just something that the creator whipped together -- for fun, or because it needed to happen and they couldn't find it anywhere else -- and hasn't bothered to publish or put up online because it's all just so much bother.
Imagine a place that serves soup and sandwiches. Soup and sandwiches, created on an industrial scale and not just for the family at home, takes some sort of recipe. Recipes which can be found in a cookbook.
It could be a soup kitchen, serving food to whoever comes along hungry and in need.
It could be a restaurant, serving food to whoever comes along with the required amount of cash.
It could be the soup equivalent of Rupert Grint's ice cream truck -- serving food for free to whoever happens to be around because it pleases the establishment to make soup and sandwiches.
Obviously all these establishments need some sort of a recipe. They may have even created cookbooks. But nothing says that the cash-required restaurant has to sell their cookbook for cash, or that the soup kitchen has to only use found-for-free-online recipes. Nothing says that the soup kitchen can't sell a cookbook to raise money. Nothing says that the cash-required restaurant can't release an ebook of their popular recipes for free in case you want to try your hand at them at home.
Just because a particular group uses and builds open source software says jack-all about whether they are a nonprofit. Just because a particular group is a nonprofit says jack-all about whether they use or create open source software.
If Dreamwidth were a food truck, it would use a few recipes which were freely available online, a few recipes which were painstakingly assembled after one of the new chefs blind-taste-tested stuff from another food truck (does the same general thing, but with that special dw-truck twist), and a whole lot of recipes that the chefs developed the hard way. The dw-truck's website would link to the recipes from elsewhere (other open source software), and have an ebook with the rest of the recipes (dw-free). (dw-nonfree is like the fruity drink the chefs sip from time to time -- part of what makes the truck distinctive, but not required at home to make the same recipes.) The soup of the day is hearty and filling and served for free to whoever walks up and asks for a bowl. The bacon and/or truffle chowder, the really good stuff? For that, they charge. And that's what keeps it going. It pleases the establishment to make soup and sandwiches. And it is delicious.
The cookbook might be published, with pictures and extensive written instructions on how to assemble the dishes. Anyone who wants to use the cookbook would have to buy a copy, or borrow a copy from someone who had bought it, or perhaps obtain it illegally.
The cookbook might be posted online by the creators, free to read for anyone who had internet to get to it, and free to use for basically whatever. (Though the creators might take a dim view, and a legally supported dim view, of someone else lifting not only the ingredients list, but also the pictures and the writeup, and claiming that they, and not the originators, created all that.)
The cookbook might not be available anywhere outside the creator's kitchen, not for pay and certainly not for free. Those are family recipes! How dare you! Or perhaps it's just something that the creator whipped together -- for fun, or because it needed to happen and they couldn't find it anywhere else -- and hasn't bothered to publish or put up online because it's all just so much bother.
Imagine a place that serves soup and sandwiches. Soup and sandwiches, created on an industrial scale and not just for the family at home, takes some sort of recipe. Recipes which can be found in a cookbook.
It could be a soup kitchen, serving food to whoever comes along hungry and in need.
It could be a restaurant, serving food to whoever comes along with the required amount of cash.
It could be the soup equivalent of Rupert Grint's ice cream truck -- serving food for free to whoever happens to be around because it pleases the establishment to make soup and sandwiches.
Obviously all these establishments need some sort of a recipe. They may have even created cookbooks. But nothing says that the cash-required restaurant has to sell their cookbook for cash, or that the soup kitchen has to only use found-for-free-online recipes. Nothing says that the soup kitchen can't sell a cookbook to raise money. Nothing says that the cash-required restaurant can't release an ebook of their popular recipes for free in case you want to try your hand at them at home.
Just because a particular group uses and builds open source software says jack-all about whether they are a nonprofit. Just because a particular group is a nonprofit says jack-all about whether they use or create open source software.
If Dreamwidth were a food truck, it would use a few recipes which were freely available online, a few recipes which were painstakingly assembled after one of the new chefs blind-taste-tested stuff from another food truck (does the same general thing, but with that special dw-truck twist), and a whole lot of recipes that the chefs developed the hard way. The dw-truck's website would link to the recipes from elsewhere (other open source software), and have an ebook with the rest of the recipes (dw-free). (dw-nonfree is like the fruity drink the chefs sip from time to time -- part of what makes the truck distinctive, but not required at home to make the same recipes.) The soup of the day is hearty and filling and served for free to whoever walks up and asks for a bowl. The bacon and/or truffle chowder, the really good stuff? For that, they charge. And that's what keeps it going. It pleases the establishment to make soup and sandwiches. And it is delicious.
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Of course, it's also nearly impossible to google for a lot of things.
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Some sites give you the soup for free, but charge you for the bowl, and you can't bring your own bowl.
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Indeed. I work for a casino; a place designed to separate well heeled people* from that what makes them well heeled (aka money), and there is rather a lot of open source software help keep the the wheels of the machine(s) turn.** Granted, there's also a lot of 'special sauce'*** in there that was quite expensive, ill-behaved, and prone to fall over if someone farts in it's general direction, but OSS by and large keeps the back end moving.
* or fool, but then, I repeat myself.
** you see what I did there? But literally- the bulk of the infrastructure has some oss that it either runs on (the kernel for the hypervisor, java, bog only knows what libraries and other modules the apps use, etc.)
*** as in 'only three companies in the world make said software', 'short bus special', and 'has to be reviewed by several agencies and auditors before we can be allowed to receive the software' special.****
**** If you are familiar with the gaming industry, you know that I'm talking about GLI and the state gaming departments. We also have the tribal regulatory goons as well, being a casino owned by one of the local tribes.
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