*no one* knows the codebase better than you and that is worth a hell of a lot, sure some big company could say ‘have you tried turning it off and on again?’ but you don’t want to do that kind of support, you get the big jobs .

“I understand (I think) the concept of software freedom. But what confuses me is why would a coder be financially better off releasing his/her code via an open source route?”
often you won’t be financially better off, the free software movement is still in its infancy and being one of the trailblazers of the movement isn’t easy when everyone else gets to make money by forcing the users to give up their freedoms.

essentially if all you care about is money then your gonna end up down the non-free route, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make money from free software, indeed if its good enough and you have a good bussiness head (or hire someone who does) then you can make a lot from it, definatly enough to feed those mouths. don’t expect to release your code and the phone start ringing though.

1: Start with a blank sheet of paper. Develop software from scratch. Sell a “licence”, and make your money that way.

2: Start with an OSS application someone else has written. Tweak that, maybe by adding a module. Release under an appropriate OSS licence, and make your money selling services and support.

It’s not the “revenue” side of the equation only… it’s the fact that by starting with an OSS application, you could chop 90% out of your development cost…. so create 10 times as many applications with the same programming team.

It doesn’t always work, but neither does keeping the source to yourself.

@3: Have you ever tried getting support from a big company? Competing with them isn’t hard.

The thing that would worry me (if I had to make a living out of software – which I don’t…) is this.

Say I did release software under the GPL.

What’s to stop a larger and more recognisable business from providing support for my software cheaper or better than I can? In that case couldn’t a coder literally be priced out of supporting his/her own software?

@ Gord

I understand (I think) the concept of software freedom. But what confuses me is why would a coder be financially better off releasing his/her code via an open source route?

Sure, it’s possible to make money without keeping source closed. But what’s the business proposition in doing so?

Freedom is great, but people still have mouths to feed, and convincing them to release their work under the FOSS route is going to be hard if we can’t convince them that it’s the best thing to do to develop their businesses.

keeping the source code free is about making sure that your freedoms as a coder are protected and the users freedoms as a user are protected, not about just releasing all the code to a communitiy. you can for example not only charge for support, but also say a company wanted 100 systems setup with your software, you know it the best thus they can pay you to set it up perfectly, or if a company needs a feature you can impliment it for a fee.

also if your software becomes big enough and a company relys on it they might consider bringing you on their staff to maintain it or whatever. you just have to get it out of your head that keeping the source closed and restricting peoples freedom is the only way to make money from software.

I would say that your premises are not the ones for the question at hand.

Ask yourself, where do you want to end up with your application?