Open source advocates loudly proclaim that "free software" refers to freedom rather than price and that many people are making money from it. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Or, to put it another way, it is a linguistic trick that hides the lie. Upon hearing "you can make money from it", most of us naturally assume it means "you can make money by selling it", while the OSS advocates are really saying "you can make money from a business that gives away software while selling something entirely different". The business models they offer usually fall into one of two categories: selling support for the program, or selling modification services. Let's examine them more closely.

The support company model is the most common one, and consists of packaging, providing technical support for installation or operation, and of being a lawsuit target. RedHat is a shining example of this business model; it is one of the few such companies that are actually making profits. However, it is easy to see that this company does not make a dime from the free software itself. It makes money from a completely different business; a business that is as unrelated to programming as making pipes is unrelated to plumbing.

To see why this is so, consider the case of a PVC pipe manufacturer. RedHat's counterpart would be the plumber who puts the pipe where it's supposed to go, fixes leaks or burst pipes, and is paid very well for his services. But is it appropriate to say that the plumber makes money from the pipes? Hardly; he makes money in an entirely different profession. The fact that he needs pipes for his work is irrelevant, since he is not making them. Would you go to the pipe manufacturer and tell him that making money from selling pipes is immoral and that he should become a plumber instead?

The other business model is to sell customizations to existing software. For example, if I had written a web browser, some company might pay me to create a special version of it with their corporate logo in it. If I took that job, would I be selling the web browser? Of course not; I would be selling the new code that I would have to write to put in the company logo.

In addition, I would have to compete with all the other qualifying programmers, of which there will be an abundance. Writing a web browser, or any other complex piece of software, takes plenty of talent in software design and implementation, but any fresh graduate of the "Learn C++ in 24 hours" book can probably figure out how to put a logo on the splash screen. If programmers could only make money from simple tedious code that nearly any fool can write, while having to give away any truly good code for nothing, would you call it fair?

Finally, there is something to be said about that GPL clause that lets you sell your software for any price you want. The advocates will inevitably point it out at this stage, and say that nobody is forcing you to give your software away for free. The problem is that once you make your first sale, the price of the software drops to zero, since your first customer can give it away for nothing. He does, in fact, immediately become your competitor, able to lower the price beceause it costs him nothing to produce it.

And software does cost a lot to produce. After the first copy, the price is zero, but you will pay for that first copy in time and effort, talent and skill. That program you have worked so hard might be worth millions; and yet you give it away for free? Why would anyone do such a thing?

They would do such a thing because most "free software" is not good enough to sell. SourceForge is full of little toy projects that nobody ever looks at (I know; I wrote several), and that would not sell at any price, no matter how low.

They might do such a thing because they don't have time to sell it. Running a business is not a weekend job and requires a great deal of time to manage sales and marketing, to account the finances and file taxes, to maintain a decent web page and to pay for various services needed to collect payments. Most programs simply don't have enough of a market to justify it, even if people are willing to pay for them.

But before you put your next program under the GPL, think twice. Ask yourself if you really think it worthless. Ask yourself if you actually value your work. And then perhaps you would not be so eager to throw it away.