Re:Small / Start up Dilemma (Score 1)

Everyone knows that OSS is a great boon to users, and that is indeed why a lot of us use it. I have multiple paid-for copies of Linux, so that I in turn support the OSS community.

The question, as the original poster stated however, is how can a small business that is developing software hope to make a living, if the only thing that it has is given away for nothing. Surely there must be some payback for a company that has spent a couple of years developing something innovative. I don't think that the standard answer of consulting contracts would make it, however. It is EXACTLY the bigger players that are riding the wave of the OSS community. That is why the like of IBM are such eager supporters. If you had the highest rated services business in the world, wouldn't you be pushing for a model that is only services oriented? It is a surprise it took IBM as long to make its move (or maybe it was just preparing in the background).

The question for smaller players is how do you recoup your investment if you give away your assets? Are pure-GPL proponents saying that one should only work part-time on these projects and make a living elsewhere? Or are they saying that we should be on the payroll of IBM, or HP, or even Red Hat? How is this individual full-time type of innovation, with its associated costs and sacrifices, going to be rewarded? Clearly, some new paradigms need to be developed that are more inclusionary than "GPL or nothing".