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Comment by cookiecaper | Hacker News Reader

Although the GPL allows authors to charge for software, it disposes of all legal copyright protections that make such charges practical. Charging for GPL software doesn't mean anyone will pay you, it just means that everyone will get the free builds from someone else, which is even less desirable than releasing free builds since you lose control of distribution. Look at Red Hat and CentOS for case in point.

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Yeah, Red Hat is really bleeding money from the all the lost sales caused by CentOS. I can't believe they only made a puny 1.53 billion dollar in revenue last year.. </sarcasm>

http://investors.redhat.com/financials-statements.cfm

Please note that the HN community takes a rather strict approach when moderating comments that contribute noise to the conversation. "Nice article!" comments are routinely downvoted. As is sarcasm, witticisms, memes, references and other styles of comments that occur frequently but do not contribute to the discussion. It's a knowingly doomed attempt to hold back the flood of noise that covers Reddit.

The parent comment, however, was actually relevant to the point being discussed (whether or not the ability to fork a free-as-in-speech but not free-as-in-beer program is a significant risk to one's business model). Sarcasm or no, it's a valid point, and thus I feel trying to spout off admonitions in the name of the "HN community" is inappropriate in this context.

Yeah, this was iffy. I totally agree with the comment. But, when it comes to maintaining a community, it doesn't matter if you are right if you are a jerk about it.

For the discussion: I recently paid for the Synergy software KVM even though it is GPL. Synergy's purchase process is very smooth. Paying $10 for the installers was much easier than compiling it myself. And, I was already had confidence that Synergy was useful, good quality, well-maintained software. So, I was happy to support it as long as doing so was convenient.

Red Hat has never made money because of its GPL software. People want to buy their support and consulting services, which Red Hat incidentally only offers for RHEL, necessitating users buy a license if they are to get the product they actually want. People who try to sell GPL software as a standalone product do not fare well.

VA Linux Systems set a record for largest IPO and then tanked. The vast majority of Free-software based businesses have tanked too. RedHat is really the exception.

VA Linux Systems was a Hardware Company so your comparison fails in terms of speaking about Free Software Success Stories. Red Hat is far from being an exception. Actually old school closed source software companies are more difficult to start up today in my opinion.

Financial Success Stories abound all around. MySQL, WordPress, Drupal, Mozilla (FireFox), Android, etc.

None of those make money selling GPL software. The GPL software undergirds the product they sell, but it is not the product itself.

MySQL: Fancy proprietary version with non-GPL features makes money, GPL version sits there doing nothing. Used to make money from a traditionalist dual-license model before Oracle took over, now they just neglect the GPL version.

WordPress: Makes money from hosting and consulting, not from its software.

Drupal: ibid.

Firefox: makes money from search affiliate deals and charitable donations. This is closer because they make money by getting brands in front of Firefox's installed base, which is sort of close to making money from software, but still indirect.

Android: Google does not make money from Android directly except insofar as they negotiate licensing deals with phone providers for their closed-source "Google Apps" suite and/or for "Google Play Edition" or other official branding on a phone. In these cases, they are selling a collection of Android apps and/or Google branding, not the GPL software that runs on the phone.

I don't know of any case where a company sustained itself on the sales of actual GPL software. Every open-source company lives off ancillary services or licensing deals (dual-licensing like MySQL or branding deals like Google).

You know RedHat now controls the CentOS project right?

http://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-and-ce...

Yes. Does that change something? Red Hat finally acquiesced after 10 years. They started out threatening CentOS with a lawsuit, leading to the infamous "prominent North American enterprise Linux vendor" language that plagued CentOS's site until this deal was announced last year. If anything it's only further evidence for my argument.

GPL Encourages it doesn't discourage the charging of software. Please give me one source where they discourage charging fees for software. In regard to copyright you are 100% correct, but the GPL is copyleft not copyright. You can't blend in copyright and Open Source those are two different things unless the latest Google vs Oracle API fiasco follows through.

My favorite IDE RStudio is AGPL which offers a Open Source license that also allows them to charge for added features.

http://www.rstudio.com/pricing/

AGPL - The GNU Affero General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works, specifically designed to ensure cooperation with the community in the case of network server software. [http://opensource.org/licenses/AGPL-3.0]

You can always dual license, and sell the second, commercial-friendly license for a price. You need to be careful that you're the sole copyright holder though, so you need a strong contributor agreement.

Sure, but this is not selling GPL software. This is giving GPL software out for free, and selling proprietary software.

I'd be interested in cases where people have made substantial money selling GPL software as if it were proprietary software; that is, where they are able to get the consumer to pay for the software after a short trial, in order to retain the privilege of using the software long-term. The GPL grants this privilege anyway, which is the problem. The consumer doesn't gain any value by exchanging their valuable money for something they already have (the right to use your software), so they don't do it.

umm.. Red Hat seems to be doing ok.

Red Hat does OK because they can sell support for an OS to enterprises. Selling support for a Git GUI to individual developers (even end user apps in general) is a bit harder.

Please look at mobaxterm's model for an example. GPL licence [http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/download.html]

They provide integration of open components (which is good). Looking at their sources directory there does not seem to be an available build script to e.g. build a comparable installer (but that's legal).

For a single app: take a look at what happened when XChat tried to sell their Windows binaries as shareware: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XChat#Licensing

Does anyone know if they are making any money?

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