Ok, so I don't get it

I like Stallman, he seems like a cool dude and all. But how are software developers supposed to actually make a living, in his view?

Begging for money, that other software companies that make money on proprietary software will give you.

That's basically it. Most free software is either begware, or big proprietary companies making some stuff free "on the side", since it's beneficial for them.

Nobody can make money just from free software. That's why everyone sort-of-agrees with him, but nobody *really* agrees with him.

Basically like commies

There are plenty of things that people do for themselves and others every day that are not occupations. The idea that people who program computers must be able to make a living by programming computers is what needs to be given up.

More like they should be allowed to if they want without fat fucks telling them its "wrong"

His view does not prevent you from getting paid. Fuck off, paid shill.

Yeah I don't want to give up my money so that random people will make shitty bikeshed "please fix" issues on github and start to stalk me online if I tell them to fuck off

Free software community is a bunch of needy whiny babies really

I think the idea was that you don't buy programs, but you buy programmers to optimize and streamline your buisness and give it a fancy website. In Stallman's world, everybody would be a SysAdmin, a systems engineer, or a web developer.

they're not, he's a fucking dirt eating socialist dipshit. GPL is for cucks, and stallman is fuckin whacked out

In my opinion, there is a place for both free and paid software. I'm sympathetic to some of the thigns Stallman and his ilk promote but at the same time I think that its just the nature of capatalism to find ways to make money off of the things you do and create. I don't think its a bad thing to want to make money off of the software you make but it has kind of crossed a line in recent years with all the invasion of privacy issues we've seen. The world I'd like to live in is one of choice. Where there are advantages and dissadvantages to free and paid software and the user is free to choose whcih fits them better in each situation. I really don't think software will ever be in a place to be totally free, I just don't see it as being sustainable.

>What is red hat Linux, Alex.

We won't need jobs anymore. Everything will be automated and we'll all be NEETs on universal basic income.

Society will fallout itself before we even get to your communist shut hole idea basic income.

You guys misunderstand. In a society with free software you would be paying programmers to make adjustments to software that you can't do yourself. The only difference is that the programmer makes money from his labor, not the code itself.

>identity politics
you know nothing about it, clearly. corporations pay people on their payroll to develop open source code. You can maintain your code in a public repo, on GitHub for example, if you want, but by no means are you required to. Learn what FOSS actually is before you start making blanket assumptions

Support contracts, support contracts, support contracts. Most retards like will never understand this concept, but big companies want support. D'assault, PTC, Siemens, etc. could hand out their software for free and people who depend on it would still pay for support contracts at full cost. This is the premise companies like Red Hat operate on with pretty good results.

>and we'll all be NEETs on universal basic income.
that'll never happen, they'll just turn you into soylent green or deport you to africa to fight with the niggers for the little food left there

They’re allowed to do it and fat fucks are allowed to criticize them for it. Nobody is entitled to be exempt from criticism

Most programming jobs involve developing PRIVATE software, not PROPRIETARY software.
Private software is not the same as proprietary software, and can in fact coexist with free software without contradictions.
Even the FSF itself says so.

You can like a cool dude, but not all of that cool dude's ideas will be correct.

Do video games count as private software?

Stallman's model of computing assumes only reasonably capable people use computers. Proprietary software aimed at retards will survive because they'd rather pay huge sums of money than bother learning anything.

how do web developers get paid if I can just click view source and see everything they wrote?

For those of you referring to the
>how are developers supposed to make a living
question
I would like you to point out where stallman says, directly, "developers shouldn't be paid" or "developers should work for free" or something directly relating to FOSS developers must be required to work for no pay

But support should be open-source too, wtf.

Because backend is magical.

The code created from it sure, but not the billing for time. Why are you being deliberately stupid?

Agreed, but I think the needle has swung way too far in the proprietary direction. When our governments have 'standardized' on proprietary solutions, that is a problem. Our government systems only run because Microsoft currently wants them to run. That's retarded.

This

Remember that most people on this board have never worked anything more than a McJob, and have never billed anyone for their time. It's why we get these constant retarded questions about Stallman's ideology when the reasoning behind his ideology is glaringly obvious to anybody who has actually worked in software development.

Unless a group of people develop them for themselves, to use them for themselves without ever being released to the public, no.

well hopefully some of these ones will see and understand on a basic level what Foss is and isn't, especially in terms of pay

Get people who want a specific feature to pay you to work on that feature. If they don't pay, then the feature gets added whenever you feel like adding it, which may be never.

Let people download the binaries while mailing them a 200 page book printed on recycled toilet paper with your 6 gorillion lines of code.

Write the source code in binary language.

>But how are software developers supposed to actually make a living, in his view?

Fairer question:
How is Stallman supposed to make a living?

Answer:
By renouncing the salaries of other people.

Ironically if by tomorrow all developers lost their salaries, then so does Stallman because he has nothing to vilify.

This is a classic case of manipulation:
(1) Question the ethics of honest workers
(2) Witness betas tremble over moral confusions
(3) Reap shekels.

That's not how this works at all. Quote, with sources, where he says developers should not be paid

You can't fool anyone here schlomo.

Backend + the fact that copying someone else's shit and adapting it for your needs still takes skilled effort, would be my guess.

My only question is: Do you work for Microsoft, or do you work for Oracle?

that's not a quote of him saying developers shouldn't be paid for their work. surely, since you're so knowledgeable about his viewpoint, you'll have a source where he says that.

FOSS software can be non free as in beer.

I can sell dvds of debian for example and account the costs for the DVD and my time creating them.

I can even charge $2000 but that's unethical and morally wrong.

If I were to sell it for $10 and give half to debian or the fsf that would be ethical but not legally required.

If I were to modify the work and redistribute I would be required to share the source so they can recontribute it upstream.

Good luck with that. People have argued this shit for ages and they *still* don't understand.

The only legitimate issue I can see with this is small-time software devs who can't sell support to shitloads of people either because they can't afford to hire anyone or simply don't have the time or resources.

>b-b-but how does RedHat exist?!?!?!
Maybe you should read the GPL, faggot. It says specifically that you can sell your software for as much as you like as long as you provide customers with a copy of the source code.

The same way religious institutions and charities make money

then the costumer redistributes it, now what?

that is not how GPL based business work, they thrive on maintenance.

Thanks, Captain Obvious. It's almost like the maintenance of a piece of software is more valuable than the software itself.

Sorry for that other post. I responded to the wrong post.

Okay, that's their choice. But that doesn't stop you from selling the software as long as you also provide the source in whatever way the license deems acceptable

>they thrive on maintenance
And how exactly is that a bad business model? Electricians, plumbers, auto mechanics, and all kinds of other skilled tradesmen do the same. Nobody would buy a new dishwasher or dryer every year but they'll buy a new phone every year. They'll buy a new version of Winshit every couple of years. If anything, the freetards are taking computing back to a time when things weren't so disposable. You should be more grateful, unless of course you're a consumerist faggot that just needs to buy and buy and buy to try to temporarily fight off the emptiness in their soul. Fucking disgusting if true. Stallman did nothing wrong.

I'm not stating that is a bad business model, it's just that their main focus is not to sell software as you were stating previously.

actually is a great buisness model.

>it's just that their main focus is not to sell software as you were stating previously
My point was that there is nothing preventing you from selling GPL software unless you're a jew trying to hide malware by closing the source. OP is an anti-GNU, freedom hating shill.

The GPL doesn't stop you from selling software; if you own the complete copyright (requiring all contributors to sign their ownership over to yourself) you are free to change people fees to allow them to use the code under a different license.

Many businesses will gladly pay to have some of the restrictions on internal redistribution of modified code relaxed.

Or you could take the route of tools like GNU Parallel, and charge a several thousand euro fee for removing one additional requirement beyond the normal GPL from the license agreement.

I sell Ubuntu Linux USB drives from time to time. Is that against the license? I never actually bothered to check, oops

Selling media is expressly allowed; look at Walnut Creek CDROM for example.

For years if you had bad internet access, you'd just order a pack of CDs from them, with whatever distro you wanted.

On second read through your post, yeah I get what you're saying. The developers of a PDF creation software we use do the same thing. Either way, thanks for the clarification

>Africa
>Food

By making software for companies?
Most of our income come from them anyway

You make a living by supporting the software, i.e being an expert in dns( I've seen that don't ask how), you could make money.

You can sell pull requests

Stallman encourages people to sell free software. There are many products that follow the GNU license and that is totally free in his eyes which is still profitable (like WordPress).

They can sell free software. Just because it's free doesn't mean that it doesn't cost money.

This. Just because it's open source it doesn't mean you can use it without paying

Free software as in freedom not as in free beer.