Is there a business model for a GNOME-based Linux desktop software ecosystem? Such a project could transform the entire desktop operating system scene before Microsoft’s Longhorn version of Windows comes out. But can Linux developers be nimble enough when it comes to money? Read the editorial at NewsForge. On a related Gnome note, our new site Gnomefiles.org, has seen a visual update based on feedback, so make sure you check it out. Gnome developers, don’t forget that by posting an app you are becoming elligible for prizes (to be given out next week).
A Business Case for Profiting from GNOME; GnomeFiles Update
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’ve take a look at the file offered. Most of them have a source link download ,but those who have bianry link should a least do like bebits and tell if if the binary will work on 68k, PPC, alpha, or if its *just* x86.
Ludo
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http://6URL.com/00P
In the right column, I suggest you rename “Best Voted” to “Highest Rated”. “Best Voted” sounds really awkward to me (native English speaker).
After click one of category in the Software Categories, then I am wondering what happen if the lists become too long to view? Will it turns into page or what?
One thing that is annoying is that the new comment will go on the top instead bottom. It’s kind of hard to follow up the replies of quote. Anyway, the rest is the great work! 🙂
I don’t think it will ever become so extremely long…
If it will, at that point, I will only display the 10 more popular per subcategory and then you will have to click the subcategory link to read ALL apps for that subcategory.
But we have time to do that, it is early still.
>”Best Voted” sounds really awkward to me
BeBits.com uses “Best Rated”. Is this better? If yes, I can use that.
[Unfortunately] it makes sense to have the comments sorted the other way for this kind of site like Gnomefiles. You always need to read the comments for each *new* version that will appear there. You don’t wanna start reading about a bug that happened 10 months ago that was now fixed. So, the sorting should be the other way from the way you are used at OSNews. I know that it will be hard for the OSNews readers to get accustomed to this, but it is the right thing to do for other random users and for the logic of the site.
Umm, good point! Perhaps, different method of comment that do the better job? There have few different methods, but not sure which one will fit perfect for this.
Some of Newsforge’s recent editorials appear to be written by economic illiterates. This one, in particular, makes the naive mistake of assuming that putting a price on a product equates to “making money”. Has he given any thought to paying the developers who make his products? Or the folks who he will need to package, advertise, distribute and support his product? He seems to assume that free software is a zero-cost production effort.
Equally flaky is his assertion that a product’s learning curve is attracts paying customers. This makes no sense. A product with a learning curve is more likely to be purchased than one with a shorter, or no, learning curve? Come on. By this reasoning, things like vi and emacs ought to be raking in the cash. (You know, emacs and vi and all the other development tools could be removed from desktop Linux and most users wouldn’t care or notice.)
The way to make money from Gnome or any other software is to write code that helps people do the things they want to do, and then market the hell out of it. The free software and open source concepts won’t sell it, not will the Unix-ness of it all.
The redesign looks great, Eugenia. I agree that Best Voted doesn’t sound right, nor does Best Rated. To me, “best” implies a singleness — the “best movie ever made”. It doesn’t imply a scale.
I think tt should be Highest Rated.
there are no installer for linux, like ms windows have. if your are making a program for windows then you can let users download it from a page and pay for it, but in linux, there are no installer soo 1. have all distroes have rpm for it or deb. 2. build it yours self for all distroes. and if your are lucky users have to pay to the mandrake club for get it, like its with suns jre.
Rather than “Most Populer” which to me implies the number of votes an app has received, I would go with “Most Downloads” or something. So you would have “Most Downloads” and “Highest Rated” rather than “Most Popular” and “Best voted.”
“Most Downloads” and “Highest Rated” make much more sense.
Just my $0.02.
you’re right. What this guy didn’t also explain is what “features” are offered in Pro. I remember the same model working in some win apps, and most of the products ended up saying: “only with pro version”. OK, he says that if that is the case then people will fork it, and start adding stuff. This is true [and doesn’t apply to my previous example with win apps] but i somehow believe that a lot of users will be so pissed off with “only in pro version” that will not use the software at all. I’m not sure though because if he’s talking about window comers [and he is] then they won’t see any difference. But the point is not just for GNU/Linux to replace Windows, but also establish [and has succeeded until now] a new philosophy about OS. At least the author of that article seems to understand than differences in GPL and also says: “some will not agree (rms-guys that is)
” anyways one think that is really akward is that he talks about GNOME, and he doesn’t wish that KDE had better licenses<?> or something like it..
interesting article but not very convicing
I like it! I really do!
I’m not sure who else I’m supposed to thank other than you Eugenia, so I’ll give a general kudos to everyone responsible for the new site. Its feels very well thought out and very clean and easy to use. Just what we need. Thanks
I don’t think the “only in PRO version” model will work. The free version will fork too quickly.
But I do think that people would be willing to pay for the service of having tested rpms for their distro. From sites like Gnomefiles you could download the tarball for free, but if you want a prebuilt version it would cost you $30.
>> there are no installer for linux, like ms windows have.
Wrong.
http://www.bitrock.com
http://www.autopackage.org
http://www.bitrock.com/products_installbuilder_overview.html
“Sell your software. A complicated, error-prone installation process can hurt your sales. BitRock installers “just work” providing a great end-user experience that helps sell your programs.”
what did i say!!
Some of Newsforge’s recent editorials appear to be written by economic illiterates. This one, in particular, makes the naive mistake of assuming that putting a price on a product equates to “making money”. Has he given any thought to paying the developers who make his products? Or the folks who he will need to package, advertise, distribute and support his product? He seems to assume that free software is a zero-cost production effort.
I have to agree here. Yet more LGPL rubbish, and the usual KDE bollocks at the bottom. This is total illiterate nonsense, but I can’t be bothered to go through it all because this idiot won’t understand it.
Suffice to say that the GPL works extremely well as a license, spectacularly in the case of Linux, and anything that you develop for personal gain you pay for because however hard you try that isn’t free. LGPL options will certainly be around, even for KDE, but promoting the LGPL as a panacea for widespread free proprietary development shows an incredible naivety.
I fail to see what this is going to do before Longhorn comes out, but it just shows the usual flawed thinking we get from various people.
I don’t think the “only in PRO version” model will work. The free version will fork too quickly.
But I do think that people would be willing to pay for the service of having tested rpms for their distro. From sites like Gnomefiles you could download the tarball for free, but if you want a prebuilt version it would cost you $30.
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You Sir, are an idiot.
In addition to the fact you’re opening yourself up to be sued by anyone who objects to any libs and other code you are basing your code on to be used in this fashion.
I know I would sue the hell out of you.
This isn’t the BSD or Windows shareware world dude.
“You Sir, are an idiot.
In addition to the fact you’re opening yourself up to be sued by anyone who objects to any libs and other code you are basing your code on to be used in this fashion.
I know I would sue the hell out of you.
This isn’t the BSD or Windows shareware world dude.”
okay tarballs contain SOURCE CODE you compile your self and they tend to be GPL, MIT, LGPL or BSD licenced, meaning you can do pretty much what the hell you want with them, you want to pre-build it for easy use, and sell it on, thats fine, no code has been edited, and as long as the source you used is available its fine, so please state the grounds of the legal action you would persue?
There’s an excess of ceteris peribus in the author’s case… basic economics aside, the real world simply does not function as described… and there are a heck of a lot more intricacies involved with project development/support/R&D/competition than illustrated… He is oversimplifying a complex issue.
Nikos, I couldn’t make much sense of what he meant by “PRO”. He seemed to be suggesting that a useful visual interface somehow makes an app less than professional. To me, a bad interfcce simply makes something difficult to use.
Have to disagree, however, that the “point” is to replace Windows and entrench a philosphy about operating systems. I just want better software and don’t particularly care if anything gets replaced. If Linux does replace Windows, I expect it to become as boring and as stagnant as Windows is today.
@Bjorn
there are no installer for linux, like ms windows have. if your are making a program for windows then you can let users download it from a page and pay for it, but in linux, there are no installer soo 1. have all distroes have rpm for it or deb. 2. build it yours self for all distroes. and if your are lucky users have to pay to the mandrake club for get it, like its with suns jre.
Wrong. The same company that provides most Windows installers provides a cross-platform one. InstallShield X has built in support for virtually every platform, including Mac OS X, Windows, OS/400, Solaris/SPARC, Solaris/Intel, Linux/Intel, Linux/PPC, HP-UX, AIX, FreeBSD, Tru64, and every other UNIX platform. http://www.installshield.com/
OSnews is always on GNOME’s side and promoting GNOME. It lists the GNOME Files news on the front page in red bold text as the first item and provides possible prizes for GTK+ developers.
I come to OSnews for news and that is waht I want to find. Not a bunch of GNOME fanboys. Either you are impartial and do not provide prizes for any developers or you are fair and provide prizes for Qt/KDE develoeprs etc. as well. There are many projects much more needy than GNOME anyway, GNOME has one of the highest volunteer vs paid ratio of any open soruce project.
Please, keep the quality of this site high, there is GnomeDesktop.org for a reason. That is where GNOME contests should be promoted continuously, not here by sticking immovable red text at the top of the page.
I hope you understand,
Thank you
Thank you for Gnome Files. Just one comment: the logo looks a bit dated.
>OSnews is always on GNOME’s side and promoting GNOME.
yada yada yada.
OSNews is not promoting Gnome. We found a business opportunity and we took it. And it is only natural to promote this new business deal we are getting into.
And if you wanna know, the owner of osnews runs OSX most of his time, I run Windows most of the time (Gnome only when I am booted to Linux/Unix), Adam runs KDE, Jon runs a plain X wm AFAIK. I fail to see where the “bias” is. Just because we found an opportunity to create a new site that was needed in the community doesn’t mean that we are Gnome fanatics. If KDE had the same missing site today, rest assured I would modify the code to launch a similar KDE site (or windows, or OSX or…).
> the logo looks a bit dated.
Feel free to send us a new one. I am not a graphics designer. I did that logo in 4 minutes time.
Regarding a new logo btw, it needs to be 280×60 with white background. If you are an artist, please send us one.
Thx.
I’m not a big fan of the current icons you’re using on gnomefiles.org. IMHO, they look extremely dated. I really dig the rest of the site (layout, logo, etc…)
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“I’m not a big fan of the current icons you’re using on gnomefiles.org. IMHO, they look extremely dated.”
*smirk*
I don’t know if some of you have noticed, but those are Gnome Icons.
BTW People don’t forget that “The Foot” is associated with Gnome, just as Tux is associated with Linux. Any new logo is going to have to cause a person to immedietly think of Gnome.
why dont someone like ibm, novell or redhat purchase one of these and gpl it… one good auto packaging software would be great for spreading linux though out the uneducated userland…
http://www.bitrock.com
http://www.autopackage.org
always confused me
Maybe you should have read my post before you started all that smirking. I’m very aware of the foot logo’s significance. Read my post a bit more carefully and you’ll notice that I said I liked gnomefiles.org’s use of the foot logo. There’s a difference between a logo and icons (especially considering that many of those icons aren’t the default icons any longer and many distros don’t use the defaults in any case).
Don’t you have anything better to do other than whining about logos and icons? I had to fix much more important bugs the last few days than playing with pixels. Bottomline, the gnome icons are good enough for the job. Yes, the logo is below par, because it was created by me quickly, I am not a graphics artist.
I don’t think that the whole issue requires more comments on this. What more could you possibly do or say other than submitting a better logo?
Bah.
okay tarballs contain SOURCE CODE you compile your self and they tend to be GPL, MIT, LGPL or BSD licenced, meaning you can do pretty much what the hell you want with them, you want to pre-build it for easy use, and sell it on, thats fine, no code has been edited, and as long as the source you used is available its fine, so please state the grounds of the legal action you would persue?
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Copyright. *YOU* are not the owner of either the source
code or the binaries created by the source code.
And as for code under the GPL, MIT, LGPL licenses you are certainly *NOT* free to do pretty much what the hell you want with them.
You’re in the same legal position as those idiots who run around selling cdrom’s of ROMS for the MAME emulator on
ebay.
You mentioned in this very article that you changed the design based on feedback. I took that to mean you were open to constructive comments. Read my comment again. It was very civil – FAR from whining. I’ve enjoyed this site for a long while and, after reading your post and seeing that you were *apparently* open to and appreciative of feedback from your visitors, I attempted to help in what small way I could. I’m very sorry my “whining” offended you.
BTW I SAID I LIKED THE LOGO.
That won’t be true for much longer. I am building a FOSS program for building and running Windows style installations
under Linux now. It is based on QT/Free and will offer access to the current popular package handlers (RPM, DEB, tar, gz) and two types of native installation builds (Uncompressed and standard ZIP compressed using Info Zip for CD distributions.).
HEY AC! Since you’re so good at reading comprehension you may have noticed I said “People” instead of “person” for a reason.
And I especially didn’t say “you”, so get that rod out of your backside, and lighten up.
Copyright. *YOU* are not the owner of either the source code or the binaries created by the source code.
And as for code under the GPL, MIT, LGPL licenses you are certainly *NOT* free to do pretty much what the hell you want with them.
You’re in the same legal position as those idiots who run around selling cdrom’s of ROMS for the MAME emulator on ebay.
Just a question: did you actually read these licences?
If you did read the GPL, I suggest you to take this quiz:
http://www.gnu.org/cgi-bin/license-quiz.cgi
The answer to question #6 might surprise you…
You quoted me, so I logically felt the comment was directed at me.
“…so get that rod out of your backside, and lighten up.”
Good advice
.
You’re in the same legal position as those idiots who run around selling cdrom’s of ROMS for the MAME emulator on ebay.
Just a question: did you actually read these licences?
If you did read the GPL, I suggest you to take this quiz:
http://www.gnu.org/cgi-bin/license-quiz.cgi
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It doesn’t stop me from *LEGALLY* telling you
*NOT* to resell my software *WITHOUT* my permission.
You’re *NOT* distrubtuing my software. You’re reselling it
by imposing a $30.00 fee on my software package which doesn’t belong to you.
by using an open source licence how can you tell what is exactly your code any more? unless no one has added to it, also the purpose of Open-Source is that not one person owns it, yeah you own the copy right to the sections you wrote, by open-sourcing the source your allowing people to do what the GPL permits them.
well give me ONE program form http://www.gnomefiles.org/ that i can install one every distroes thats out there,
1. with out having to gcc it or linking any files after on.
2. and make it that easy as it is on windows.
3. and it dont mess up yours current rpm or deb system.
if you’ve got, RH9, FC1 or FC2 or Cobind Desktop you can use YUM to install packages quickly and get rid of dependancies and with Cobinds new YUMGUI its all done via the GUI
It doesn’t stop me from *LEGALLY* telling you
*NOT* to resell my software *WITHOUT* my permission.
You’re *NOT* distrubtuing my software. You’re reselling it
by imposing a $30.00 fee on my software package which doesn’t belong to you.
If you’ve released your program under the GPL (or for that matter, any OSI-approved license), then you’ve already given the world permission to resell your software. I can legally charge $5000 for any GPL program, as long as I fulfill my obligation to provide source code upon request.
The GPL grants these permissions. These permissions can’t be revoked by you. If you’re the sole copyright holder, you can relicense subsequent versions under a different license, but you can’t take revoke the GPL from a version that’s already been released under the GPL.
Allow me to say this again, so it sinks in: The GPL grants anybody the right to redistribute your program, for a fee or gratis, as long as they provide the source code under acceptable terms. The GPL explicitly allows me to charge money for your program.