What Happens When It's No Longer "Free As In Beer"

Posted by: John Coonen in Technology on Dec 10, 2009  

Tagged in: Stallman , Source , Open Source , Open , free , DocMan

John Coonen

This week, DocMan just released its much-anticipated version 1.5.  Great! Wahoo! Yipeee! Only...wait, it's no longer...free.  *Gasp*  I mean, not "free as in freedom" as Richard Stallman and Software Freedom Law Center put it, it but "free as in beer."

I read up on the Joomlatools blog about the new release, and yup...sure enough, in little black and white pixels, it says right there that DocMan is now going to CHARGE for its software.  Oh, the nerve of those guys, charging - let's see - twelve Euros for their software which was once free-as-in-beer!

I never much liked the "free as in beer" analogy the FOSSers of the world pinned on freeware, as they tried to distance peoples' preconceived notions of Open Source. They tried to re-define "Free" as in freedom, which is a bit much to get your head around. While I agree with them, it was an unnecessary stretch. But now, I see their wisdom after all. I read down the Joomlatools blog comments from a couple angry folks about the audacity of the Docman team to actually charge for the beer that once flowed free-as-in-dude-I'm-too-cheap-to-pay-for-it-anyways from an endless Joomlatools kegger. This, from Jessi:

"Totally removing DocMan from my 10 clients websites and finding another solution."


The free as in beer analogy was pure genius; I just didn't get it yet. I guess free as in beer is fine, until you have to peel the ornery drunks off the kegger at the end of the night.

Kudos to the DocMan Team, and Cheers on your new release!

(Editor's update <insert sarcastic smilie here> aparently, my sarcasm was too thinly veiled - let free as in FREEDOM ring!)

John Coonen is Co-Host of JoomlaChicago, a registered Joomla! User Group and the CMS Expo.

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Dean Brady
...
Commented By: Dean Brady, January 13, 2010
I am with Matt. I have worked on sites that were 5,6 and yes even one 7 digit website project. I just talked with someone I used to work with and they are having their site rebuilt and they are paying $60,000! I could easily do it for WAY less and get the same functionality. And anyone at the company could update it with very little training. Matt, I too often feel like I'm getting away with something.

The simple answer is what are you getting in value? I have paid hundreds and even thousands for document library solutions. for $25? It's work 10 times that.

The person that said they were taking it off the 10 sites they had? LOL.. are you kidding? Like that is going to 'teach them a lesson"? They didn't pay for it in the first place so no lost revenue or anything there. And the time it will take them to find a new solution and put it in place on 10 sites? More that $250 in my opinion..

Oh well. nice post..
Matt Mansfield
Commercial? A dose of perspective...
Commented By: Matt Mansfield, December 22, 2009
What folks need is a dose of perspective - to get near the functionality of a Joomla site when I was out in the consulting world, a company would have paid upwards of $100,000.00 and more to design, build and maintain the hardware, software and database. They still do so today - been there, saw that, got the "free" t-shirt from the salesguy (with the iron-on that says "Oracle", "Sun", "Websphere", "Plumtree", "Interwoven", "Stellent", etc.).

With Joomla, the same site costs me under $500.00 (materials) including hosting, commercial template design, robust and scalable software and all the database I need. I feel like I am getting away with something naughty every time I build a Joomla site!

The bottom line is that everyone has to make a living and open source folks are just the same.

The thing I love about open source is that the people involved often have such passion! How do I know? Because they are putting in tons of time and sweat for free! They deserve that payoff and they deserve to make money following their passion.
Joe Scarry
mantra: did you talk to someone about TCO today?
Commented By: Joe Scarry, December 12, 2009
"Free" so "totally" misses the point.

We need to think "Total Cost of Ownership" (TCO) - and help our clients get their minds around it. That enables us to put the "cost" (i.e. the license fee) in the proper perspective, i.e. the TOTAL cost of acquiring, installing, configuring, training, maintaining . . . . . . . . .

Thanks for the great post, John.

J
John Coonen
Send Up a Flare, Someone Gets It.
Commented By: John Coonen, December 11, 2009
@ Mathias Verraes,

"Who knows, we just might hire him" < Finally, a realist in the crowd. Thanks for commenting MV. Great work you're doing.
0
The rapidshare kid
Commented By: Mathias Verraes, December 10, 2009
Hi, thanks for the support guys :-)

@Steve The GPL offers a certain level of protection: for example, it's not allowed to strip out copyright information, or re-license it as something else. There have been forks of DOCman, and so far none of them have been successful. Forking is more than copying code, you also need to know how to improve it and support it, and have the credibility so people will trust your version over the original.
If some kid forks it and does something really great with it... who knows we might just hire him ;-)
0
...
Commented By: Neil, December 10, 2009
Nice post. Interesting perspectives...

If anyone else in the community deserves to charge for his application - that would be Nicholas (from JoomlaPack)

Just like Coca Cola, FREE doesn't do the justice she enjoys (i'm just saying..)
miles baltrusaitis
I don't use DocMan but...
Commented By: miles baltrusaitis, December 10, 2009
As indignant as the comment may make developers feel, it's a valid perspective. I don't use DocMan personally but I do use a few pay extensions (ChronoForm and Acajoom if yer curious) and their feature set make it worth the money. The good products justify the cost and, for site developers like me, you roll it into the price of the build and everybody's happy.

That said, I also use a ton of free extensions that have pay versions and don't think twice about it.
John Coonen
@ Teeman - Stupid English
Commented By: John Coonen, December 10, 2009
@Brian - Agree. Stupid English. Free / Freedom = very annoying to even address, let alone try to explain.
John Coonen
...
Commented By: John Coonen, December 10, 2009
@Steve - Nobody enjoys having to pay for stuff, but at the day, sometimes when stuff is "no-charge" it tosses projects into an unpredictable situation - like lack of judgment at the end of the night, operating heavy machinery, etc. smilies/wink.gif
John Coonen
...
Commented By: John Coonen, December 10, 2009
@forgetso - Damn, you're right about that. That's actually why I didn't like the analogy. And not only that, I never got a free beer in my life. Even when it was given to me, I always paid for it in the end...somehow. Heh, heh.
0
It's called open source not free extensions
Commented By: Steve Trullinger, December 10, 2009
While I am not 100% happy with the change to having to pay for docman 1.5 I will gladly do it. Doc has to be one of if not the best (IMO) document handler extensions for joomla. Now that being said I think the Joomlatools changing docman to a paid might be a very bad thing for them. What I see might happen is some kid will download it from rapidshare, stripout the joomlatools info add his own and then upload it somewhere saying "hey look I made a doc handler and im giving it away free. I hope that doesent happen, but it wont shock me if it does. that being said, I support a few client that have this extension and i will now be buying the 1.5 upgrade and installing it on the sites.

Steve
0
You have to pay $12 - cheek.... NO
Commented By: Fastnet, December 10, 2009
Give the developers a break!

$12 is nothing for a superb application - well done Joomlatools, you have earnt it.

For all those wanting something for nothing - go get some fresh air smilies/smiley.gif
0
Confusion of english
Commented By: Brian Teeman., December 10, 2009
This is all because we stupid english use one word for two different things. The french on the other hand have it much better and easier to understand as they have a different word for "free" as in no cost and "free" as in freedom. The word libre is just so much better and that is why many of us in the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) world now refer to it as FLOSS (Free/Libre). Makes much more sense.

Now if only we were inuit then we would probably have 300 words and not just two smilies/grin.gif
0
...
Commented By: forgetso, December 10, 2009
€12 is nothing for a license to use it on any site! I spend way more than that on beer when I go out! You have to look at things in perspective.

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