Why Linux applications are free?

5 Comments

1. Arun says:

   8. December 2010 at 00:12

   Still there are people who prefer job satisfaction to money! Linux is just an example. If you don’t believe me, check out the link i am posting below:
2. neal0on14 says:

   8. December 2010 at 00:12

   Linux is open source so everything for it is free.
3. Tor says:

   8. December 2010 at 00:12

   Since linux is Open Source there is no point in making these games profitable if you can see the source, it is like saying i invented this thing to make money out of it but here’s every detail of this thing for everyone to see, you would be broke quickly, because everyone will get the best ideas of that thing and make it better and leave you in the dust.

   People do Open Source just for the sake of it, they enjoy making those programs , games etc, and making it freely available to everyone to see and modify .
   Like Mathematicians, they love math just for the sake of it
4. Motorhead says:

   8. December 2010 at 00:12

   Some Linux projects are done by students for practice, some are come-ons with upgrades you have to pay for, some are products that could not quite make it in the commercial market, etc.

   Wolfenstein is a good example. It used to be a viable commercial product that simply became obsolete and abandoned to open source.

   Actually I don’t like open source myself.
   I would not only prefer to pay a little and get a little better quality and support, but I would also like more stability and uniformity in the whole Linux environment, extensions, libraries, etc.
   I should not have to compile anything and I should not have to worry about extension or library conflict if I do want to compile something.

   Additional comment:

   I just read the comments by others that said that Linux apps have to or should be open source, which is totally wrong.
   Lots of companies sell Linux apps that are NOT open source.
   They just can not be built on any open source code, but they can still work with Linux.
   A good example is the profit making company Novell, that distributes SUSE Linux Enterprise and Novell NetWare, both not being free or open source. Linux does not have to be open source, and Linux apps usually are NOT open source.
   Nor should anyone want all apps to be open source, because that is not what drives innovation.
   The fact Suse Linux is freely downloadable, does not mean it is open source. It is called OpenSuse instead.

   Here is a quote:

   { … Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said of the deal, “This set of agreements will really help bridge the divide between open-source and proprietary source software.”[7]

   The deal involves upfront payment of $348 million from Microsoft to Novell for patent cooperation and SLES subscription. Novell will pay around $40 million to Microsoft over 5 years.[8]

   One of the first results of this partnership was that Novell adapted the OpenXML/ODF Translator for use in OpenOffice.org.[9]

   Initial reaction from members of the FOSS community over the patent protection was mostly critical, with expressions of concern that Novell had “sold out” and of doubt that the GPL would allow distribution of code, including the Linux kernel, under this exclusive agreement.[10][11][12]

   In a letter to the FOSS development community on November 9, Bradley M. Kuhn, CTO of the Software Freedom Law Center described the agreement as “worse than useless.”[13] In a separate development the chairman of the SFLC, Eben Moglen, reported that Novell had offered cooperation with the SFLC to permit a confidential audit to determine the compliance of the agreement with the GPL (version 2).[14] Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, said in November that changes coming with the version 3 of the GPL will preclude such deals.[15] When the final revision of the third version of the GPL license was decided, the deal between Microsoft and Novell was grandfathered in. A new clause will let companies like Novell distribute GPLv3 software even if they have made such patent partnerships in the past, as long as the partnership deal was made before March 28, 2007 (GPLv3 Section 11 paragraph 7 [16]). … }

   The reality is that most people buy Linux and Linux apps, and prefer to pay for what they get. Only schools use freeware exclusively.
5. babybishops04 says:

   8. December 2010 at 00:12

   If you made a non-free application for Linux you’d just get laughed at. It goes entirely against the Linux philosophy.