Money For Nothing

May 2003

"How will I earn money if people can also download or share with others my high-priced software for zero rupees?"

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The answer is resonating in every temple across India.

Outside most Indian temples, you can buy a Hanuman Chalisa, a Durga Chalisa, or any other prayer or devotional poem as a small booklet at whatever price-point suits you. Perhaps, a devotee may give away a few thousand copies for free, with the doner's prominently printed on the first page. Walk into any upmarket bookshop, and you may just find the same prayer in an illustrated art table book, or as part of a commentary or treatise by a learned scholar. Again available at various price-points.

The original prayer remains royalty-free. And non-exclusive. Yet look at the crores of rupees made each year in the sale of such freely available material. Ironic and insightful, how much money is made from something so free, and so widely available. Even more ironic then, is when people ask me how can money be made from GnuLinux, when it is available in exactly the same way: royalty-free, non-exclusively, and for free, as in free Lassi (I don't drink beer).

Praying for Paisa

In the case of the prayer booklets, such an incredible amount of wealth is generated because no single person or corporation is allowed to hoard any aspect of the business and form an ugly monopoly. Since anybody and everybody is allowed any part in the process, the wealth is actually created and shared by all who invest or contribute whatever they can.

So the million dollar insight: forget the distorted business models of the past when it comes to GnuLinux-based software. For the future to happen, the past must go to its funeral. And it is precisely those GnuLinux companies clinging to the business models of the past, that face financial problems. In fact, what astounds me most about the software industry, is how innovative business thinking has committed mass suicide. The rigid monopolistic business models of the existing software industry seem to have poisoned the minds of all. Sub-consciously, almost every individual, every entrepreneur, every corporate, seems to end up thinking in eventually of just one objective: How to become the next big, ugly, money-sucking monopoly of the planet in their respective software or technology niches. And this thinking is dangerous. Look at the number of also-rans over the last two decades of the PC industry who have gone bust or made huge losses in ruthlessly competing for vertical segments. How many wordprocessors, or even office suits do you remember? Almost every vertical segment in the software industry explodes with dozens of contestants, and soon only one or two carve out and lock out the market. Forever.

Money Without Monopoly

GnuLinux allows the most pragmatic approach to making money. Anybody can make money with GnuLinux. All that is required is a simple shift in thinking. Developers, the millions of skilled workers and cogs of the software industry, hold the key. For the GnuLinux developer community has proved that for any forseeable application some software code, in some form, already exists under the GPL. Nothing needs to be coded entirely from scratch.
So developers can pitch for projects, and get handsomely paid, for modifiying and enhancing an existing code to suit a customer's need. They can then release the software under the GPL for the benefit of others as well. Customers gain because they save on money, development time, and avoid several potential pitfalls and blunders. Developers benefit because they have far more evolved and relatively bug-free software as a starting point, thus delivering higher value to their customers. They gain the trust and recognition they need from customers and their peers through the transparant and publicly-available sourcecode of their work. The time saved allows them to move on to more projects.

Similarly, software companies can earn money from developing, deploying, testing, consulting, and maintaining, GPL-ed software for clients. In fact, this model truly gives a software company a distinct competitive advantage. So if your company does not offer this, your competitor will. Clients benefit immensely. They know they are not at the mercy of just one software firm. So look carefully. Every success story in the gnu world order, is of those that re-engineered the business model. Look no further than IBM's billions of dollars. Just free your mind. The freedom yug of prosperity will follow.

Inspired by the vision of Osho. Niyam Bhushan is a leading technology writer, editor, columnist, with a background in graphic design. He consults and trains in digital imagery. He has been using computers across several platforms since 1982, and loves the freedom and power offered by GnuLinux. Email: freedomyug at linuxforu dot com

© 2003 Niyam Bhushan. First published in LinuxForYou magazine, www.linuxforu.com. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.