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osCommerce

The e-commerce.

open source good or bad?


frankp

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Posted

hey everbody, let's say i'm coding this wonerful piece of software and now someone asks me to release it open source.

 

now my question is why should i release it under open source instead of selling it for a couple of $$$!?

 

you know what i mean, i have to live off something so why not sell it?

Posted

you can sell your modifications, however you can not sell the osCommerce software itself, with the expeption of installation fee (which most people know takes about 10 minutes).

 

there is a contribution explaining the licensing.

Posted

Why not do both? Sell it for a couple dollars and release it open source? The two are not mutually exclusive. Look at Red Hat and IBM. Both sell open source software all the time. Or ReiserFS. Hans Reiser sells his file system to companies that don't want to advertise that they are using ReiserFS or who don't want to comply with other terms of the open source license. Or who just want him to provide support of some kind.

 

Reasons to release software open source:

 

1. Increased peer review. If you release software closed source, no one else ever looks at your code. With open source, people can not only find bugs but fix them.

 

2. Increased participation. People add new features and contribute them back to the project in open source. With closed source, you are the only one who can add new features.

 

3. It's easier to sell open source software as an individual or small company, as the buyer doesn't have to worry about you abandoning the project. They have the source and can hire someone else in the future if necessary.

 

4. Use an open source model to give away the software (generally after selling it at least once) but sell support. This is the main Red Hat model. You can download their ISO for free, but you have to pay to get support (anywhere from about $40 for desktop installation support to $2500 for server support).

 

5. Access to the existing open source promotion network. Open source projects can be hosted at sourceforge. With closed source projects you either have to pay for hosting or give up part of your selling price to someone else to host it for you. Also, many people look at sourceforge when they need software. You don't have the same kind of free advertising for closed source software.

 

6. To include open source software in your project. In general, open source licenses preclude releasing in a closed source project. Thus, if you want to take advantage of existing open source software (e.g. osCommerce), then you must release your software as open source.

 

Again, selling software and distributing it open source are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many of the existing osCommerce contributions arose from someone who needed a particular feature and paid a consultant to add it. The consultant (or the store owner) then releases it open source. This not only gives back to the community, it acts as a form of advertising. Now people know that that person can work with that kind of code, so if they need modifications, they tend to check with the original contributor. Some of the larger contributions will have things like "support for big image mod integration sponsored by" littered throughout them as a result.

 

Hth,

Matt

 

P.S. Mibble's statement that you cannot sell the osCommerce software itself may be confusing. You can sell distribution of the software (i.e. a download or a CD). What you cannot do is sell it under terms other than the GPL. This means that you have to include the license and original source files. You also may not restrict distribution in any way. It is also difficult to do this, as osCommerce is freely available, why would people pay you any significant amount for it? It's not illegal though. Not sure that this had anything to do with your original question, which I didn't read as osCommerce related. Note: osCommerce modifications can *only* be released under the GPL. You can sell them, but you cannot restrict redistribution in any way and must include source code (not usually a problem with PHP scripts anyway).

Always back up before making changes.

  • 1 month later...
Posted

;) One question should be ask, How much did you pay for this software?

This osCommerce catalog is one of the most powerfull and accessible for any boddy who want to start a great looking E Bis, and it should stay that way.

 

Many thanks to those who have spend hours to develop this great aplication and shame on those how make's money selling it.

 

Salut,

 

coolcl,

Posted
Many thanks to those who have spend hours to develop this great aplication and shame on those how make's money selling it.

Why is it a shame? Making money on Open Source/Free Software does not go against its philosophy. I guess Free Software Foundation, Red Hat, Mandrakesoft, IBM, SUSE, et al should be ashame.

Posted
Why is it a shame? Making money on Open Source/Free Software does not go against its philosophy. I guess Free Software Foundation, Red Hat, Mandrakesoft, IBM, SUSE, et al should be ashame.

I dont think its a shame... It would be nice to live in a world where money wasnt required... I cant see that happening...

 

I have no problem with people making money from opensource software..... I just hope they remember where its roots are :P

Mark Evans

osCommerce Monkey & Lead Guitarist for "Sparky + the Monkeys" (Album on sale in all good record shops)

 

---------------------------------------

Software is like sex: It's better when it's free. (Linus Torvalds)

  • 3 months later...
Posted

sell at o$ or 10$ or 100$ or ...

 

makes me think of an old economics quote we got in a lecture:

"value is what a damn fool will pay for it" :D

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON

I do not use the responsive bootstrap version since i coded my responsive version earlier, but i have bought every 28d of code package to support burts effort and keep this forum alive (albeit more like on life support).

So if you are still here ? What are you waiting for ?!

 

Find the most frequent unique errors to fix:

grep "PHP" php_error_log.txt | sed "s/^.* PHP/PHP/g" |grep "line" |sort | uniq -c | sort -r > counterrors.txt

Posted
sell at o$ or 10$ or 100$ or ...

 

makes me think of an old economics quote we got in a lecture:

"value is what a damn fool will pay for it" :D

lol, very true. just like all of the dvd software based on open source.

Most likely your question has been answered, please do a search first.

Posted
just like all of the dvd software based on open source.

Good point Calvin. The os DVD software writers were a bit pi--ed off that their hard work had turned up in some DVD software with only a fancier GUI and box and someone else's name slapped on it, but not much they could do about it I suppose.

  • 3 years later...
  • 2 months later...
Posted

Open source is about communities working together, usually you end up with a better product. many good thing have come out of open source; Wikipedia, UNix, etc..

As for making money out of your software, you could sell add ons, versions of the software or charge for support, which is easier if your software has become popular through open source distribution.

  • 4 months later...
Posted

The owner of the software has right to choose whether to sell his program or not and It took a lot of efforts and time to create a program and if the owner of program wants to sell it I can’t blame him for that.

Posted

i have to say..What i would think the BEST way to go, if you are talking about an oscommerce contribution that you made, would be to post the contribution.. then when you see some interest in a contribution that is not yet out there, but you know you can make, you offer your SERVICES.

 

I paid someone to make the donate the change contribution. I found the person through various other contributions that he made and his own blog that offered custom contributions. I had the choice to either pay him more to keep it private so only I would have it, OR save some money and pay him to develope it and then he could add it to the contributions addons page. Of coarse i opted to pay less.. AND i would be helping the community without being able to code from scratch.

 

Anyways, there is no shame in making money off of your talent.. and there is a way to do it so that everyone wins too!! I'm not going to say how much i paid, but i can say it was worth it to me, and the rest of the community got a great contribution out of it.

A great place for newbies to start

Road Map to oscommerce File Structure

DO NOT PM ME FOR HELP. My time is valuable, unless i ask you to PM me, please dont. You will get better help if you post publicly. I am not as good at this as you think anyways!

 

HOWEVER, you can visit my blog (go to my profile to see it) and post a question there, i will find time to get back and answer you

 

Proud Memeber of the CODE BREAKERS CLUB!!

Posted
I paid someone to make the donate the change contribution. I found the person through various other contributions that he made and his own blog that offered custom contributions. I had the choice to either pay him more to keep it private so only I would have it, OR save some money and pay him to develope it and then he could add it to the contributions addons page. Of coarse i opted to pay less.. AND i would be helping the community without being able to code from scratch.

 

You just reminded me that I need to get that module uploaded! Will try to get it uploaded either tonight or tomorrow.

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