Blogs
OSCON Day 1: Participate08
Steven J Vaughan-Nichols Blogs about Open Source Best Practices
Open source software costs money
Open source software is well known for being "free" as in free beer. Many people start using open source software because it's cheap. And while open source software has a lower "total cost of ownership" than proprietary software, i.e. it's cheaper to use open source software than proprietary software, that's only partially because it's free upfront.
As anyone who uses open source software can tell you, open source software is only free initially. Then, like all software it costs to maintain it, trouble shoot it, upgrade it, etc. Only a few like this open source cheapskate that Matt Asay blogs about expect it to come with free customization and support. With open source software you still have to pay or spend time on:
Does the GPL extend to (cross-)compilers?
Access to the full source code is an essential aspect of open source software, perhaps even the most essential aspect of all. But what good is source code if it cannot be compiled into an executable? Fortunately this is rarely a problem. Most open source software is designed to compile with the well-known gcc compiler, a standard component of most Linux distributions. With dozens of supported platforms, it is rare to have open source that you can't compile. But when you do, can you demand a copy of the compiler from the developer?