Authors and musicians, unless they are extremely successful, don't make a living from royalties. Income mostly comes from live performances and merchandise. As for software development, the open source model clearly shows that money can be made. Also, most software out there isn't actually distributed and is internal to a business or company.
Authors who are not extremely successful get their income from live performances and merchandise, not royaties? Any authors here care to comment?
>As for software development, the open source model clearly shows that money can be made
Ok, so I sell data wrangling software for Windows and Mac for $99 per license. Mostly to people who aren't programmers. Kindly tell me how that would work with an open source model.
> Kindly tell me how that would work with an open source model.
Even without copyright, nothing prevents your from selling software. Chances are people who don't want to pay for your software already don't. If paying for software adds value otherwise (such as access to updates and support), people will still pay for it.
