Posted on Tuesday 15 November 2005 - Popularity: unranked
iStumbler is one of the best wireless discovery tools for Mac OS X. In this interview, Alf Watt, the creator of iStumbler, tells you about the project in general, various wireless security issues as well as recent developments that will make iStumbler a paid tool in its Pro version:
A few months back you noted that iStumbler may stop being free. What led to that decision? Did this situation change your view on developing open source software?
This has been a tough decision to make, there is a feeling on the Web that when you offer something for free it should stay free. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair to content creators, but the sentiment definatly exists and factored into my final decision: the current feature set of iStumbler including AirPort, Bluetooth, Bonjour and the Location plugins will always be free and Open Source but future plugins will be part of an ‘iStumbler Pro’ package.
Publishing iStumbler has completely changed my view of Open Source development. While I still believe in Open Source there is a lot of work to be done in finding sustainable business models for smaller projects. The service model promoted by ESR really only works for enterprise open source and popular consumer packages like Linux distributions, it’s not a tenable option for a small ISV which markets directly to consumers. In fact, if you write a really useable piece of software, the service model works against you because users don’t need assistance!
