I don't often agree with Cringley. In fact, I most often disagree with Cringley - but I typically read his columns because he brings interesting perspectives into the mix. This week, my jaw hit the floor. I think Cringley understands Free Software now better than some Free Software advocates out there.

In Open and Shut, Cringley tackles a pretty touchy subject that has some people beating their keyboards into swords. But really - Sveasoft has done nothing wrong aside from offending the sensibilities of people who don't like paying for things.

Whoever pays drives. That's the bottom line. Where some are upset because Sveasoft is charging for service - well, guess what? You can fork the project. What's interesting here is that the software that Sveasoft is supporting is important enough to cause such uproar, then it's apparent that Sveasoft made the right business decision. Did they break the GPL? Certainly not.

They are distributing the source code to anyone who downloads it. Beta code is something paid subscribers gain access to. Does that break the GPL? Certainly not. The source is being distributed with the applications, or is at least available.

Developers deserve to eat.