Messages in this thread | | | From | "Eric Furman" <> | Subject | Re: GPL version 4 | Date | Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:05:02 -0400 |
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Could you guys please remove misc@openbsd.org from the cc of this mail? Nobody here cares.
On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:47:46 -0700, "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> said: > > Would you grant me the freedom to give away your commercial > > product for free > > or to incorporate it in my commercial product? Probably not. You'd instead > > grant me less freedom. The GPL protects me from this. > > Except it doesn't. With or without the GPL, if he still makes his > commercial > product, you will still be unable to give it away or incorporate it in > your > commercial product. If he doesn't make it, that's just less choice for > everyone. > > It may be a poorer product. It may cost him more to develop it. It may > wind > up not existing. But in no case will will you wind up with the freedom to > give away his commercial product. So the GPL actually won't protect you > from > this at all. > > It will just result in him producing a poorer, more expensive, less > compatible product -- or none at all. Either way, everyone else will have > fewer (and/or poorer) choices. Everyone loses. Nobody wins. > > Note that had he been able to incorporate the GPL code in his commercial > product, he may have passed bug fixes and improvements back to the GPL > project. He would not have had to, of course, but if his product just > uses a > GPL component or library (that doesn't compete with the larger product), > there's no reason for him not to. Everybody could have won. > > It's always possible he may instead elect to make a GPL'd project. This > may > allow him to produce a higher-quality product in less time. It may allow > others to build on his work, and result in more freedom for everyone. He > may > make less money, but maybe not. The question of whether the "everybody > loses" or the "lots of people, maybe everybody, wins" case is more common > is > an empiric one. > > I have seen an awful lot of "everybody loses" cases. I've seen very few > "everybody wins" cases. > > DS >
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