Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source drivers? | From | Marco Monteiro <> | Date | 03 Jan 2003 16:37:22 +0000 |
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On Fri, 2003-01-03 at 16:16, David Schwartz wrote: > On Fri, 03 Jan 2003 12:51:04 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote: > > >Yes but.... > > >I develop computer games. The last one I did took a team of 35 people 2 > >years and cost $X million to develop. > > >Please explain how I could do this as free software, while still feeding > >my people? Am I a bad person charging for my work? > > >Really - I want to understand so I too can join this merry band of happy > >people giving everything away for free! > > You can't with the GPL, because it presents you with a "take it or leave it" > package deal. But you could with a different license. > > What you do is you base your game off of whatever open source code gets you > the furthest. The game itself, of course, is closed source. After your first > few months of sales, you contribute some of the code you wrote back to the > open source community. > > Why shouldn't you? It hurts you not one bit and it's free publicity. Heck, > after a few year, maybe you open source the whole game. > > The next person to write a game can start where you left off to some extent. > He can develop a better game for less money, and he can contribute more code > back to the community. Eventually, there may be enough code in the comnunity > to develop such complex games entirely open source. > > However, with a license like the GPL, every game has to be developed on a > proprietary base. You simply can't afford to put any money into an open > source base. So every game has to start back from square one, or the most > advanced proprietary base that can be found. > > Everybody loses except the person who makes the proprietary base or engine > you started with. I think working to make all software better and cheaper is > much more noble goal than working to arm twist other people into giving you > their code. > > And the best part is, you can work to strengthen fair use, first sale, and > oppose the validity of shrink wrap licenses. You can argue for a narrower > definition of a derived work. In fact, you can at least *try* to win the > legal war. > > DS > >
That is not right. The problem is that all people think that you can't sell a game if it is Free Software. If the game is good you can. People buy paintings and public domain classic music...
> - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ -- Marco Monteiro
"All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed." --Sean O'Casey - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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