Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 15:12:30 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Trevor Johnson <trevor@jpj.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman now claims authorship of Linux Message-ID: <20010418151230.P27000@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010418064119.04710720@localhost>; from brett@lariat.org on Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 06:49:14AM -0600 References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010418003011.045ef3b0@localhost> <20010418032018.S12981-100000@blues.jpj.net> <4.3.2.7.2.20010418064119.04710720@localhost>
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Brett Glass said on Apr 18, 2001 at 06:49:14: > At 02:16 AM 4/18/2001, Trevor Johnson wrote: > > >The only parts of the GPL I see that mention money are: > > > > You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, > > and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange > > for a fee. > > > >and > > > > [...]give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of > > physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable > > copy of the corresponding source code [...] > > > >Are you saying that hiring someone to make changes to a GPL'd program > >would violate this second provision? > > If he or she attempted to license his modified version for money. And > that's the point! Stallman does not want anyone to be able to make > money by creating and selling software. This has been discussed ad nauseam... but. That is *not* the point. Cygnus (now under Red Hat) has made plenty of money with custom modifications to GPL software. If I want a custom version of gnucash to suit the needs of my company, I can hire Brett to make the modifications for me, and Brett can insist on being paid lavishly for his work, especially since I'm asking him to touch this disgusting GPL code. What Brett cannot do is insist that I keep my new custom gnucash to myself. But, for such custom modifications, I will *want* to keep the results to myself. Nobody else may be interested anyway; but even if they are, why should I oblige? For mass-market software, like operating systems or office suites, yes, the GPL does reduce the amount one can effectively charge for software (excluding media costs and service/support). So much the better. I think it's obscene that M$ can get away with charging $400 per seat or whatever it is for their bloatware. - Rahul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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