Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 09:53:16 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: "Jasper O'Malley" <jooji@webnology.com> Cc: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>, "Pedro F. Giffuni" <pfgiffun@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co>, Gregory Sutter <gsutter@pobox.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPL *again* (was: New CODA release) Message-ID: <4.1.19990208093715.04647610@mail.lariat.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.02.9902080826290.11012-100000@mercury.webnology .com> References: <4.1.19990207230639.009284c0@mail.lariat.org>
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At 08:38 AM 2/8/99 -0600, Jasper O'Malley wrote: >> As for why the GPL is bad for business: it treats business unfairly. >> Users can use GPLed software to serve THEIR needs, but commercial >> software companies can't use it to fulfill THEIRS. That's the >> intent: to drive commercial software companies out of business. > >That might be RMS' intent, but it sure as hell isn't the intent of most >people I know that have GPLed their software. True. And that's the problem. While they don't INTEND to realize RMS's goals, they are furthering them nonetheless. It is, in some ways, similar to harboring a virus. You don't have to INTEND to make other people sick; you may not know you have the bug, or if you do, you may go into work because your co-workers need you (or your family needs to eat). Nonetheless, you are spreading the virus. If the virus was (as in this case) created to accomplish a specific end, you may be furthering that end unwittingly. This, I believe, is the case with authors who use the GPL. >Don't cloud the issue with rhetoric, Brett. It's not I but RMS who cloaks the issue with rhetoric. He has told me as much! He realized that he would not get far by preaching to the world that the notion of intellectual property is fundamentally wrong. So, instead, he couched his description of the GPL in terms of goodness, light, and "freedom." >At least in my experience, people GPL their software >because they have a fundamental desire to keep other people from profiting >from their freely given work. I can completely understand how someone >would GPL their work for reasons like this, just as I understand how >others (myself included) would put a BSD license on software to stimulate >commercial interest in a project. The problem is, it doesn't work. Red Hat profits greatly from Linux and doesn't pay the authors a dime! And who can really tell if someone "lifts" some GPLed code and compiles it into a product? The only way to ensure that no one profits from your source code is not to disclose it. >> One way it does this is to drive the market value of a product >> with a given feature set to zero, while keeping its cost to >> commercial software vendors (either in development or licensing costs) >> high. > >So it remains a completely public development effort, rather than a >commercial development effort, or a commercial-public effort. It's not >evil, my man, simply different. To use the word "evil" implies a moral or religious judgment, which I am not making here. However, the GPL is, indeed, dangerous in that its intent is to wipe out commercial software. It is possible to have public development efforts without being destructive. >Will it stunt the growth of some projects? >Will it fragment others? Maybe. But when a BSD-licensed chunk of code is >used by a company, there's no guarantee that they'll contribute back to >the community from whence the code came, either. There's no silver bullet >here, Brett. I'm not trying to "kill" anything, therefore a "bullet" wouldn't be of much use! ;-) However, I see nothing wrong with a company using BSD-licensed code for its own commercial products. It's like checking a book out from the library and using the information in your work. If your efforts are successful, another good product will be available in the marketplace, and that's beneficial, too. >> Free software can and does take away business opportunities. But the >> BSD license, unlike the GPL, "gives back" by allowing commercial >> software companies to build on the code and add value without >> forfeiting the money they could make from their labor. > >Yes, but realize there that people who use the BSD license are making a >rational decision to give away valuable work. People who use GPL simply >don't want anyone else to take their valuable, freely-given work, close >the development, add proprietary extensions, and make gobs of money. They can't "close" the existing development effort, nor can they "take" the code. The code is out there and will remain so. Anyone who makes money from a product that uses the code will do so due to his or her valuable additions -- in fact, SOLELY due to those additions, because the code he or she started with (and its functionality) are freely available. By themselves, they have a market value of zero. So, if someone makes gobs of money from BSD-licensed code, it is because that person DESERVES it. >Selfish? Maybe, but it's their choice, because they wrote the software. >I don't use the GPL now (although I have) because it does, as you point >out, have the potential to stunt development efforts in some projects, but >again, it's the author's choice, just as it is your choice whether or not >you'd like to use a GPLed work as a basis for your own new software >projects. The problem is that, before people realize what the GPL does, they will have done a great deal of damage by releasing their code that way. It is important that those of us who can SEE what is going on explain this to developers. Otherwise, we'll all be hurt in the long run. --Brett Glass "Rules? This is the Internet." -- Dan Gillmor To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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