Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 15:55:19 -0500 From: "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net> To: Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPL alternatives Message-ID: <19990520155519.B235@whizkidtech.net> In-Reply-To: <19990520175624.G70539@bitbox.follo.net>; from Eivind Eklund on Thu, May 20, 1999 at 05:56:24PM %2B0200 References: <4.2.0.37.19990519114402.00b37230@localhost> <4.2.0.37.19990519103533.00b3d380@localhost> <Pine.BSF.4.00.9905191327060.4442-100000@super-g.inch.com> <4.2.0.37.19990519114402.00b37230@localhost> <19990520001613.B69023@bitbox.follo.net> <3.0.6.32.19990519172425.009633f0@mail.bfm.org> <19990520003231.C69023@bitbox.follo.net> <19990520093943.B240@whizkidtech.net> <19990520175624.G70539@bitbox.follo.net>
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On Thu, May 20, 1999 at 05:56:24PM +0200, Eivind Eklund wrote: > > I think if we wanted to send letters to authors of gpled software, > > the artistic license would be a much better alternative. It is also > > the only free software license which allows to "make other > > distribution arrangements with the Copyright Holder." > > That's because other licenses do not make a point of repeating > copyright law ;-) The copyright law does give the author the right to give up all his rights. Many an author has to ask his publisher for the permission to have his own work published somewhere else. The wording of the GPL does allow for the possible interpretation that the author has given up all his rights to his work. Indeed, it could be argued that the author has transfered all his rights to FSF. It could also be argued that he did not. But who wants to spend time in court arguing when you can use clear wording, such as offered by the artistic license. > > It also prohibits others from outright selling the package (while > > reasonable copying fees are acceptable). That is one of the things I > > dislike about GPL the most: It encourages others to make profit off > > someone else's (possibly hard) work. > > I do not have a problem with people making profit off the work I > release. The *point* of it is to make something that is useful to > people. > > If people use my software in a business environment *at all*, they are > making a profit somehow (or screwups in my software is destroying > their time - I hope not...) That is different from outright selling your work for pure profit, without adding any value to it. > If somebody can take my software and add > percieved value to it, thus making a profit for themselves and give > value to the "normal" users of the software - hey, they're making the > world a better place. Yes, if they add value to it. But GPL expressly allows anyone to sell gpled software for anything customers are willing to pay, but without adding anything to it. It explicitly states that it being free does not mean it cannot be sold. At the same time, GPL gives nothing back to the author as far as finances are concerned. That is unbalanced. It is almost like giving it out to public domain, with the only exception that whatever you do with it you must include the source code forever. When I write free software, I want it to be free for anyone to *use*, not for anyone to *sell*. I might allow them to sell it, but in that case I want to see some of that money. > Money is only paid if you believe you get value > for it - thus the users somehow percieve they get more value from > getting the software off the people selling it than off the net. Fine. But in that case, as the author, I want my chunk. Heck, I will gladly sell my software to anyone who wants to pay for it. No need for a middleman. > I also like profit going to people that are somehow involved in open > source, even it is just as consumers of a sourcebase. This makes it > much more likely that the money will channel back to open source > development than if it just stayed with the ladder companies that > bought the product based on open source. That's what I'm talking about. Channeling it back. > That last example is from my own experiences; we used to make FreeBSD > based Internet connection boxes (similar to the Whistle InterJet). > The ladder company mentioned above is one of those that bought the > product; through the sale of the product, the changes that was done to > make it possible was paid off. > > Those of the changes that were generally useful (and which didn't > break other generally useful things which were not needed in our > specific situation, and were not so dirty I was ashamed of being seen > with them in public) has been contributed back to FreeBSD. An example > of this is the PnP support in if_ed; another is the TTY emulation code > for rbch in i4b, which allow a multilink PPP daemon to run over it > (I'm going to release the mods I did to mpd as soon as I find the time > to clean them up so they don't break other uses; I've been > procastinating that for way too long...) > > As it is, (almost) everybody is happy: The customers got a product > fitting their needs, we got a profit (or probably not - the product > generated way more support load than anticipated, which is why it has > been discontinued - but getting a profit was the intention), and > FreeBSD got useful changes. Yes, but you were not just selling the product. You added to it, you provided support, you gave something back to FreeBSD, etc. You were paid for your effort, not for making a copy of the software on the disk, taking money for it, and leaving the customer on his own. I have no problem with that. What I would have a serious problem with is if, for example, someone walked to a computer business and asked how he could create counters for his web site, and the business would offer to sell him a diskette with my Graphic Counter Language for $249 (or any amount) and say, "This is what you need. Just type 'make install' then visit this web page to learn how to use it." If, on the other hand, they helped them download the software from my web site, installed it for them, perhaps designed a counter, or taught them how to design one, and charged them for the time they used, more power to them. > Without the BSD license (which is what made us willing to risk working > on kernel mods at all; the knowledge that we *could* keep it to > ourselves if we needed to) the product would not have happened, and > the customers would most likely have bought NT instead. This would > not have resulted in *any* benefit, beyond a warm fuzzy feeling in > somebody that 'nobody is making a profit off my hard work'. Why yes, the BSD license is the best. I certainly do not have any objections against it. Heck, I use it all the time. It is the GPL that this whole thread is about. We were talking about what kind of letter could be sent to authors using GPL. Netscape license was suggested as an alternative, to which I opined that the artistic license might be a better choice. It is philosophically similar to the GPL, but without the Borg stuff. And it does allow you to make money supporting the product. You cannot just sell it as if you owned it. That has nothing to do with warm fuzzy feelings. My point is that the artistic license is a good alternative to GPL, not to BSD license. Adam To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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