theKompany's Shawn Gordon On The GPL

replicant_deckard writes "In this short but insightful essay Shawn Gordon, the founder of theKompany, explains why GPL doesn't work for software companies producing graphical and end-user friendly stuff. This reminds us that GPL has so far been useful just for infrastructure-level hacker stuff like operating systems, databases etc. " Of course, it's been used for end user - OpenOffice, GAIM, and other projects.

Comments

Well, There's Your Problem

[The Gardener]

I had RMS come to me on this product to make sure we weren't violating the GPL, and he admitted that we were not, but in the course of the conversation he proceeded to project onto the KDE project aspects of theKompany in a totally inappropriate fashion and was very negative about KDE in this regard.

He talked to RMS; always best avoided, at least without shielding. That's enough to throw anyone off their game.

THe Gardener

Re:Well, There's Your Problem

[10Ghz]

So RMS hates KDE? My God, who would have guessed! I am shocked! Shocked, I tells ya!

Re:He doesnt get it

[An Onerous Coward]

No, you don't get it. Neither do I. In fact, nobody could get it by reading the article, because he simply doesn't explain what he means by "charging for the source."

If he means, "You don't get our GPL'ed product with source until you pay us $50," that's perfectly OK. If he means, "You get the binary for $50, and the source will cost you $5000 extra," then that's not okay under the GPL.

In the latter case, Windows XP perfectly and completely fulfills the terms of the GPL. After all, if you were able to scrape together $300 billion, I'm sure Bill Gates would be more than happy to sell you a copy of the source code with unlimited distribution rights. And then come over to wax your Ferarri.