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Lawsuit Says GPL is a Price-Fixing Scheme
Soko writes "Yes, it's real. The crack team of Daniel Wallace and Maureen O'Gara have ganged up once again to protect their version of "The American Dream," he by filing a lawsuit in Indiana court saying the GPL is nothing more than a price fixing scheme designed to drive software vendors out of business, she by parroting the proprietary vendors' "The GPL kills business" mantra (as well as a few well placed insults at the free software community). I found the story on Groklaw - no links to Ms. O'Gara or Mr. Wallace from me. I'm still kind of dumbfounded at the audacity of Mr. Wallace, but wonder if he has an angle that might have a slim chance of prevailing." This Google search reveals some of Daniel Wallace's views on the GPL.
Juries will do what they think is justice based upon what they think they understand.
If I'm not terribly mistaken juries are not permitted to rule on issues of law, only those of fact. This particular suit appears to be demanding nearly purely a ruling of law.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Actually, it's all to do with the GPL, as most other licenses (notably BSD and MIT) allow you to take source code, modify it, and then sell it in whole as your own product without releasing your modifications as source code.
And you should check your sources; Stallman came up with the GPL long before Microsoft had its monopoly.
One good turn - gets all the covers.
It pains me to see that quite a few people, even here on /., STILL don't get the open source licenses and their economical justification, especially the GPL. They feel uneasy about how "community" smells like communism and try to justify it with an analogy to charity work. Then there's those who complain how the GPL is "less free" than BSD.
The fact is BOTH licenses have deep economical justification - and I'm talking liberalism here.
BSD says "you, the developper, can do whatever the hell you want with that code (just if it breaks it's not our problem)." This is great economically, because it eliminates waste. Companies rewriting the same stuff. So you get more efficient producers, which is good.
The GPL says "the user can have and use the source code (at shipping cost)." Read it again. That's ALL it says (yeah, there's the disclaimer, plus the patent clause so that you can actually use the software)(now of course, you can't really say that in a license, so the GPL turns it around to say that the developper has to release under the same license, and has to provide the source code).
Which is much better because it also addresses another MAJOR weakness of the software market: it doesn't work. The software market doesn't work because people get their data locked up in proprietary apps, and can't move to a competitor. Or the competitor solution won't work with their existing infrastructure. And so on. Now the thing is if the market doesn't work, you can throw the liberal economy in the bin. What you get is more like feudalism. Which of course what not an extraordinary success. The GPL addresses this problem: the user is back in charge, free to choose its supplier because it can access its data, so the market works. And of course that's good in any market based economy.
Cheers.
from here:
WHAT IS PRICE FIXING?
What is price fixing - legal answers at FreeAdvice.com's business section
"Most state statutes provide that fixing the price of a product or service in agreement with another individual or business is illegal. The general rule provides that a vendor may not in combination with another vendor agree to set a certain price thereby creating a fixed price within a certain market. A business acting on its own and not in concert with another may use legitimate efforts to obtain the best price they can, including their ability to raise prices to the detriment of the general public. Also, conformity of prices within a given product is not illegal unless such conformity was created by a combination of vendors agreeing on a set price. For example, where competitors agree to sell their goods or services at a specified price, minimum price or maximum price and they receive profits from such an agreement, they are in violation of price fixing. Additionally, setting a price to be charged only within a certain area in order to get rid of competition or to create a monopoly is generally illegal under most state laws. A majority of states have also enacted a "Below-Sales-Cost" law wherein businesses may not sell goods below cost if they do so with anti-competitive intent or effect."
So, giving away something at a loss to drive competition out of business is illegal. I've never been a fan of anti-trust legislation, and now maybe anti-MS zealots will see my point of view if these laws start affecting them adversely.
Vote for Pedro
FSF is pretty clear - in the license under question - that a person can sell the software at whatever price they want. Are they actually suing the FSF over this? Geez, they're going to get their asses handed to them along with a dallop of opposing party's attorneys' fees.
Oh guess what...Not only is baseball exempt from antitrust laws (See Section 26b), but so are not-for-profits. Just like the good Free Software Foundation, a non-profit Maine corporation. Section 13c Nothing in the Act approved June 19, 1936, known as the Robinson-Patman Antidiscrimination Act, shall apply to purchases of their supplies for their own use by schools, colleges, universities, public libraries, churches, hospitals, and charitable institutions not operated for profit.
But they did find a way to stay in business, most convienince stores have ice delivered to them for retail sale. Amazing how some adapt and succede. Too bad most people are idiots and would rather sue.
The FSF is not selling a product. There is no offer to buy or acceptance of that offer. In fact, **there is no product** To quote from the GPL:
Read it again: without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY. The FSF is being open that their code is not a salable product.
Anyone is welcome to come along and turn the FSF's code into a salable product. They can do this by offering a warranty that the code has a useful purpose and can do so for whatever price they choose. Again to quote from the GPL:
The generally low price for GPLd software is a consequence of unfettered competition, something monopolists have a problem with.
Now go and crawl back under your bridge.
That's called DUMPING, and it's against the law.
The GP is likely referring to the WTO dumping laws. It should be pointed out that those rules only apply to international trade. Since the suit is being brought by an U.S. citizen against a U.S. organization WTO rules have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this.
Actually, it would be better to say that communism is *a* revolutionary theory of Marxism --- one that comes from an awful misreading of Marx.
The GPL is actually quite *un*Marxist, as a True Marxist cheers on the onslaught of Unimpeded Capitalism (which we plainly do not have, as there are brakes on the economy and safety nets put in place in order to prevent the consequences of Unimpeded Capitalism from driving the 99% to overthrow the 1% feeding off of them, followed by the 99% installing some sort of Workers Paradise (not unlike the Christian idea of the Eschaton, though wholly materialistic and without a Final Judgement, eternal life, etc.). The GPL throws a monkey wrench into the works, as it keeps someone's labors from being stolen out from under them with no recompense. The GPL works well with Capitalism With Governor(s) Installed by acting as a governor on the system.
Thus the GPL is about as far from communism as you're going to get, as it is designed to help keep the capitalist system from destroying itself. This makes those who oppose it suspect, as they seem to be very interested in the self-destruction of capitalism, and work to remove the very mechanisms which allow capitalism to survive.
brwski
"Because without beer, things do not seem to go as well''
If there is a powerful, overhead authority, it ceases to be communism. This is why there has never been a communist state. There were socialist states run by the communist party which is suppose to be a stage before becoming communist.
You've obviously never read Marx's work or taken a serious class in market economic theory, otherwise, you'd realize the GPL is more capitalistic in concept and in no way embodies a communist ideal.
Intially, communism requires a central authority directive whereby others are told what to make, how to make it, etc. by the central authority. As you can plainly see, no one in the Free Software community *forces* anyone else to make certain software to certain standards. In fact, the whole idea of the GPL is that if you dislike the direction a project is moving in, you can fork the project and make your own. Hardly a central planning scheme. You also have to look at what happens after the product is created: there's no central government that forces people to use this software. RMS doesn't come from on high and threaten to kick you out of the FOSS group if you chose to use x instead of y. You can use whatever you want - even none free software! Again, hardly characteristic of communism.
Your point that "It's a way of creating code for the community, and forcing those that use said code to in turn contribute to the community as well" is hardly indicative of communism - not does it force you to do anything. Intially, I can use OpenOffice or any other GPL'ed software without being require to contribute back. If I create derivative works of said product and intend to release my derivative works, I do have to GPL my product. You've entered a contract - it's no different from if I require a liscensing fee of so many dollars - that's the price you pay for entering the contract. You have the option not to create derivative works and instead start from scratch, creating no obligation to GPL your work. You *choose* to use GPL. And that's the fundamental difference between communism and captialism - freedom of choice.
As for why the GPL acutally espouses capitalism, the reasons seem more obfusated and possibly less obvious if you aren't up on your knowledge of free market economics - but, none the less, it's there. The GPL aids in the free flow of information - by being required to distribute your source code, your consumers are able to see exactly what your product does. Furthermore, this requirement for open source helps the market find its equilibrium price: people are able to make the best product possible, at the least price possible. You're in no way required to not sell your product - all the GPL requires is that you distribute your source code with your product. I can still sell my product for $300 if I want, so long as I include the source code with it. However, distributing it at $300 runs the risk that someone will modify my code to make it better and then sell it at a cheaper price, or might just redistribute copies of my software for free. Thus, I might decide to include some sort of support service as part of my price. Another person might decide to do the same at a cheaper price. I might have to lower my price as a result. This will continue until the market equilbrium price is reached (which very well might be zero - often times, however, it is not. Look at how much the commercial versions of Linux sell for, as an example). Rather than prices being artifically high because a monopoly exists on the product, you have a free market where supply/demand drives the price, which is based on the quality and desirability of the product provided.
Another way the GPL is capitalistic is that, above all, it provides *choice*. The whole point of capitalism is to provide a myraid of choices so that the best product at the best price prevails. The GPL ensures this will happen by preventing monopolies and ensuring consumers are informed. It also aids in the creation of new choices by getting rid of the red tape and bureaucracy usually involved in creating a derivative work. Freedom of choice is the antithesis of communism - it is at the very heart of captialism.
What a lot of people fail to realize is that the US is not compeletly a free market economy. Things such as p
That's why I love the Australian system... we have the ACCC :)
IAN From USA.
A funny remark but it isn't correct.
When USA invades other countries under a false pretence to bring them democracy it is not to make it better for other countries.
You can't handle the truth.
That's false.
They FSF want's contributers to GNU software to assign their copyrights to aid in enforcement.
A quick search shows that the word assign doesn't appear in the GPL.
On the other hand, they encourage you to use the GPL for your own software. As far as I know they have no desire of the copyrights to your code.
-Peter