Slashdot Mirror


User: volfbane

volfbane's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
2
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 2

  1. Re:GPL anti-business? on Linguistic Problems of GPL Advocacy · · Score: 1
    Traditional business models rely on monopoly, and profits for development efforts are directly related to how long they retain that monopoly. They can charge more for software that is unlikely to be duplicated quickly by competitors.

    GPL precludes the monopoly business model by requiring any software project incorporating GPL code to also be GPL, thus relinquishing the monopoly.

    This is the default price of GPL code, and thus why most businesses regard the GPL as anathema. It makes their business of selling software less profitable, and opens them up to lawsuits if someone, somewhere uses unlicensed code.

    They can try to licence the code under more compatible terms, but this is often impractical/impossible/too expensive if the GPL code has many contributors, and

    This means the businesses that make use of GPL software have to base their business plans on sources of income that are not dependent on their software monopoly: by charging for their services, instead of their products.

    They then only make money when they are actually working, instead of making residual income from selling copies of their completed work.

    Businesses that depend on their software monopoly, thus consider GPL to be anti-business.

  2. GPL: It's not really about freedom on Linguistic Problems of GPL Advocacy · · Score: 1
    It's about driving innovation by compensation. Just like the copyright system and the patent system were meant to operate. The GPL simply establishes the default compensation expected for code you found on the internet: you will share your code, so that, as my work solved your problem, your work may solve mine. If that price isn't acceptable, then your options are the same as any other copyrighted work: negotiate for an acceptable deal.

    BSDL, on the other hand, is not about driving innovation or compensation. It's more about plagiarism: "Don't claim my work as your own; Give me the credit I'm due for making your project quicker and easier"

    Both contribute to the community at large by reducing the need to re-implement some needed functionality in complex (or not so complex) projects, but the GPL takes that one step further by requiring more from its users.