I think that you are in error here. Copyright law exists to allow the creator of a work control of the copying of that work
No, that's *what* copyright does. The reason *why* it exists is to give people an incentive to create things. The GPL, on the other hand, does not give people a financial incentive to create things. The only incentive it could really give them is the opportunity to "stick it to the man" (e.g. Microsoft). I think that you are simply obssessing over the fact that no money is exchanged.
No. Do you see me complaining about the BSD license? I think that despite your, accurate, description of capitalism as a successful system you have a more personal dedication to it than that.
What I am interested in is the game theory model. Capitalism has a solid basis in game theory, although it does suffer from one tragedy of the commons, which means that it does need some kind of regulation to ensure that prices don't hit $0.
GPL'ed software does not make sense from a game theory perspective. No one has an incentive to write software any more. Again, it's a tragedy of the commons. All the development of GPL'ed software so far has taken place in an unsustainable business model. Some funding of the development has been motivated by revenge (e.g. let's gang up and get Microsoft), but that kind of private vendetta funding is going to dry up eventually.
IBM doesn't need to fund Linux. They're just doing it as a publicity stunt. They crunched a bunch of numbers and decided they could buy some public goodwill by trying to pretend they care about give people free software. If one company does that, they win. If five companies try that, they all lose. That's the tragedy of the commons in a nutshell.
I don't see how the pricing is predatory. I don't believe there's a hidden agenda to raise prices later or anything, the pricing is set to attain the reward the authors are seeking, nothing more nothing less.
The pricing is set at $0 in order to drive all the proprietary software vendors out of business. The idea is to generate a large volume of GPL'ed code very quickly (i.e. while there are still companies out there with investors naive enough to believe it's a good idea) so that by the time everyone realizes it's a bad idea, the barrier to entry for non-GPL'ed code will be impossibly high. More importanly though, how do you see the GPL as being "spun"? Are there some rights that you feel that you have in the absence of the GPL that the GPL takes away? If so then what are they?
The GPL can be thought of either as a proprietary license that grants you extra rights or as a public domain license that takes away some rights. If you choose to believe everything you read, it's the former. But I am more cynical than that. As far as I'm concerned, the GPL is a deliberate attempt to twist copyright law to create a public domain license that takes away some rights.
No, the difference in the license also impacts the development model. Enhancements to GPL software are much more likely to see the light of day than enhancements to BSD software. This means that the GPL codebase becomes richer. But you missed my point (intentionally?): I wasn't comparing GPL vs. BSD, I was comparing GPL vs. proprietary. And it's rather obvious how the GPL makes software development easier than proprietary licenses, for most kinds of software.
I know you were comparing GPL vs. proprietary, and I agree that it makes development easier. But my point was that BSD vs. proprietrary has the exact same advantages. But GPL will accumulate a larger codebase. Why? Because it suckers businesses into acting against their own interest. That's why I say that the GPL is anti-business. Someone making money off of it isn't a problem at all. People are making lots of money off of the gifts of Linus Torvalds, Andy Tridgell, Larry Wall, etc.
Sure they are, but that's a misleading way to think about it. Look at it this way: I'm a programmer. I mostly write stuff for Linux. If Linux didn't exist, I'd write for Unix. If Unix didn't exist, I'd write for Windows or VxWorks, etc. Whatever.
When these people write new stuff that advances the state of the industry, that's great. But don't try to spin it like they did me a favour by contributing tools that are essential to my job. I could do my job just fine before anyone had heard of Linux, thank you. The "gift" of Linux is more of a trojan horse. Once you bring it into the keep, GPL advocates jump out and destroy your industry. offices benefit much more. And so do the small software development shops who get paid to customize, install, troubleshoot and maintain Samba installations
Of course you are right that there will still be some jobs left. But as far as I can tell, they will mostly be crappy jobs. I'd rather be writing Samba than "customizing, installing, troubleshooting, and maintaining" it. I mean, I know that I don't have some kind of god-given right to a job I like, but again... gee, thanks a lot for your "gifts". The open source and free software business models are models which won't make many people rich, but will -- and do -- provide a good *living* for lots of people. The GPL may well kill the software tycoon, but it only helps the working programmer.
I think you're misled here. The number of jobs (and average salary) that an industry can sustain is almost exclusively based on the amount of revenue that the industry generates. All of that money comes *from* somewhere, and the vast majority of the revenues of most proprietary software companies come right out of the profits of their customers (well, sort of. One hopes the customers are generating a positive ROI, but think how much greater that return would be with lower costs.)
No. Since the cost of proprietary software is approximately the same for all players in an industry, the cost gets passed on to the consumer. Almost everything in manufacturing is margin-based. If your product is more expensive, you make *MORE* money. You only get a benefit from cost savings if it gives you an edge over your competitors. If all the manufacturers of DVD players switch to free software, they *ALL* lose. (Unless they use price fixing to keep their margins up.)
The only one to benefit is the consumer, who gets lower DVD prices. So what free software does is to increase the average wealth of the consumer by decreasing the average wealth of the programmer. Sure, all of use techies who were around through the dot bubble had dreams of early retirement, independent wealth, a home for every season of the year, etc., but, honestly, is there any real reason why we deserve that?
I think we deserve to be paid like white-collar professionals. Doctors and lawyers don't give away their knowledge for free (at least most of them). I think it's sad that programmers are now making a lot les
Then what you're saying is that competition is anti-business.
Which is true. Cartels are pro-business and the GPL is anti-business. But there needs to be some sort of balance. Monopolies aren't good, but neither is unregulated cutthroat competition.
I see the GPL as a different sort of monopoly. After all, it involves predatory pricing and an EULA which denies all sorts of rights to some users. (Of course this is cleverly spun into granting rights to other users.) Unless you believe that capitalism can only work when everyone is required to charge money for every good or service.
I believe that capitalism could still work with a BSD license. These firmware manufacturers aren't competing in the marketplace either, they're just free-riding. They seem to believe that someone else owes them a living, and want to make a buck selling stolen software in violation of the terms of its licensing agreements.
Umm, it's not stolen?:-) Stealing is the act of depriving someone of a good or service... yada yada yada. $0 for software that you're going to use over and over is ridiculous. If the software cost $100 or even $50, they'd pay for it. But as long as the software is being GPL-licenses, they're going to pirate it as a form of social protest.
So, what have you done to unionize software people, and solve the problem as you see it?
I'm trying to drum up support for my union idea, but so far it's not working. I used to be a software engineer. I still write code. But I put bread on the table by being a welder, because when I was looking for code jobs, I was unemployed for 18 months.
And I think, how sad that you want to ruin it for everyone else. The first rule of capitalism is that the universe doesn't owe you shit. If there's no market for the service you are providing, then you're going to starve unless you start offering something that people are willing to pay for.
I think there would be a market for customized software if it wasn't for the GPL. If the courts of some major countries declared the GPL unenforcable and equivalent to BSD, there would still be hope for my industry. (BTW, that's what I would really like, in preference to a programmer's union.)
Sorry but this example might seem good at first glance, but it is actually TOTALLY UNRELATED to the Opensource "problem".
I deliberately made it unrelated. My intention was to show that giving someone an extra choice is not necessarily good for them if you also throw in an additional wrinkle that is bad for them. Now with OpenSource, the only thing that happens is that you ADD another option without removing the others. You can now 1. still write the software yourself 2. still buy it from another company at the cost of money 3. use opensource and respect the license (NEW)
Notice, you weren't deprived of any choices you previously had!
That's your opinion. In my view, the choices are now:
1. still write the software yourself *AND* lose money 2. still buy it from another company at the cost of money *AND* lose money 3. use opensource and respect the license *AND* lose money (NEW)
Before OSS, I had some options that didn't involve losing money. If the OpenSource model were so bad, no other company would use it and you wouldn't loose anything,
No, because of a game theory effect called the "tragedy of the commons". It's like a generalized version of the prisoner's dilemma. Go look it up. if it isn't so bad, that means it's good and therefore it is good that it exists
But it makes no sense to say that the GPL will eliminate the opportunity for commercial software in spaces where no free alternatives exist, unless what you're saying is that the richness of the GPL codebase makes it vastly easier to develop software vs. a proprietary or even a BSDis model. If that is what you're saying, it's worth thinking about the implications of that idea for a bit.
A claim that it is easier to develop software under a GPL license than a BSD license is clearly untrue. There is no difference in the development model, only the license. The viral nature of the GPL license allows it to infect more and more code. The popularity of the GPL license is due to the fact that people don't like to have their gifts hijacked.
And that's what makes me say that the GPL is anti-business. Why is someone making money off your code the worst thing that could happen? You weren't planning to make any money off it, so why deny someone else the chance to make a living?
Well, I just checked the FSF's pages, and couldn't find any reference to how much, if any, tax money they get.... I'm also not aware of any tuition fees that go to the FSF, or to Free Software, in general.
Tuition pays for universities. Tax money subsidizes universities. University researchers contribute plenty of GPL code. Why? Because they aren't accountable to the bottom line. (Then of course, plenty of GPL code is written by university students, which doesn't seem relevant until you consider all the countries where tuition is free.) As far as your work environment is concerned, I'm sorry that you don't appear to be happy about it, apparently because of the compensation, or lack thereof. I also get the sense that you would have a lot of your attitudes in common with Darl McBride, CEO of SCO, but I could be wrong. If the job is so unrewarding for you, why do you stay? My life got a LOT better when I decided that making gobs of money was just not a priority for me. Perhaps in your next job the fine print in the contract will be something more to your liking. Good Luck in finding happiness!:-)
I think you've pegged me wrong. I don't hate my job. I'm just unhappy with what's going on in the industry right now. I write code and I also manage a fairly large group of developers (11 people). But if I was supervising 11 dockworkers I'd be making twice as much money (plus paid overtime).
Why? Because workers in those industries are not suicidal. They formed a union and fought for every last penny. And while I have often thought it is ridiculous how much they make, it's still better than the craziness that's going on in the software industry.
Yes, I do care about money (like the vast majority of people). I don't mind working overtime if there's an upside. If I make a lot of money, I can save up and even take a year off some time. But right now, everyone has to work overtime, and I have to save up just in case I get laid off next year. Fuckin great!
I remember that in 1980 (when I got my first computer) that plenty of software was for sale. Microsoft was barely a blip on the radar screen at that point. Heck, even Pong didn't come for free.
They get the choice between sharing the code, or writing afresh for increased monetary cost. How is increasing the options available to a business anti-business?
You don't think that giving someone extra choices can be bad for them?
Aliens invade the earth. You now have the choice of either fighting the aliens or hiding from the aliens. These are both choices that you didn't have before, but no matter which you choose you are still worse off (because aliens have invaded the earth).
Could you explain your reasoning in detail please?
Capitalism is an economic system that is not perfect, but we use it because it works better than capitalism. It exploits a game theory model in which people who produce useful things are rewarded. However, some government regulation is required to prevent the formation of monopolies and also the ensure that excessive competition does not create an industry where everyone loses. Copyright law is an instance where government regulations ensure that the game theory basis of capitalism can be applied to industries with high development cost but low marginal production cost.
The GPL is a perverse attempt to disrupt this balance by using copyright law to subvert the exact purpose for which it was intended.
As long as no one is FORCED to support GPL software, either through taxes or a draconian work environment (if you want to keep your non-FSF-related job you have to donate your work to the FSF), I really don't see the problem anyone would have.
I am forced to support GPL software through taxes and tuition fees. I am forced to work in a draconian work environment (lots of overtime with little chance of redeeming my stock options) because of the GPL. So yes, I am bitter about it.
Right, so proprietary software includes a cost which must be passed on to the consumer. The only difference with GPL software is that the cost is the requirement to share the source code.
The difference is that the requirement to share the source code is anti-business, whereas the increased monetary cost is not.
You seem to be opposed to Free Software simply because they don't demand dollars for the code.
I am opposed to free software because it is anti-business (and by that, I mean anti-software business). The GPL is a deliberate attempt to upset the natural balance between cutthroat competition and government regulation that allows capitalism to work in western society.
Yup, on both counts. The FSF doesn't really sell software in the same sense that, say, Sierra, does. Mostly they "sell" it to people who don't have the time/bandwidth to download it.
I don't think you understand me. The FSF is clearly making a profit on the CDs they sell. But no I couldn't make a profit simply by selling the stuff cheaper because I bear no resemblance to a charity. Buying software from the FSF is like buying a $100 subscription to PBS and getting a free t-shirt.
You've been trolling this thread in several places saying untrue things about the GPL... and you've avoided responding to direct replies by Bruce Perrins in favor of repeating your posts (or just responding to less-articulated posters than Bruce).
Huh? I didn't reply to a message by ".Bruce Perens", an obvious troll.
Okay, I think it was someone else who called me a troll. Sorry about that. Here's one, see if it passes the "laugh test": A company is in the business of producing computer-animated films. It can buy high-end hardware that runs expensive software which may not always do exactly what it needs, or it can grab GPL'd software, modify it as needed and run it on commodity hardware.
That's not an alternative business model. That company wasn't writing their own software in the first place. Or, how about this one: A company is in the business of selling powerful computers, high-end proprietary software products and professional services to integrate the software and hardware and make it meet business needs.
There's probably room for one or two big companies to be successful with the GPL. Right now, IBM has tamed the beast and is riding it well with their most excellent FUD. I will be interested to see if IBM is still in control of the beast 3 years from now. At the end of the day, this may very well slow the development of commercial software because it increases the risk that the investment will not show a return.
As long as there are people willing to give their work away for free, there's no market for competition to that work. In markets where the free stuff doesn't exist there are opportunities to sell proprietary software.
At least that used to be true before the GPL. With the BSD license, that would still be true. But now the popularity of the GPL license makes it difficult to even do that.
Anyway, this post is brief because you called me a troll and I find it unproductive to carry on arguing with people who capriciously apply labels like that. My other post was already modded -1 troll (unfairly IMHO). If you want to "attack people, not ideas" then carry on, but I will decline to participate.
But you must remember, companies using GPL software as a basis for their own products have actually gained the benfit of all the free code they are modifying!
Have they? Or are they only using the GPL because they are forced into it? No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use the GPL. But if you don't use the GPL, your competitors will, and you will be nickeled and dimed out of business. Of course if you do use the GPL, you will have sacrificed all your leverage and you will still be nickeled and dimed out of business. It's a Hobson's choice.
Apparently, we have another instance of not knowing the difference between Free Software and proprietary software. There's nothing in the GNU GPL preventing anyone from charging as much as they want for software. I know the FSF charges money for its distributions.
Let's say that I put up my own website where I sold exactly the same software that the FSF distributes for 10% less. Could I put the FSF out of business? Or can the FSF only charge money for its distributions because geeks view them as a sort of charity.
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I think that you are in error here. Copyright law exists to allow the creator of a work control of the copying of that work
No, that's *what* copyright does. The reason *why* it exists is to give people an incentive to create things. The GPL, on the other hand, does not give people a financial incentive to create things. The only incentive it could really give them is the opportunity to "stick it to the man" (e.g. Microsoft).
I think that you are simply obssessing over the fact that no money is exchanged.
No. Do you see me complaining about the BSD license?
I think that despite your, accurate, description of capitalism as a successful system you have a more personal dedication to it than that.
What I am interested in is the game theory model. Capitalism has a solid basis in game theory, although it does suffer from one tragedy of the commons, which means that it does need some kind of regulation to ensure that prices don't hit $0.
GPL'ed software does not make sense from a game theory perspective. No one has an incentive to write software any more. Again, it's a tragedy of the commons. All the development of GPL'ed software so far has taken place in an unsustainable business model. Some funding of the development has been motivated by revenge (e.g. let's gang up and get Microsoft), but that kind of private vendetta funding is going to dry up eventually.
IBM doesn't need to fund Linux. They're just doing it as a publicity stunt. They crunched a bunch of numbers and decided they could buy some public goodwill by trying to pretend they care about give people free software. If one company does that, they win. If five companies try that, they all lose. That's the tragedy of the commons in a nutshell.
-a
I don't see how the pricing is predatory. I don't believe there's a hidden agenda to raise prices later or anything, the pricing is set to attain the reward the authors are seeking, nothing more nothing less.
The pricing is set at $0 in order to drive all the proprietary software vendors out of business. The idea is to generate a large volume of GPL'ed code very quickly (i.e. while there are still companies out there with investors naive enough to believe it's a good idea) so that by the time everyone realizes it's a bad idea, the barrier to entry for non-GPL'ed code will be impossibly high.
More importanly though, how do you see the GPL as being "spun"? Are there some rights that you feel that you have in the absence of the GPL that the GPL takes away? If so then what are they?
The GPL can be thought of either as a proprietary license that grants you extra rights or as a public domain license that takes away some rights. If you choose to believe everything you read, it's the former. But I am more cynical than that. As far as I'm concerned, the GPL is a deliberate attempt to twist copyright law to create a public domain license that takes away some rights.
-a
No, the difference in the license also impacts the development model. Enhancements to GPL software are much more likely to see the light of day than enhancements to BSD software. This means that the GPL codebase becomes richer. But you missed my point (intentionally?): I wasn't comparing GPL vs. BSD, I was comparing GPL vs. proprietary. And it's rather obvious how the GPL makes software development easier than proprietary licenses, for most kinds of software.
I know you were comparing GPL vs. proprietary, and I agree that it makes development easier. But my point was that BSD vs. proprietrary has the exact same advantages. But GPL will accumulate a larger codebase. Why? Because it suckers businesses into acting against their own interest. That's why I say that the GPL is anti-business.
Someone making money off of it isn't a problem at all. People are making lots of money off of the gifts of Linus Torvalds, Andy Tridgell, Larry Wall, etc.
Sure they are, but that's a misleading way to think about it. Look at it this way: I'm a programmer. I mostly write stuff for Linux. If Linux didn't exist, I'd write for Unix. If Unix didn't exist, I'd write for Windows or VxWorks, etc. Whatever.
When these people write new stuff that advances the state of the industry, that's great. But don't try to spin it like they did me a favour by contributing tools that are essential to my job. I could do my job just fine before anyone had heard of Linux, thank you. The "gift" of Linux is more of a trojan horse. Once you bring it into the keep, GPL advocates jump out and destroy your industry.
offices benefit much more. And so do the small software development shops who get paid to customize, install, troubleshoot and maintain Samba installations
Of course you are right that there will still be some jobs left. But as far as I can tell, they will mostly be crappy jobs. I'd rather be writing Samba than "customizing, installing, troubleshooting, and maintaining" it. I mean, I know that I don't have some kind of god-given right to a job I like, but again... gee, thanks a lot for your "gifts".
The open source and free software business models are models which won't make many people rich, but will -- and do -- provide a good *living* for lots of people. The GPL may well kill the software tycoon, but it only helps the working programmer.
I think you're misled here. The number of jobs (and average salary) that an industry can sustain is almost exclusively based on the amount of revenue that the industry generates.
All of that money comes *from* somewhere, and the vast majority of the revenues of most proprietary software companies come right out of the profits of their customers (well, sort of. One hopes the customers are generating a positive ROI, but think how much greater that return would be with lower costs.)
No. Since the cost of proprietary software is approximately the same for all players in an industry, the cost gets passed on to the consumer. Almost everything in manufacturing is margin-based. If your product is more expensive, you make *MORE* money. You only get a benefit from cost savings if it gives you an edge over your competitors. If all the manufacturers of DVD players switch to free software, they *ALL* lose. (Unless they use price fixing to keep their margins up.)
The only one to benefit is the consumer, who gets lower DVD prices. So what free software does is to increase the average wealth of the consumer by decreasing the average wealth of the programmer.
Sure, all of use techies who were around through the dot bubble had dreams of early retirement, independent wealth, a home for every season of the year, etc., but, honestly, is there any real reason why we deserve that?
I think we deserve to be paid like white-collar professionals. Doctors and lawyers don't give away their knowledge for free (at least most of them). I think it's sad that programmers are now making a lot les
Then what you're saying is that competition is anti-business.
Which is true. Cartels are pro-business and the GPL is anti-business. But there needs to be some sort of balance. Monopolies aren't good, but neither is unregulated cutthroat competition.
I see the GPL as a different sort of monopoly. After all, it involves predatory pricing and an EULA which denies all sorts of rights to some users. (Of course this is cleverly spun into granting rights to other users.)
Unless you believe that capitalism can only work when everyone is required to charge money for every good or service.
I believe that capitalism could still work with a BSD license.
These firmware manufacturers aren't competing in the marketplace either, they're just free-riding. They seem to believe that someone else owes them a living, and want to make a buck selling stolen software in violation of the terms of its licensing agreements.
Umm, it's not stolen?
-a
So, what have you done to unionize software people, and solve the problem as you see it?
I'm trying to drum up support for my union idea, but so far it's not working.
I used to be a software engineer. I still write code. But I put bread on the table by being a welder, because when I was looking for code jobs, I was unemployed for 18 months.
And I think, how sad that you want to ruin it for everyone else.
The first rule of capitalism is that the universe doesn't owe you shit. If there's no market for the service you are providing, then you're going to starve unless you start offering something that people are willing to pay for.
I think there would be a market for customized software if it wasn't for the GPL. If the courts of some major countries declared the GPL unenforcable and equivalent to BSD, there would still be hope for my industry. (BTW, that's what I would really like, in preference to a programmer's union.)
-a
Yeah,
and I'm forced to fund the shooting of 5-year-old little girls in Iraq.
And I resent that too.
-a
Sorry but this example might seem good at first glance, but it is actually TOTALLY UNRELATED to the Opensource "problem".
I deliberately made it unrelated. My intention was to show that giving someone an extra choice is not necessarily good for them if you also throw in an additional wrinkle that is bad for them.
Now with OpenSource, the only thing that happens is that you ADD another option without removing the others. You can now
1. still write the software yourself
2. still buy it from another company at the cost of money
3. use opensource and respect the license (NEW)
Notice, you weren't deprived of any choices you previously had!
That's your opinion. In my view, the choices are now:
1. still write the software yourself *AND* lose money
2. still buy it from another company at the cost of money *AND* lose money
3. use opensource and respect the license *AND* lose money (NEW)
Before OSS, I had some options that didn't involve losing money.
If the OpenSource model were so bad, no other company would use it and you wouldn't loose anything,
No, because of a game theory effect called the "tragedy of the commons". It's like a generalized version of the prisoner's dilemma. Go look it up.
if it isn't so bad, that means it's good and therefore it is good that it exists
Now there's an example of black & white thinking!
-a
Sorry... imprecise wording. "reducing the cost of software" should be "reducing the price of software".
-a
But it makes no sense to say that the GPL will eliminate the opportunity for commercial software in spaces where no free alternatives exist, unless what you're saying is that the richness of the GPL codebase makes it vastly easier to develop software vs. a proprietary or even a BSDis model. If that is what you're saying, it's worth thinking about the implications of that idea for a bit.
A claim that it is easier to develop software under a GPL license than a BSD license is clearly untrue. There is no difference in the development model, only the license. The viral nature of the GPL license allows it to infect more and more code.
The popularity of the GPL license is due to the fact that people don't like to have their gifts hijacked.
And that's what makes me say that the GPL is anti-business. Why is someone making money off your code the worst thing that could happen? You weren't planning to make any money off it, so why deny someone else the chance to make a living?
-a
Well, I just checked the FSF's pages, and couldn't find any reference to how much, if any, tax money they get.
I'm also not aware of any tuition fees that go to the FSF, or to Free Software, in general.
Tuition pays for universities. Tax money subsidizes universities. University researchers contribute plenty of GPL code. Why? Because they aren't accountable to the bottom line. (Then of course, plenty of GPL code is written by university students, which doesn't seem relevant until you consider all the countries where tuition is free.)
As far as your work environment is concerned, I'm sorry that you don't appear to be happy about it, apparently because of the compensation, or lack thereof. I also get the sense that you would have a lot of your attitudes in common with Darl McBride, CEO of SCO, but I could be wrong. If the job is so unrewarding for you, why do you stay? My life got a LOT better when I decided that making gobs of money was just not a priority for me. Perhaps in your next job the fine print in the contract will be something more to your liking. Good Luck in finding happiness!
I think you've pegged me wrong. I don't hate my job. I'm just unhappy with what's going on in the industry right now. I write code and I also manage a fairly large group of developers (11 people). But if I was supervising 11 dockworkers I'd be making twice as much money (plus paid overtime).
Why? Because workers in those industries are not suicidal. They formed a union and fought for every last penny. And while I have often thought it is ridiculous how much they make, it's still better than the craziness that's going on in the software industry.
Yes, I do care about money (like the vast majority of people). I don't mind working overtime if there's an upside. If I make a lot of money, I can save up and even take a year off some time. But right now, everyone has to work overtime, and I have to save up just in case I get laid off next year. Fuckin great!
-a
I remember that in 1980 (when I got my first computer) that plenty of software was for sale. Microsoft was barely a blip on the radar screen at that point. Heck, even Pong didn't come for free.
-a
They get the choice between sharing the code, or writing afresh for increased monetary cost. How is increasing the options available to a business anti-business?
You don't think that giving someone extra choices can be bad for them?
Aliens invade the earth. You now have the choice of either fighting the aliens or hiding from the aliens. These are both choices that you didn't have before, but no matter which you choose you are still worse off (because aliens have invaded the earth).
-a
Legally, according to the GPL, you are allowed to undercut the FSF's price on CD's.
My statement was not "could I" as in "is it legal?", it was "could I" as in "would it work?"
And I think the answer to that second one is no.
-a
Could you explain your reasoning in detail please?
Capitalism is an economic system that is not perfect, but we use it because it works better than capitalism. It exploits a game theory model in which people who produce useful things are rewarded. However, some government regulation is required to prevent the formation of monopolies and also the ensure that excessive competition does not create an industry where everyone loses. Copyright law is an instance where government regulations ensure that the game theory basis of capitalism can be applied to industries with high development cost but low marginal production cost.
The GPL is a perverse attempt to disrupt this balance by using copyright law to subvert the exact purpose for which it was intended.
-a
As long as no one is FORCED to support GPL software, either through taxes or a draconian work environment (if you want to keep your non-FSF-related job you have to donate your work to the FSF), I really don't see the problem anyone would have.
I am forced to support GPL software through taxes and tuition fees. I am forced to work in a draconian work environment (lots of overtime with little chance of redeeming my stock options) because of the GPL. So yes, I am bitter about it.
-a
Right, so proprietary software includes a cost which must be passed on to the consumer. The only difference with GPL software is that the cost is the requirement to share the source code.
The difference is that the requirement to share the source code is anti-business, whereas the increased monetary cost is not.
-a
You seem to be opposed to Free Software simply because they don't demand dollars for the code.
I am opposed to free software because it is anti-business (and by that, I mean anti-software business). The GPL is a deliberate attempt to upset the natural balance between cutthroat competition and government regulation that allows capitalism to work in western society.
-a
Yup, on both counts. The FSF doesn't really sell software in the same sense that, say, Sierra, does. Mostly they "sell" it to people who don't have the time/bandwidth to download it.
I don't think you understand me. The FSF is clearly making a profit on the CDs they sell. But no I couldn't make a profit simply by selling the stuff cheaper because I bear no resemblance to a charity. Buying software from the FSF is like buying a $100 subscription to PBS and getting a free t-shirt.
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You've been trolling this thread in several places saying untrue things about the GPL... and you've avoided responding to direct replies by Bruce Perrins in favor of repeating your posts (or just responding to less-articulated posters than Bruce).
Huh? I didn't reply to a message by ".Bruce Perens", an obvious troll.
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That's a scary statement, considering P2P networks have legitimate legal uses. Ever hear the saying, "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater."?
I only said that P2P networks that don't implement appropriate anti-piracy measures should be shut down.
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Okay, I think it was someone else who called me a troll. Sorry about that.
Here's one, see if it passes the "laugh test": A company is in the business of producing computer-animated films. It can buy high-end hardware that runs expensive software which may not always do exactly what it needs, or it can grab GPL'd software, modify it as needed and run it on commodity hardware.
That's not an alternative business model. That company wasn't writing their own software in the first place.
Or, how about this one: A company is in the business of selling powerful computers, high-end proprietary software products and professional services to integrate the software and hardware and make it meet business needs.
There's probably room for one or two big companies to be successful with the GPL. Right now, IBM has tamed the beast and is riding it well with their most excellent FUD. I will be interested to see if IBM is still in control of the beast 3 years from now.
At the end of the day, this may very well slow the development of commercial software because it increases the risk that the investment will not show a return.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
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So anti-business in the same way that the licenses used by at least 99% of the software businesses in the world are?
No, that's not anti-business because the businesses will just pass the added cost on to the consumer, thus paying for the price of the development.
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As long as there are people willing to give their work away for free, there's no market for competition to that work. In markets where the free stuff doesn't exist there are opportunities to sell proprietary software.
At least that used to be true before the GPL. With the BSD license, that would still be true. But now the popularity of the GPL license makes it difficult to even do that.
Anyway, this post is brief because you called me a troll and I find it unproductive to carry on arguing with people who capriciously apply labels like that. My other post was already modded -1 troll (unfairly IMHO). If you want to "attack people, not ideas" then carry on, but I will decline to participate.
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But you must remember, companies using GPL software as a basis for their own products have actually gained the benfit of all the free code they are modifying!
Have they? Or are they only using the GPL because they are forced into it? No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use the GPL. But if you don't use the GPL, your competitors will, and you will be nickeled and dimed out of business. Of course if you do use the GPL, you will have sacrificed all your leverage and you will still be nickeled and dimed out of business. It's a Hobson's choice.
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Apparently, we have another instance of not knowing the difference between Free Software and proprietary software. There's nothing in the GNU GPL preventing anyone from charging as much as they want for software. I know the FSF charges money for its distributions.
Let's say that I put up my own website where I sold exactly the same software that the FSF distributes for 10% less. Could I put the FSF out of business? Or can the FSF only charge money for its distributions because geeks view them as a sort of charity.
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