Re:Business models for selling free software
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Revising the GPL
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> Under the GPL, you can't put any more copyright > based restrictions, but I don't think the GPL says > anything about trademarks.
No, but it has much to say concerning distribution. The point of the GPL is to keep the code and all its derivatives freely distributable. And that implicitly forbids you to put trademarks in it, just as it explicitly forbids you to put patented stuff in it.
> Except you aren't the author of the entire program.
But I am the author of the entire word processor program. The spellchecker is only combined with it. You can argue that if I use an API, I'm embedding a part of the spellchecker, but it is simply not true. Using an API is like making a reference to the work, which is always allowed as "fair use". If it wasn't then you couldn't run anything non-GPL at all under Linux because every program must link to the int80h API that the kernel provides for system services.
> what good is a high speed network if you are unable to speak your mind?
Where can you speak your mind? Certainly not in the US.
Re:Business models for selling free software
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> You can sell access to a live human being for technical support.
This is another line of business. Would you tell a pipe manufacturer that they must give away their pipes and make money only as plumbers?
> You can sell copies of a copyright-restricted user manual.
Again, this is completely unrelated. You can sell manuals on any commercial software too, as the numerous "Office for Dummies" books demonstrate. In this instance you are making money from your writing skill, selling an unrelated (and copyright restricted, too! Oh, the horror! How can you tolerate that?) product, not your programming skill.
> You can embed a trademark into most of the screens
No you can't. This would be a violation of the GPL because you are placing restrictions on the distribution of your derivative work.
> replacing "linking" with "mere aggregation" as the GPL FAQ explains.
The policy that linking creates a derivative work is an FSF opinion. It will not stand up in court because linking is easily demonstrated to be "fair use" of the original work. See a lawyer's argument at http://www.rosenlaw.com/html/GPL.PDF.
> There exist ways to fund software development
And this is indeed the problem. What you are suggesting is to lose money on the software (because development costs money) but make up the balance on the service side. While this is a legitimate business strategy, it is not to be thought as normal. Software has value, and nobody has a right to say otherwise except its author.
> BTW, are you on crack? WINE is not for creating letters.
I obviously overestimated your intelligence. With my mention of WINE I was implying "to run Microsoft Office in it".
> Use OpenOffice or similar programs.
OpenOffice is no good to me if I can't print. Furthermore, it is even bigger and slower than Microsoft Office, which is saying a lot.
> Printing to an SMB-Printer works fine for me and many many others.
I am so happy for you. Unfortunately that does not solve my problem.
> you could search for information about it or ask for help
Sure I could. But that would take a lot of time and hard work. I know that it is probably "my fault" for not reading some obscure part of the manual or not writing some magic string into a configuration file somewhere. If I really wanted to, I could probably fix it, but why bother when I can just boot Windows and get the work done? Until Linux applications can just be installed and work out of the box, I'll just keep doing that. It's faster, more reliable, and lets me concentrate on actually writing instead of digging through documentation.
Re:The GPL should be a little friendler.
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> you don't have job security in a company that sells their software either!
Not always, but usually more than in the other case. Besides, if you can sell software, you can sell it yourself too. You see, I value my work, and by writing code I can thus create value, which can be converted to money, which can make my living. If I were to give it away for free, it would be equal to declaring it worthless, and how will I pay for my food then?
Re:The GPL should be a little friendler.
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> If you're writing code and somebody's paying you, > what do you care how that company is making its money?
Job security. If you know the company's business model is unsustainable, and that you are a net loss to them, then you know that sooner or later you'll be laid off. This wouldn't happen if you were actually valuable.
Re:The GPL should be a little friendler.
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> Tell that to Red Hat, or Linus, or any of the other thousands
RedHat makes money from support, not its code. I don't know how many times I have to repeat this... Linus is famous and he can attract charity. I am not famous and am unlikely to become so. The "other thousands" probably just have a job where the software they write just happens to be GPLed. They are not making money from the GPL software; they are being charitably paid by the employer who can make money from support. It is completely different from actually making money from the code.
> You keep whining because software you would like > to use is not available under terms you like.
Not at all. I am complaining because the GPL says one thing and the FSF says another. The GPL does not tell me what else I can put on the CD with the GPL package (the original, mind you, not something I actually hacked) when I redistribute it. Debian CDs have thousands of packages and it's perfectly legal. Why is it then that I can not do the same and include one of my own packages? Sure it's a proprietary package on the same CD with a GPL one, but the GPL does not forbid it. It is the FSF that says you can only distribute GPL software if you are not making any money. Not just making any money from GPL software (and I have no problem with this), but not making any money at all. From anything.
> The fact that some resource is available at no > monetary cost in no way confers any sort of > specific or general ownership, nor does it degrade the owner's rights.
I was simply referring to the fact that whether I release the software under GPL or in the public domain, I can no longer make money from it, so from a business standpoint there is little difference between the two. To a businessman, if you can't sell it, you don't own it.
> even though what they're doing and what you're doing are different things
In what way? Am I not distributing the GPL package in the exact same way that they are?
> If you license your source code to the publisher > so that they can compile and link it with the GPL'ed code
But I didn't license my source code to the publisher. I gave him the binary only. It was his choice entirely to bundle the GPL software with it. What I am trying to ask is where did you get the idea that it matters what else you distribute along with the GPL package? The GPL talks about distributing modifications to the package only and of derived works, so it would apply to the distribution of my proprietary application, but not to the original package. Why should the publisher care if my package uses the GPL package? He should be able to distribute the latter no matter what else happens to be on the same CD, right?
> don't you realize that there are lots of ways to > do that that don't involve selling copies
No, I don't, and your examples are not acceptable.
> You can make money from support
I have no talent for doing tech support. It is an entirely different set of skills from programming. Furthermore, it requires a considerably larger capital investment and is so incredibly unpleasant that I don't know why anyone would want to do it voluntarily.
> patronage (e.g. Linus
I am not Linus and am not ever likely to be. To get patronage (charity, that is) I would have to be famous, which is unlikely.
> work in academia and write software for your research
Academics are not paid to write software, they are paid to do research. As my goal is to write software to make money, this is obviously not the way to do it. Also, being an academic is a job, and a particularly difficult to get job due to the small number of available positions. In the current economy I would have no chance here.
> do programming for companies that sell things other than software
Custom work has a very small market. Only a large company can afford something like that and there aren't that many of them. I would probably need a great deal of pull to even be considered for the job. Also, this is not really selling your code; it is more like just working for that company. While you may just want a job, I would also like to be self-employed (yes, I realize I didn't mention this, but it would be a consideration)
So what else have you got? How can I actually make money from being a programmer?
> I think I see your problem. You say "Manual 1.0 is > free and freely distributable", but that's NOT a > description of GPL software.
But why am I any less entitled to distribute GPL software than my users? Suppose Joe user wants to give Manual 1.0 to all his friends; he can do so legally because the GPL grants him this right. Why can I not do the same? Or even better: suppose I grant Joe permission to redistribute my Manual 2.0 on any terms he wants (including selling it); would he be able to bundle Manual 1.0 with it? If not, how is it different from the first case? Remember, the GPL does not impose any conditions on what other things you choose to distribute the code with.
Re:The GPL should be a little friendler.
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> It's not the GPL that causes duplication of > effort; instead it's non-GPL stuff that causes > duplication of effort!
You can't avoid having non-GPL stuff. It's the only way to make a living as a programmer.
> I've signed up to buy a copy of every release of > their system for about $25 a pop, it costs them > less than $10 to actually press and ship the CDs
This is not business, it's charity. Do you really want us all to give away everything for nothing and hope that some charitable individual will be nice enough to give us money anyway, just out of the goodness of his heart?
> I'm using the hated argument of "market forces will > make everything work out ok" to shoot you down
I would call it the "oh, you'll do something" argument, often used by people who don't understand what's going on and assume that there will always be someone smart enough to save the system. Unfortunately, some screwups are unfixable even by the best minds on earth.
> I'm saying that over a long time scale, permanent runaway scenarios
Historically, the long time scale has always meant stagnation. All brief periods of prosperity have inevitably crashed into dark ages when the things that brought them into existance in the first place run out. So the Greek civilization died off after the Romans conquered it. The Romans had their good days because they fed off the Greek culture and off conquest, but then there wasn't anybody left to loot and the empire died. Then we had a millenium of dark ages where pretty much nothing happened. Then Columbus discovered the New World and created another source of loot. The list just goes on and on, and I am sure our civilization will go the same way; perhaps within ten years.
> our own software will eventually outdo any commercial offerings.
It's possible, but I haven't seen it happen yet. My experience is entirely opposite from yours. I've never been able to create a fully working Linux system; something is always broken because I have little patience in reading enormous volumes of documentation required to configure pretty much anything. I still can't print from Linux to an SMB printer, and have to reboot to Windows to write letters (because WINE doesn't work either). I know you'll say it all works for you, and that's fine, as long as you realize that there are quite a few people for whom it doesn't.
> Let's say these are pages in a tech manual. You > write some additional pages, and publish a manual > 2.0 which contain the same original unmodified pages.
That's not the same thing. An analogy to this would be: I modified the spellchecker and tried to sell Spellchecker 2.0. This would indeed be a violation, and I agree that Spellchecker 2.0 should be released under the GPL as the original was.
My example is entirely different. Suppose I write Manual 2.0, which is wholly a work of my own, but makes some references to the text of Manual 1.0. Because Manual 1.0 is free and freely distributable, tell me why I have no right to bundle Manual 1.0 with Manual 2.0? Would it make you happier if I also sold Manual 2.0 alone for the same price? What would be the difference?
> Okay, I'm an end user. I buy a copy of your word > processor. You give me your binary. Do you also > give me a copy of the spellchecker? If so, then > you're distributing their code and have to follow > their rules, since they hold the copyright on their code.
Ah, but why am I limited in distribution of the spellchecker when nobody else is? Let's say I give my word processor to a publisher and he bundles the spellchecker with it, without increasing the price. Who is in violation? Clearly, the publisher did not modify the spellchecker code. He has the right to distribute the spellchecker because the GPL gives him that right, just as a Debian packager can put all that GPL software on the same CD. What would be the difference between this publisher and me, if I were to assume the role of publisher and bundle my word processor with the spellchecker?
> GPL code is copyrighted and belongs solely to its authors, not to the public.
A purely technical distinction. If the public can use it free of charge, it clearly belongs to the public. Sure there are some things they can not do with it, but for most people that is irrelevant.
> If I closed sourced the spell-checker you wanted > to use, you couldn't use it without negotiating > with me---and I'd probably make you pay for it
Not true. If I write a program that uses Microsoft Word (as, say, the output device onto which to print a report), I don't have to get Microsoft's permission. Neither would Microsoft have any right to dictate licensing of my product.
> make you pay for it. By your analogy, that would > also be tantamount to robbery, because your > underlying assumption is that if you want to use > my spell-checker for free (monetary) you should be able to.
No, a more proper analogy is this: you make a spellchecker and are selling it. I write a word processor that uses your spellchecker and sell it. If you were to require me to pay you for this, the user may end up paying for multiple copies of your spellchecker if someone else writes another application using it. That would be, well, not quite robbery, but not very nice.
When I used the word "robbery", I was referring to the fact that my code was "stolen" by the public domain. I wasn't making the assumption that I could use your spellchecker for free, but only the assumption that I could let a user who is already using it (for free, because you gave it away under the GPL) to use it with my word processor. Because you have no right to my code, only yours, but are nevertheless forcing me to give you my code. My code, that you had nothing to do with whatever. And when you demand something that is not yours, I call it robbery.
> I have not declared that you can use my code. Instead, > I've declared the terms on which you may use my code
And it is the terms that I consider immoral, because they require infinite payment. Infinite because every application that touches yours in any way would have to pay by becoming free (as in speech, which inevitably makes it free as in worthless)
> RedHat just announced a profit for third quarter 2004.
RedHat is a service company. They don't make a cent from their code. They make money from supporting it, and that's an entirely different profession.
> Quit whining that you can't play the game and make up your own rules.
I don't know what made you think I was whining. I haven't seen any GPL code that was fit to use in my own and I don't expect this to change. No, the state of my mind is more aptly described as "despair" and "mourning", for I believe that it is at least in part because of the GPL that Linux has no commercial software:
> However, there aren't 24 variants of the libraries I use.
By your own admission you have no commercial software on your machine, so this is quite obvious. There really isn't any commercial software for Linux (at least, I haven't seen any), and the GPL, or rather the philosophy that created it, is at least partly to blame. The philosophy that you yourself promote by believing in "open source world and the closed source world". The philosophy that all software should be free, in both meanings of the world, and that the only way to make money from software should be to babysit people who don't have enough brains to use it.
The problem with this is obviously that if nannies make money and programmers make none, eventually there will be no more programmers. Sure, there will always be a few hobbyists, but you have to realize that they can exist only as long as there is free time. By eliminating programmer jobs you'll force them into nanny jobs instead, which have much longer hours and much lower pay. Eventually nobody will have the time to write free software; they'll be too busy earning enough to eat and pay rent. It is already happening, mind you, except that we still have the reservoirs of cheap labour in India and China.
> No it doesn't it could be released under a more > liberal license that is GPL compatible.
There are no GPL compatible licenses, because to be compatible you have to preserve the viral clause. For this reason, for example, you can't just relicense a GPL product under LGPL.
> You can always remove the GPL code, this situation has happened before.
My point is that nobody would want to use it in the first place.
> Plenty of Red Hat programmers make money off of GPL code
Bullshit. RedHat doesn't make a cent from its code. It makes money from technical support for its code, which a service, not a product.
> Where are these 24 mozilla varients?
I was only using it as an example. I don't see any reason why an application would need to embed a web browser, which I believe would explain the lack of any such applications.
> And 12 libpng versions??? I know of the offical version
libpng is not under GPL. However, I am sure there is plenty of PNG code out there, clogging people's hard drives.
> what do you want from them.
If by "from them" you mean "free software authors", then I want them to use the LGPL, which keeps their code theirs and my code mine.
> You may own the copyrights on the code you write, > but even after your modifications, the original > copyright holders own the copyrights on their > code, and can require that you not be allowed to > distribute it at all unless you comply with the > terms that they set out.
But I am not talking about distributing their code. I am talking about distributing my code, which doesn't have any of their code in it. In my example of the word processor and the GPL spellchecker, the word processor does not contain any code from the spellchecker; it simply links to it and calls its API. How can their copyright of their code place restrictions on the licensing of my code, which does not contain any of their code, is not based on any of their code, and doesn't even have the same function as their code?
> If it weren't for the GPL you wouldn't have permission to distribute it _AT ALL_...
Not true. If some company were selling a spellchecker with a public API and I wrote a word processor that could use it, I would not require permission from the spellchecker owners to distribute my application. Neither would the use of the spellchecker place any restrictions on the license of my product.
> The GPL simply outlines the terms one must agree to abide by before > you have permission to copy for any purpose without violating copyright
But what does "copy" mean in this case? I can understand how this would apply if I made some improvements to the spellchecker and decided to sell the result without distributing the code. I would then clearly be in violation because I would be selling the original authors' work. But if I am selling the word processor which links to the spellchecker, I am selling my own work (remember, the spellchecker is freely distributable, has the source code in the public domain, and its price is obviously not included in that of the word processor), and I don't see how I can be legally required to do anything at all for the spellchecker authors. Which is why I call this "theft", perhaps figuratively, because the "public domain" "steals" my code. My code, which contains no other code but mine.
No they are not, if they are the intent and arguments given by the creators of the license. Remember, the GPL states that the code may be licensed under any version of the GPL after the one supplied with the code. Because the FSF has the power to rewrite the GPL, the statements concerning its intent are quite relevant.
So, as long as there are enough idiots...
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> If you can find someone gullible enough to pay you > for something they could get for free elsewhere, > as long as you don't limit their freedoms that > they had under the (L)GPL, you're in the clear.
Oh, the outrage! Are you suggesting I make it my business model to dupe innocent people (pardon: victums) into paying for something that's free anyway? That's immoral! No decent company will ever stoop this low! Uh... Well...
But still, it is impractical. There is no way I will be find enough people stupid enough to buy free stuff... Uh...
Surely, there can't be enough stupid people in the world to support a multimillion dollar business! Uh...
Uh... I... I wonder...
Re:The GPL should be a little friendler.
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> Do you know how large the US DoD budget is? Do you > know what proportion of that is spent on software? > Do you realise how much of the cost of a modern > aircraft is due to the cost of software development?
Hah! You traitor!:) You are not suggesting we just give away our technological lead over other countries? The insanity...
> There are many other industries which develop an enormous > quantity of complex, expensive software for custom applications.
I would underline the "expensive" part. The more expensive the project, the less likely it is to be given away. Here the argument against GPL is not about worthlessness or self-destruction, but rather about cost. Nobody in their right mind would pay millions for something and then just give it away for free.
> If the developer makes the code available to the > customer under the terms of the GPL
When you develop code on a contract, the company already owns all your work. The choice to release it under GPL would be theirs anyway, and, for the reasons outlined above, they are not likely to make it.
> Nobody is forcing you to do anything with your > code. You have the copyright on your code. The GPL > does not change that.
Yes it does. It forces me to license my code under GPL. Yes, I agree that I am not forced to make use of any GPL code, but that does not change the immorality of the action. I don't have to go wandering in a bad neighborhood in the middle of the night, and by not doing it I can avoid getting robbed. But is the robbery any more virtuous because I voluntarily placed myself in an environment where I was certain to be robbed?
> You don't have to use that spell-checker. but if you do, you have to follow the GPL rules.
Exactly my point. And what it means is that no one wishing to make money from his code will ever touch GPL code. They'll just write their own. It's not that hard. Hello 12 different libpng versions! Hello 24 variants of mozilla! Hello "out of memory" and "insufficient disk space"! Hello "incompatible library version detected"! And how did you say this benefit free software?
Re:The GPL should be a little friendler.
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> That is totally untrue. You are free to charge > whatever you like for distribution of the binaries of GPL-licensed code.
Sure, but so is anyone else. And before you know it, someone will post it on the net for free. Who will bother paying you anything, when they can download it for nothing? Does anybody (except corporation wanting support) actually buy RedHat's distribution? Hell no. Why do it when you can get it for free or for some miniscule cost at CheapBytes? The GPL explicitly prohibits you from placing any restrictions on redistribution, and by doing this effectively drops the price to zero by flooding the market with suppliers. Because of this there really is no way to make money from GPL software. You can only make money from support and customization.
> Most software is developed in-house or as bespoke software for individual customers.
By volume perhaps, but hardly by usefulness. Most of this in-house software you refer to is nothing but customized database frontends that are of no use to anybody but the company owning it and its competitors.
> Licensing such code under the GPL doesn't diminish > the potential for revenue for the code developer.
But it can hurt the company. When this in-house releasing the code into the public domain, the company's competitors are the ones most likely to benefit from it, as they are the ones most likely to work with similar data. The developers had to be paid with company funds, so if the fruits of their labour benefit some competitor, the money could be said to have went for self-destruction.
> There is a lot of crap free code. There is a lot of crap non-free code.
I wasn't implying that only free code is crap. Only that free software doesn't have as much good code as most people seem to imply.
> BSD licenses or the public domain are better choices > for people who just want their code to be available.
Yes, whereas I emphasized the "stay free and accessible" part. I wouldn't mind having people link to my software, because it's their code, not mine, but I don't want them to write commercial software on top of mine where it is not clear just how much is mine and how much is theirs. And that is what the LGPL is for.
> However, the large number of projects licensed under > the GPL would tend to suggest that you are wrong about what most people want.
Hardly. I would say it suggest that most people don't bother actually reading the license. They just hear some argument on the lines of "hey dude, you gotta use GPL for your project. It's just the right thing to do." and accept it without questioning. Most people are sheep.
Re:I wish they would define "derivative work" bett
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> The GPL doesn't say anything about "linking".
No, but it says much about derivative works. And FSF argues that linking makes your program a derivative work. Read this.
> People confuse the folklore with the actual licence.
No, they confuse the actual license with the intention of the license's authors. I think that is an important distinction.
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> Under the GPL, you can't put any more copyright
> based restrictions, but I don't think the GPL says
> anything about trademarks.
No, but it has much to say concerning distribution. The point of the GPL is to keep the code and all its derivatives freely distributable. And that implicitly forbids you to put trademarks in it, just as it explicitly forbids you to put patented stuff in it.
> Except you aren't the author of the entire program.
But I am the author of the entire word processor program. The spellchecker is only combined with it. You can argue that if I use an API, I'm embedding a part of the spellchecker, but it is simply not true. Using an API is like making a reference to the work, which is always allowed as "fair use". If it wasn't then you couldn't run anything non-GPL at all under Linux because every program must link to the int80h API that the kernel provides for system services.
> what good is a high speed network if you are unable to speak your mind?
Where can you speak your mind? Certainly not in the US.
> You can sell access to a live human being for technical support.
This is another line of business. Would you tell a pipe manufacturer that they must give away their pipes and make money only as plumbers?
> You can sell copies of a copyright-restricted user manual.
Again, this is completely unrelated. You can sell manuals on any commercial software too, as the numerous "Office for Dummies" books demonstrate. In this instance you are making money from your writing skill, selling an unrelated (and copyright restricted, too! Oh, the horror! How can you tolerate that?) product, not your programming skill.
> You can embed a trademark into most of the screens
No you can't. This would be a violation of the GPL because you are placing restrictions on the distribution of your derivative work.
> replacing "linking" with "mere aggregation" as the GPL FAQ explains.
The policy that linking creates a derivative work is an FSF opinion. It will not stand up in court because linking is easily demonstrated to be "fair use" of the original work. See a lawyer's argument at http://www.rosenlaw.com/html/GPL.PDF.
> There exist ways to fund software development
And this is indeed the problem. What you are suggesting is to lose money on the software (because development costs money) but make up the balance on the service side. While this is a legitimate business strategy, it is not to be thought as normal. Software has value, and nobody has a right to say otherwise except its author.
> BTW, are you on crack? WINE is not for creating letters.
I obviously overestimated your intelligence. With my mention of WINE I was implying "to run Microsoft Office in it".
> Use OpenOffice or similar programs.
OpenOffice is no good to me if I can't print. Furthermore, it is even bigger and slower than Microsoft Office, which is saying a lot.
> Printing to an SMB-Printer works fine for me and many many others.
I am so happy for you. Unfortunately that does not solve my problem.
> you could search for information about it or ask for help
Sure I could. But that would take a lot of time and hard work. I know that it is probably "my fault" for not reading some obscure part of the manual or not writing some magic string into a configuration file somewhere. If I really wanted to, I could probably fix it, but why bother when I can just boot Windows and get the work done? Until Linux applications can just be installed and work out of the box, I'll just keep doing that. It's faster, more reliable, and lets me concentrate on actually writing instead of digging through documentation.
> you don't have job security in a company that sells their software either!
Not always, but usually more than in the other case. Besides, if you can sell software, you can sell it yourself too. You see, I value my work, and by writing code I can thus create value, which can be converted to money, which can make my living. If I were to give it away for free, it would be equal to declaring it worthless, and how will I pay for my food then?
> If you're writing code and somebody's paying you,
> what do you care how that company is making its money?
Job security. If you know the company's business model is unsustainable, and that you are a net loss to them, then you know that sooner or later you'll be laid off. This wouldn't happen if you were actually valuable.
> Tell that to Red Hat, or Linus, or any of the other thousands
RedHat makes money from support, not its code. I don't know how many times I have to repeat this... Linus is famous and he can attract charity. I am not famous and am unlikely to become so. The "other thousands" probably just have a job where the software they write just happens to be GPLed. They are not making money from the GPL software; they are being charitably paid by the employer who can make money from support. It is completely different from actually making money from the code.
> You keep whining because software you would like
> to use is not available under terms you like.
Not at all. I am complaining because the GPL says one thing and the FSF says another. The GPL does not tell me what else I can put on the CD with the GPL package (the original, mind you, not something I actually hacked) when I redistribute it. Debian CDs have thousands of packages and it's perfectly legal. Why is it then that I can not do the same and include one of my own packages? Sure it's a proprietary package on the same CD with a GPL one, but the GPL does not forbid it. It is the FSF that says you can only distribute GPL software if you are not making any money. Not just making any money from GPL software (and I have no problem with this), but not making any money at all. From anything.
> The fact that some resource is available at no
> monetary cost in no way confers any sort of
> specific or general ownership, nor does it degrade the owner's rights.
I was simply referring to the fact that whether I release the software under GPL or in the public domain, I can no longer make money from it, so from a business standpoint there is little difference between the two. To a businessman, if you can't sell it, you don't own it.
> even though what they're doing and what you're doing are different things
In what way? Am I not distributing the GPL package in the exact same way that they are?
> If you license your source code to the publisher
> so that they can compile and link it with the GPL'ed code
But I didn't license my source code to the publisher. I gave him the binary only. It was his choice entirely to bundle the GPL software with it. What I am trying to ask is where did you get the idea that it matters what else you distribute along with the GPL package? The GPL talks about distributing modifications to the package only and of derived works, so it would apply to the distribution of my proprietary application, but not to the original package. Why should the publisher care if my package uses the GPL package? He should be able to distribute the latter no matter what else happens to be on the same CD, right?
> don't you realize that there are lots of ways to
> do that that don't involve selling copies
No, I don't, and your examples are not acceptable.
> You can make money from support
I have no talent for doing tech support. It is an entirely different set of skills from programming. Furthermore, it requires a considerably larger capital investment and is so incredibly unpleasant that I don't know why anyone would want to do it voluntarily.
> patronage (e.g. Linus
I am not Linus and am not ever likely to be. To get patronage (charity, that is) I would have to be famous, which is unlikely.
> work in academia and write software for your research
Academics are not paid to write software, they are paid to do research. As my goal is to write software to make money, this is obviously not the way to do it. Also, being an academic is a job, and a particularly difficult to get job due to the small number of available positions. In the current economy I would have no chance here.
> do programming for companies that sell things other than software
Custom work has a very small market. Only a large company can afford something like that and there aren't that many of them. I would probably need a great deal of pull to even be considered for the job. Also, this is not really selling your code; it is more like just working for that company. While you may just want a job, I would also like to be self-employed (yes, I realize I didn't mention this, but it would be a consideration)
So what else have you got? How can I actually make money from being a programmer?
> I think I see your problem. You say "Manual 1.0 is
> free and freely distributable", but that's NOT a
> description of GPL software.
But why am I any less entitled to distribute GPL software than my users? Suppose Joe user wants to give Manual 1.0 to all his friends; he can do so legally because the GPL grants him this right. Why can I not do the same? Or even better: suppose I grant Joe permission to redistribute my Manual 2.0 on any terms he wants (including selling it); would he be able to bundle Manual 1.0 with it? If not, how is it different from the first case? Remember, the GPL does not impose any conditions on what other things you choose to distribute the code with.
> It's not the GPL that causes duplication of
> effort; instead it's non-GPL stuff that causes
> duplication of effort!
You can't avoid having non-GPL stuff. It's the only way to make a living as a programmer.
> I've signed up to buy a copy of every release of
> their system for about $25 a pop, it costs them
> less than $10 to actually press and ship the CDs
This is not business, it's charity. Do you really want us all to give away everything for nothing and hope that some charitable individual will be nice enough to give us money anyway, just out of the goodness of his heart?
> I'm using the hated argument of "market forces will
> make everything work out ok" to shoot you down
I would call it the "oh, you'll do something" argument, often used by people who don't understand what's going on and assume that there will always be someone smart enough to save the system. Unfortunately, some screwups are unfixable even by the best minds on earth.
> I'm saying that over a long time scale, permanent runaway scenarios
Historically, the long time scale has always meant stagnation. All brief periods of prosperity have inevitably crashed into dark ages when the things that brought them into existance in the first place run out. So the Greek civilization died off after the Romans conquered it. The Romans had their good days because they fed off the Greek culture and off conquest, but then there wasn't anybody left to loot and the empire died. Then we had a millenium of dark ages where pretty much nothing happened. Then Columbus discovered the New World and created another source of loot. The list just goes on and on, and I am sure our civilization will go the same way; perhaps within ten years.
> our own software will eventually outdo any commercial offerings.
It's possible, but I haven't seen it happen yet. My experience is entirely opposite from yours. I've never been able to create a fully working Linux system; something is always broken because I have little patience in reading enormous volumes of documentation required to configure pretty much anything. I still can't print from Linux to an SMB printer, and have to reboot to Windows to write letters (because WINE doesn't work either). I know you'll say it all works for you, and that's fine, as long as you realize that there are quite a few people for whom it doesn't.
> Let's say these are pages in a tech manual. You
> write some additional pages, and publish a manual
> 2.0 which contain the same original unmodified pages.
That's not the same thing. An analogy to this would be: I modified the spellchecker and tried to sell Spellchecker 2.0. This would indeed be a violation, and I agree that Spellchecker 2.0 should be released under the GPL as the original was.
My example is entirely different. Suppose I write Manual 2.0, which is wholly a work of my own, but makes some references to the text of Manual 1.0. Because Manual 1.0 is free and freely distributable, tell me why I have no right to bundle Manual 1.0 with Manual 2.0? Would it make you happier if I also sold Manual 2.0 alone for the same price? What would be the difference?
> Okay, I'm an end user. I buy a copy of your word
> processor. You give me your binary. Do you also
> give me a copy of the spellchecker? If so, then
> you're distributing their code and have to follow
> their rules, since they hold the copyright on their code.
Ah, but why am I limited in distribution of the spellchecker when nobody else is? Let's say I give my word processor to a publisher and he bundles the spellchecker with it, without increasing the price. Who is in violation? Clearly, the publisher did not modify the spellchecker code. He has the right to distribute the spellchecker because the GPL gives him that right, just as a Debian packager can put all that GPL software on the same CD. What would be the difference between this publisher and me, if I were to assume the role of publisher and bundle my word processor with the spellchecker?
> GPL code is copyrighted and belongs solely to its authors, not to the public.
A purely technical distinction. If the public can use it free of charge, it clearly belongs to the public. Sure there are some things they can not do with it, but for most people that is irrelevant.
> If I closed sourced the spell-checker you wanted
> to use, you couldn't use it without negotiating
> with me---and I'd probably make you pay for it
Not true. If I write a program that uses Microsoft Word (as, say, the output device onto which to print a report), I don't have to get Microsoft's permission. Neither would Microsoft have any right to dictate licensing of my product.
> make you pay for it. By your analogy, that would
> also be tantamount to robbery, because your
> underlying assumption is that if you want to use
> my spell-checker for free (monetary) you should be able to.
No, a more proper analogy is this: you make a spellchecker and are selling it. I write a word processor that uses your spellchecker and sell it. If you were to require me to pay you for this, the user may end up paying for multiple copies of your spellchecker if someone else writes another application using it. That would be, well, not quite robbery, but not very nice.
When I used the word "robbery", I was referring to the fact that my code was "stolen" by the public domain. I wasn't making the assumption that I could use your spellchecker for free, but only the assumption that I could let a user who is already using it (for free, because you gave it away under the GPL) to use it with my word processor. Because you have no right to my code, only yours, but are nevertheless forcing me to give you my code. My code, that you had nothing to do with whatever. And when you demand something that is not yours, I call it robbery.
> I have not declared that you can use my code. Instead,
> I've declared the terms on which you may use my code
And it is the terms that I consider immoral, because they require infinite payment. Infinite because every application that touches yours in any way would have to pay by becoming free (as in speech, which inevitably makes it free as in worthless)
> RedHat just announced a profit for third quarter 2004.
RedHat is a service company. They don't make a cent from their code. They make money from supporting it, and that's an entirely different profession.
> Quit whining that you can't play the game and make up your own rules.
I don't know what made you think I was whining. I haven't seen any GPL code that was fit to use in my own and I don't expect this to change. No, the state of my mind is more aptly described as "despair" and "mourning", for I believe that it is at least in part because of the GPL that Linux has no commercial software:
> However, there aren't 24 variants of the libraries I use.
By your own admission you have no commercial software on your machine, so this is quite obvious. There really isn't any commercial software for Linux (at least, I haven't seen any), and the GPL, or rather the philosophy that created it, is at least partly to blame. The philosophy that you yourself promote by believing in "open source world and the closed source world". The philosophy that all software should be free, in both meanings of the world, and that the only way to make money from software should be to babysit people who don't have enough brains to use it.
The problem with this is obviously that if nannies make money and programmers make none, eventually there will be no more programmers. Sure, there will always be a few hobbyists, but you have to realize that they can exist only as long as there is free time. By eliminating programmer jobs you'll force them into nanny jobs instead, which have much longer hours and much lower pay. Eventually nobody will have the time to write free software; they'll be too busy earning enough to eat and pay rent. It is already happening, mind you, except that we still have the reservoirs of cheap labour in India and China.
> No it doesn't it could be released under a more
> liberal license that is GPL compatible.
There are no GPL compatible licenses, because to be compatible you have to preserve the viral clause. For this reason, for example, you can't just relicense a GPL product under LGPL.
> You can always remove the GPL code, this situation has happened before.
My point is that nobody would want to use it in the first place.
> Plenty of Red Hat programmers make money off of GPL code
Bullshit. RedHat doesn't make a cent from its code. It makes money from technical support for its code, which a service, not a product.
> Where are these 24 mozilla varients?
I was only using it as an example. I don't see any reason why an application would need to embed a web browser, which I believe would explain the lack of any such applications.
> And 12 libpng versions??? I know of the offical version
libpng is not under GPL. However, I am sure there is plenty of PNG code out there, clogging people's hard drives.
> what do you want from them.
If by "from them" you mean "free software authors", then I want them to use the LGPL, which keeps their code theirs and my code mine.
> You may own the copyrights on the code you write,
> but even after your modifications, the original
> copyright holders own the copyrights on their
> code, and can require that you not be allowed to
> distribute it at all unless you comply with the
> terms that they set out.
But I am not talking about distributing their code. I am talking about distributing my code, which doesn't have any of their code in it. In my example of the word processor and the GPL spellchecker, the word processor does not contain any code from the spellchecker; it simply links to it and calls its API. How can their copyright of their code place restrictions on the licensing of my code, which does not contain any of their code, is not based on any of their code, and doesn't even have the same function as their code?
> If it weren't for the GPL you wouldn't have permission to distribute it _AT ALL_...
Not true. If some company were selling a spellchecker with a public API and I wrote a word processor that could use it, I would not require permission from the spellchecker owners to distribute my application. Neither would the use of the spellchecker place any restrictions on the license of my product.
> The GPL simply outlines the terms one must agree to abide by before
> you have permission to copy for any purpose without violating copyright
But what does "copy" mean in this case? I can understand how this would apply if I made some improvements to the spellchecker and decided to sell the result without distributing the code. I would then clearly be in violation because I would be selling the original authors' work. But if I am selling the word processor which links to the spellchecker, I am selling my own work (remember, the spellchecker is freely distributable, has the source code in the public domain, and its price is obviously not included in that of the word processor), and I don't see how I can be legally required to do anything at all for the spellchecker authors. Which is why I call this "theft", perhaps figuratively, because the "public domain" "steals" my code. My code, which contains no other code but mine.
> Intent and random arguments are irrelevant
No they are not, if they are the intent and arguments given by the creators of the license. Remember, the GPL states that the code may be licensed under any version of the GPL after the one supplied with the code. Because the FSF has the power to rewrite the GPL, the statements concerning its intent are quite relevant.
> If you can find someone gullible enough to pay you
> for something they could get for free elsewhere,
> as long as you don't limit their freedoms that
> they had under the (L)GPL, you're in the clear.
Oh, the outrage! Are you suggesting I make it my business model to dupe innocent people (pardon: victums) into paying for something that's free anyway? That's immoral! No decent company will ever stoop this low! Uh... Well...
But still, it is impractical. There is no way I will be find enough people stupid enough to buy free stuff... Uh...
Surely, there can't be enough stupid people in the world to support a multimillion dollar business! Uh...
Uh... I... I wonder...
> Do you know how large the US DoD budget is? Do you
:) You are not suggesting we just give away our technological lead over other countries? The insanity...
> know what proportion of that is spent on software?
> Do you realise how much of the cost of a modern
> aircraft is due to the cost of software development?
Hah! You traitor!
> There are many other industries which develop an enormous
> quantity of complex, expensive software for custom applications.
I would underline the "expensive" part. The more expensive the project, the less likely it is to be given away. Here the argument against GPL is not about worthlessness or self-destruction, but rather about cost. Nobody in their right mind would pay millions for something and then just give it away for free.
> If the developer makes the code available to the
> customer under the terms of the GPL
When you develop code on a contract, the company already owns all your work. The choice to release it under GPL would be theirs anyway, and, for the reasons outlined above, they are not likely to make it.
> Nobody is forcing you to do anything with your
> code. You have the copyright on your code. The GPL
> does not change that.
Yes it does. It forces me to license my code under GPL. Yes, I agree that I am not forced to make use of any GPL code, but that does not change the immorality of the action. I don't have to go wandering in a bad neighborhood in the middle of the night, and by not doing it I can avoid getting robbed. But is the robbery any more virtuous because I voluntarily placed myself in an environment where I was certain to be robbed?
> You don't have to use that spell-checker. but if you do, you have to follow the GPL rules.
Exactly my point. And what it means is that no one wishing to make money from his code will ever touch GPL code. They'll just write their own. It's not that hard. Hello 12 different libpng versions! Hello 24 variants of mozilla! Hello "out of memory" and "insufficient disk space"! Hello "incompatible library version detected"! And how did you say this benefit free software?
> That is totally untrue. You are free to charge
> whatever you like for distribution of the binaries of GPL-licensed code.
Sure, but so is anyone else. And before you know it, someone will post it on the net for free. Who will bother paying you anything, when they can download it for nothing? Does anybody (except corporation wanting support) actually buy RedHat's distribution? Hell no. Why do it when you can get it for free or for some miniscule cost at CheapBytes? The GPL explicitly prohibits you from placing any restrictions on redistribution, and by doing this effectively drops the price to zero by flooding the market with suppliers. Because of this there really is no way to make money from GPL software. You can only make money from support and customization.
> Most software is developed in-house or as bespoke software for individual customers.
By volume perhaps, but hardly by usefulness. Most of this in-house software you refer to is nothing but customized database frontends that are of no use to anybody but the company owning it and its competitors.
> Licensing such code under the GPL doesn't diminish
> the potential for revenue for the code developer.
But it can hurt the company. When this in-house releasing the code into the public domain, the company's competitors are the ones most likely to benefit from it, as they are the ones most likely to work with similar data. The developers had to be paid with company funds, so if the fruits of their labour benefit some competitor, the money could be said to have went for self-destruction.
> There is a lot of crap free code. There is a lot of crap non-free code.
I wasn't implying that only free code is crap. Only that free software doesn't have as much good code as most people seem to imply.
> BSD licenses or the public domain are better choices
> for people who just want their code to be available.
Yes, whereas I emphasized the "stay free and accessible" part. I wouldn't mind having people link to my software, because it's their code, not mine, but I don't want them to write commercial software on top of mine where it is not clear just how much is mine and how much is theirs. And that is what the LGPL is for.
> However, the large number of projects licensed under
> the GPL would tend to suggest that you are wrong about what most people want.
Hardly. I would say it suggest that most people don't bother actually reading the license. They just hear some argument on the lines of "hey dude, you gotta use GPL for your project. It's just the right thing to do." and accept it without questioning. Most people are sheep.
> The GPL doesn't say anything about "linking".
No, but it says much about derivative works. And FSF argues that linking makes your program a derivative work. Read this.
> People confuse the folklore with the actual licence.
No, they confuse the actual license with the intention of the license's authors. I think that is an important distinction.