Linux license overhaul--don't hold your breath

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Have you listened to yourself today?

[quote]Let's assume that if the "lot of people" hadn't been so generous with their time and talents that someone else would have been paid to write the software.[/quote]

Most of the "generous" coders made their contributions because no one else would. They gave to the world what no one was willing to pay someone else to do. Having made their creations and their creations becoming successfull, others such as yourself are now claiming that by releasing the software on the GPL, new coders cannot profit and so you are robbing them.

Now, let's say that the contribution was never made in the first place then the product would never had been a success then still no one would want to sink money into an unproven product by paying someone to code it. The product never enters into society and society suffers.

Lets say that the contribution was made but not under the GLP, it becomes popular then someone else pays a new developer to make it better and they profit from the original contributor. Now He is robbed. The GPL is designed to stimulate technological growth and innovations while protecting the contributors from having others profit from their work. Funny, isn't that what the patent office promises? It is supposed to stimulate innovation and protect the profits --for a limited time-- of the contributor.

After a patent expires then anyone can use the innovation but they cannot re-patent it. With the GPL, the same is true. The only diference is that with the GPL, all commercial use either has to be offered under the GPL or the owner of the original code be compensated.

To illustrate, you can take any GPL'd software, make you own alterations to it and then sell your new software but you must also make your source code available under the GPL since you are modifying someone else's Intelectual Property. You can also use GPL'd or LGPL'd libraries unmodified in your own software that is non-GPL'd. You have to make available the source code of the libraries you used --but they are GPL'd or LGPL'd anyway-- to your end-user and you can only use them in this non-GPL'd way with a liscense from the copyright holder of the GPL/LGPL'd code. Therefore, you will probably be paying them a fee.

The result, anyone can make money by selling GPL'd software but not at the expense of the copyright holder and the copyright holder can get paid for his contribution to any comercial work not GPL'd.

An example would be OpenOffice.org and StarOffice. Star Office is not GPL'd and contains GPL'd code that is used with permission of the copyright holder who is compensated for its use. All GPL/LGPL'd source code in Star Office is available for free. The end-user can use this code --OpenOffice.org-- or pay for the proprietary code of StarOffice along with the rest. In the latter, the copyright holder is paid their dues and Sun is paid their's.

What's your problem? Explain what you mean by this:

[quote]Someone's ability to earn a living has been reduced because of the generous instincts of someone else. The beneficiary will not be the world in general, just some very large corporations with reduced personnel costs.[/quote]

Sun has not benefitted from me using OOo and no programer for Sun has a reduction in their ability to earn a living programing for Sun. BUt I have benifited a lot from the generous contributions of the OpenOffice.org project coders and contributors. I thank them greatly.

Posted by: The King's Servant   Posted on: 02/14/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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