Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 07:06:27 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@FreeBSD.ORG> To: jak@cetlink.net (John Kelly) Cc: gibbs@narnia.plutotech.com, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: commercial software (definitive) Message-ID: <199805161206.HAA03326@dyson.iquest.net> In-Reply-To: <355d5c06.1764517@mail.cetlink.net> from John Kelly at "May 16, 98 09:41:10 am"
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John Kelly said: > > > >The truth of the matter is, the hiding rarely happens. > > If so, then the GPL works just as well, "encumbrances" and all. > Actually, you miss the point that the hiding that happens, is usually stuff that would be encumbered by GPL, interesting only to competitors, and not to the net community at large. This is a terrible disadvantage of using a GPL encumbered codebase. The forcing function of GPL is superfluous when you consider that there are already other factors that cause people and companies to feed code back to the free codebase. On FreeBSD, we have more offers of code than we can deal with, and most of those are from commercially or research supported development. The assertions that GPL is doing good by forcing release of source code under certain circumstances is a straw-man, since it happens much of the time anyway. Additionally, it is a burden, because the *choice* of freeing code is lost, and smart developers developing derived works a-priori understand this and avoid the GPLed codebase entirely, if the GPL will force the release of hard-fought ideas. > > There is no doubt in my mind that we simply would not have > >been able to get our product to market as quickly as we did if we did > >not go the embedded UNIX route. What made it possible to go this way? > >Licensing terms that didn't scare our lawyers off > > It's sad there are executives who don't know how to take charge of > their own lawyers. OTOH, there are plenty of lawyers who can work > with the GPL to produce an equivalent result. > The executives do, they have actually researched the limitations of GPL, and are not biased towards or against GPL. The purpose of a lawyer in this case is to interpret the license, and to explain what the various ramifications of the license are. One can choose to ignore those limitations, and limit one's business opportunities. In the case of CDROM duplicators, or those who mostly exploit net inventiveness, the limitations of GPL are minor. When adding new ideas to codebases, GPL limits opportunity to capitalize on them. I happen to respect and encourage inventiveness, and enjoy it when someone can exploit their own abilities. I am less impressed with those who believe that they have to exploit other's abilities, and want to make sure the flow of information is guaranteed towards them, without paying for the cost of creativity. > >The code we are "hiding" you wouldn't want to touch anyway and most of > >it is userland code that would not be subject to licensing restrictions > >anyway. > > Then there's little real basis for objection to the GPL. > Again, most of the stuff that isn't fed back to the net is part of the competitive advantage. GPL denies that ability to control those parts of the work, and is a severe disincentive create derived works from a GPLed codebase. > >We could hide things like CAM, but what is the incentive? > > More support for the GPL. If there is no incentive to hide, why > object to license terms which prohibit hiding? > Hide what? Under GPL, those things that are useful to be controlled by the creator are just as encumbered as those things that are less useful. The cool thing about free licenses is that important things for the net community at large are added back in, while there is still control for those pieces that are perhaps interesting to competition (like big support firms that can and will steal your business away.) > > >By releasing the code into the community, we get far greater test > >coverage than we could internally and increase the pool of developers > >that can maintain the code. > > Sounds like GPL to me. > That sounds like BSD-like licensing in this case also. See, the big boogie man of people stealing code away is non-operative in the case of popular BSD licensed code, so the GPL encumberances are unneeded and really have no purpose, other than making a political point by restricting control of creative derived works. > > >You don't need to force business to share. > > OTOH, why do business need to hide? > Competitive advantage. I love this kind of argument: why do you need private property? > > >A solution to what problem? Pluto would have gone with an RTOS if the > >licensing terms didn't work out, so in my opinion, you either get what > >the corparate users decide to contribute back, or you get nothing at all. > > True, but that's a result of traditional corporate management and > thinking, which is changing. > It is, and they are opening up to the BSD license. The only reason why GPL has made inroads is because of advocacy. The freely licensed code is also making equivalent inroads. You seem to miss the point that there is free code and GPL code. GPL costs future developers alot of the benefits of their creativity. Since smart developers and strategic thinkers realize these limitations, they'll always avoid that code for future significant contribution. Those who know they won't add much to GPL'ed code have little reason to avoid it. I used GPL'ed code every day, but also don't contribute to it, because I get paid more for working on "likely to be freed" software. It makes sense, because the work that I do is seamlessly both commercial and free. There is no reason why non-GPL free software and commercial software for profit cannot cooperate, and in fact that IS the wave of the future. GPL just complicates matters with unnecessary control and restriction of control of derived creative works. -- John | Never try to teach a pig to sing, dyson@freebsd.org | it just makes you look stupid, jdyson@nc.com | and it irritates the pig. 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