Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 01:12:34 -0400 From: "Thomas M. Sommers" <tms2@mail.ptd.net> To: David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The desktop apathy? I think not. Message-ID: <3B172442.DC68C5AC@mail.ptd.net> References: <NCBBLIEPOCNJOAEKBEAKCEAPPHAA.davids@webmaster.com>
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David Schwartz wrote: > > > Sure, a company could have made proprietary changes to it, and tried to > > sell it, but who would buy it? Or, to put it another way, how much > > could they have charged for it and still sell some? > > That's the right question -- how much could they have charged for it and > still sell some? Well, you asked the question, answer it. I'll tell you the > answer -- precisely as much as their improvements are worth to the buyer. My suggestion is that it is unlikely that the improvements would be worth enough to the buyer to pay for their developement. Not impossible, mind you, but unlikely. Recall that the `it' being referred to is gcc. Assume that gcc were under a BSD-style license. How much would you pay for a proprietary version that fixed whatever you consider the worst parts of gcc? How many others would be willing to pay that much? > Do you get it? That's the difference between the two licenses. Yes, I get it; do you? Of course it's theoretically possible to sell proprietary versions of BSD-licensed software; I am merely suggesting that it is very difficult to do so profitably. > > The fate of BSDi > > shows how difficult it is to sell proprietary versions of BSD-licensed > > software (at least on commodity hardware). > > Absolutely. The improvements have to be worth more than the loss of the > advantages of open source. In other words, you have to make a damned good > product to sell it. And that's a good thing. The improvements also have to be worth more than they cost to produce. And that's a very difficult thing. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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