> Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:20:44 -0500 > From: Josh Paetzel <josh at tcbug.org> > On Sunday 21 October 2007 18:07:24 Mike Miller wrote: >> I think the new changes are about software patents, aren't they? And >> software patents seem to be a recent legal innovation and a >> serious threat. > You ignore my point, that the FSF wishes to position itself as the sole > determinant of freedom. Then I did too because your point seemed to be that the GPL was bad (read: inconvenient) for your business. > Not at all, competitors are about 2 years behind us right now. Our > code is for all practical purposes worthless to them. You can > download everything we do from publically available svn, even though > thanks to the BSDL we are under no compulsion to provide that, and > build our product on your own, get it running, and save yourself the > $500,000 site installation fee that we charge. But to date, in over 4 > years of operation, no one has done so. Wow. Sounds like a business opportunity to me: Download some code benefiting from all your work, add a couple exclusive features, and sell it for half your price. Brilliant! > One of Stallman's points against commercial software is that it forces > programmers to reinvent the wheel, but the GPL is really no different > in that regard. I have been forced time and time again to > reimpliment GPL'd software simply because it's license is not usable to > me in the commercial environment that I am in. That seems to be *your* problem. The developers who licensed their code that way don't want only some people to benefit from their work. The GPL ensures everyone can use the work, and the work of others who build on it. Seems like a great way to ensure that the new levels that are built on their platform are not roped off for anyone. > I really do think you've missed out on how badly Stallman wants > commercial software in any form to go away, and for a return to the > heady days of his youth when business didn't care about software and it > was all just fun and games. His license reflects that attitude > perfectly. Perfectly indeed. That may well be his vision, but in any case, there seem to be a lot more developers in the GPL camp than the BSD camp, which means there are more solutions with that license. It seems like your gripe is that the GPL license is anti-business, but its real effect (if universally adopted) is to remove software as a basis for business competition. I think that would be an interesting world. Chris Schumann