Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

internetworkers - RE: [Long] Why Microsoft is a Dinosaur, Tony Stanco

internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Paula Paul" <Paula AT PaulSoftware.com>
  • To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: [Long] Why Microsoft is a Dinosaur, Tony Stanco
  • Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 18:00:11 -0400



>
> Oh, come one now - there's nothing in the GPL that disallows you from
> charging for your work - they only ensure that such work as you do is
> merged back into a publicly available source code base. You can charge
> to redistribute any GPLd software you want, as long as you provide the
> source. Read the GPL.

What this means (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the code I
write will be publicly available, free of charge, and gee, I'm allowed
to sell it too. So, people don't pay for the software, they pay for the
packaging and the cost of distribution. I don't like the idea that the
code I write is worthless, but I can charge for the cost of distribution
and for service contracts.

> > Call me a capitalist, but I'd like to remain a professional, paid,
> > software developer, and want to retain the choice of licensing my
> > work when I want to and however I want to.
>
> You still retain those rights - nobody's saying you don't. But if you
> "stand on the shoulders" of other software developers' work,
> you should
> not be able to then incorporate their work into a closed, proprietary
> product without making your work available to others as well - just as
> they made their work available to you.

Of course, I would never stand on anyone's shoulders and disrespect
their rights (so I never incorporate GPL'd code in products). It seems
a little far reaching to me though that the GPL extends to my code as
well as the GPL'd code I may use in my product. It devalues some work,
and overvalues other work. For instance, if I use someone's random
number generator in my product that solves the problem of cold fusion, I
have to GPL my code, when I got very little value from the shoulders I
stood on.

I'm more than willing to distribute the source code of the random number
generator for free, and give GNU all the credit for it. I just don't
want them distributing the source code for my cold fusion program -
that's my intellectual property. If I take this 'free software'
approach literally, my source code is worthless, and I'm supposed to
make my living selling service contracts. I still don't get it.

-Paula




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page