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["Paula Paul" <Paula AT PaulSoftware.com>]

> You've said, in two separate messages, that releasing software under
> the GPL:
> 
>  - prevents you from charging for redistributing the software
> 
>   on Wed, Apr 25, 2001 at 02:42:02PM -0400, Paula Paul wrote:
>   > The 'Free' Software Foundation absolutely dictates the 
> business model.
>   > Anyone can write 'commercial software', as long as you 
> don't restrict or
>   > charge fees for redistribution.
> 
>  - is the same as releasing it into the public domain
> 
>   on Wed, Apr 25, 2001 at 09:20:35PM -0400, Paula Paul wrote:
>   > But it's hard to come up with good rules for protecting 
> source code
>   > that you essentially put in the public domain.
> 
> Both of which are laughably wrong misstatements of the GPL and its
> related licenses. Of course, it's possible that you understand the GPL
> but are deliberately misstating its core tenets for some nefarious
> purpose, but I wanted to give you /some/ benefit of the doubt.

I don't think these statements are laughably wrong - perhaps poorly
worded.  Once my source code has been merged into a publicly available
source base, I can't charge licensing or royalty fees to people who get
my code from the publicly available source base.  I believe you must
have interpreted this differently than I meant it, and I should have
been more specific.

And, forgive me for trying to compare "free software" to the public
domain - I did not mean to imply that they were the same thing, and know
very well that the FSF makes it clear that they are not.

No nefarious purpose here, thanks for the benefit of the doubt.  As I do
not agree with the ultimate goals of the FSF, I'm often made out to be
an idiot, a bad guy or worse.  But so far, nobody has convinced me that
the FSF's ultimate goal will benefit me in the long run as an
independent software author.

> Good luck with your business. I suspect I'll never see any of 
> your code. :)
> 

You will if you spend any time in the Microsoft .NET beta newsgroups.
I've also published code in a magazine article to help people understand
how to implement events in ATL.
If you do see my code, don't worry about using it to build your own
proprietary product - there are no strings attached ;-)

Good luck to you too, and thanks for the debate.