Re: Does the LGPL encourage sharing of code?

On Wed, 10 Apr 2002 19:23:53 -0400, Roger Fujii <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Roland <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> Well, no one is forced to use GPLed code. If he does he must give back...I
>> think it is more like a trade.
>
>Not always true.  See previous post on LGPL -> LGPL calling.  Besides, if there
>are no other alternatives, you might very well be forced, or be forced not
>to play.
> 
>> > The GPL has accomplished its purpose: destroying opportunities for programmers.
>> What about Microsoft C++, it's still up and running, so the GPL didn't
>> destroy that did it?
>
>That is a poor example.  No other compiler company has $35 B in the bank.
> 
>> But wouldn't the same effect take place if GCC was under a BSD license? Of
>> course a company could take that code, improve it and try to sell it. But
>> lets be honest, who would buy it?
>
>If it improves code speed by > 20%, I think enough people would be interested.
>

One important factor in these compiler discussion is the very rapid
growth of price/performance. To get a 20% improvement in code speed,
you only need to delay purchase of a PC by maybe 3 months. High speed
and large memory available inexspensively mean that brilliant compiler
optimization schemes just aren't worth what they were when a PDP 11/70
cost $250K and had 4 megbytes of main memory.

This argument doesn't hold for all environments. The embedded arena.
NUMA, big server environments, are all areas where squeezing 20%
performance will be a win. But for the mass market, where most of the
machines are running at 5-10% utilization (except for SETI) the user
won't even notice the difference.

john alvord