Economics and the GPL
Matt Seitz <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.emulators.wine.license |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
"Brett Glass" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:4.3.2.7.2.20020604135837.02ef12c0@localhost... >There can be no financial > reward for developing an alternative -- even a superior one -- > because so long as the GPLed code is even marginally adequate > a sufficient number of customers will not buy a product for which > they must pay. [...] > In other words, we should allow the GPL to force programmers > to abandon their chosen profession? > I don't know about you, but > I don't believe that it is ethical or moral for the FSF to be able > to dictate what people do for a living or to destroy their > livelihoods due to one man's 20-year-old grudge. I see two ways of looking at this problem. The first is: welcome to the free market. If someone is willing to offer people a good or service at a lower cost, then that's just good old-fashioned competition. If one's profession is no longer profitable, it's time to find a new profession. No one is entitled to a profit; it has to be earned. On the other hand, I think you do have a valid point: profit incentive can lead to better products. No profit means less incentive to produce better products. Fortunately, there is a solution that could make both the FSF and commercial developers happy. The key is the power of copyright. The GPL is only as strong as copyright law. What if the copyright law was changed so that software could only be copyrighted for, say, five years? Once the copyright expires, the GPL is moot. Any company could take the code and use it to produce a commercial product, without having to distribute any of their source code. The nice thing about this solution is that it is exactly what the FSF is asking for. The FSF has been advocating for years that the length of copyright should be cut way back. The GPL is intended as a way to return to a system where creative work flows into the public domain. A shorter copyright would achieve the FSF's goal, while also allowing commercial developers to profit from enhancing existing free software. ===== Sincerely, Matt Seitz __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com