Re: Economics and the GPL

On 7 Jun 2002, Martin Wilck wrote:

> Face it: the creators of the GPL didn't have the "free market" in mind. 
> The meaning of "free" in "free market" is completely different from
> the GPL's definition of "free". The GPL was never meant to be a means
> for helping the "free market".

Of course not.  The intent of the GPL was to simulate complete lack of 
copyright protection on software, and to force everyone possible to abide 
by that simulation.

> Compare that with the GPL. It grants you basically everything, except 
> that you are not allowed to withdraw the freedom you enjoy from others.

I fully supports the rights the GPL grants to use and modify code, and to 
share your modifications with other users of the code.  The dangerous part 
is sharing the _original_ code to create new users -- this makes it nearly 
impossible to fund development by charging users a small (but fair) amount.

Stallman constantly talks about "free speech, not free beer", but won't 
abandon the "free beer" aspect, knowing that's what draws most GPL users.  
I suspect he WANTED the "zero cost" connotation of "free software" because 
he's secretly just as committed to "free beer" as "free speech" -- if he 
was really only concerned about "free speech" alone, why didn't he call it 
"liberty software" or "libre software"?

> > Sure, the programmer can avoid using any GPL code at all, but that puts
> > him at a disadvantage against a competitor who can draw on that code.
> 
> That's right, and that was the intention. Of course the competitor needs
> to GPL his code, and you'd obviously regard that as a disadvantage for
> him.

Yes, that was the intention.  My point was simply that you can't blame the 
collapse of the programming industry (should it ever come to pass) on the 
"free market" if it was really the viral nature of the GPL that caused it.

> So that library will force him to use a commercial license unless he
> want to go bankrupt, right? More than that, it will dictate a minimum
> price tag he needs to charge. But you, Deven, would probably think that
> guy enjoys more freedom than his poor competitor who finds himself in
> the chains of the GPL. After all, he still has the freedom to make his
> product so expensive that he has a margin despite his costs.

The chains don't seem much different to me.  That developer is bound just 
as much by the whims of the commercial vendor as he would be by the GPL, 
just in a different way.  On the other hand, if he uses code from the 
public domain, or licensed under BSD/X11-style licenses, he's far more
free than he is using either commercial or GPL code, because he's no longer 
subject to the constraints of the license.

Perhaps the GPL does a better job of pursuing Stallman's goals, but it's 
hard to claim that it gives the programmer more freedom than licenses like 
the BSD/X11 licenses...

> Hey, you may want to checkout those commercial competitors of wine:
> MainWin and Wind/U. Great software! Have you ever asked yourself why
> Wine seems to be more popular for porting software than these?

I'm guessing Wine is better code.  Of course, that begs the question -- why 
didn't these competitors draw on Wine to get the best of both?

> > This can hardly be claimed as "free market" dynamics.
> 
> No, it cannot. Repeat: "free software" and "free market" are two
> fundamentally different concepts. That doesn't mean they can't go
> together.

I know they're different.  I was pointing that out because someone wanted 
to claim that the "free market" would be responsible if free software 
somehow eliminates the programming profession...

> Are you aware of the fact that it is possible to sell proprietary
> software to run on GPL-dominated systems such as Linux? Have you any
> reason to believe that this won't be possible any more in the future?

That's because Linux is based on POSIX, which you can implement to without 
the GPL having anything to say about it.  And glibc uses the LGPL, which 
doesn't prevent it either.  In a GPL-dominated world, you (eventually) not 
not be able to run ANY proprietary software on a (current) GPL'd OS.  (I'm 
sure Stallman would love for that to be the case.)

> I sincerely hope that soon nobody will consider operating systems, word 
> processors, web browsers, and spreadsheet programs worth paying for.

If you don't consider them worth paying for, then you must consider such 
programs "finished" and not worth developing any further.  After all, if 
they're going to be developed further, that's going to be paid for in some 
fashion, even if it's just in terms of the free time of volunteers.  And if 
there's a real cost to be paid, why should the end users who benefit avoid 
sharing that cost and leave the burden to someone else?

> Actually, the situation won't differ that much from the one we have now,
> because unless your name is Gates you already cannot make money by
> selling operating systems, word processors, and spreadsheets.

The reason for that is simple: network effects.  Competitors can't hope to 
make money in today's market because people need compatibility for legacy 
purposes, and Microsoft makes it as difficult as possible for a competitor 
to achieve compatibility, either in APIs or file formats.  (That's why it 
should come as no surprise that Wine has required massive efforts to get 
this far, and there's still plenty left to do.)

If Microsoft actually followed well-defined and well-documented standards, 
like Linux does, you might see some real competition and companies might be 
able to start making money on products such as these.  The reason it's not 
possible now isn't because these things inherently aren't worth paying for, 
but because Microsoft has crushed all competition in these areas...

Deven