Re: bias

At 12:39 PM 6/7/02 -0400, Deven T. Corzine wrote:

>Be that as it may, end-users still have a need for software products, and
>the GPL definitely threatens the development of end-user products that
>aren't worthwhile to a company to pay for, even if millions of home users
>would happily pay...

Hmm. I'm not that sure. If there is a market somewhere, it can be exploited 
which means a company can make money. Also keep in mind that even with the 
GPL there is the possibility to make money with end user products, think 
Red Hat Linux.
I was also thinking about games. Imagine a company based a game on a GPL ed 
engine. They would have to give the source, BUT, a game has more than the 
engine. This means they could still charge for the whole game-package, 
which includes the engine, and GRAPHICS etc... Basically I think they could 
make the same amount of money as if the game engine was not GPLed. The 
difference is that the game-engine will be publicly available, making even 
better games for the end-users in the future and making it easier for 
start-up companies to start a project. So both sides win, don't they?

Roland