Re: bias

On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Deven T. Corzine wrote:
[...]
> > First, most skilled computer professionals do not make a living off
> > commercial software: most make their money off in-house support and
> > in-house development.
>
> 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...

I don't understand your reasoning.
 * if the development of such a product is not worthwhile in the first
place, then companies are not going to develop it anyway
 * if it is worthwhile, then companies are going to seize the opportunity
 * if a *GPL product does really make it not worthwhile for a company to
develop a given product (which may happen but certainly is not the
general case), then the millions of home users are not left out in the
cold since they now have an open-source product to use
 * if a *GPL product has such an effect, then the same product with the
same level of functionality under an X11 or *BSD license would have the
same effect on the market. And if proprietary extensions thrive it's
because the X11/*BSD product is so bad that it is unusable for most of
these millions of home users. Do you believe that open-source projects
cannot get any better? And what happens once they do get better (which
is inevitable)? By your reasonning they will kill all proprietary
offshots again.


So I really don't see a problem and I don't see how this is specific to
*GPL projects.

So what is the alternative anyway?
Make all open-source and public domain development illegal?


(yes, this is reasoning ad absurdum)

--
Francois Gouget         [email protected]        http://fgouget.free.fr/
    I haven't lost my mind, it's backed up on tape around here somewhere...