Re: Does the LGPL encourage sharing of code?

At 01:47 PM 4/5/02 -0700, Brett Glass wrote:
>At 01:09 PM 4/5/2002, Roland wrote:
>
> >Hello,
> >one of the arguments in favour of the LGPL is that it encourages sharing 
> of code.
>
>...in the same way that holding a gun to your head "encourages" you to
>cooperate with the person holding the gun. It's not cooperation. It's
>coercion -- confiscation of programmers' hard work via a threat of
>government force.

Well, no one is forced to use GPLed code. If he does he must give back...I 
think it is more like a trade.


>The main effect of the GPL, as applied to GCC, has been to turn it
>into a weapon against commercial compiler vendors. Very few commercial
>C compilers are currently available, even though the quality of the
>code generated by GCC leaves much to be desired. The companies that
>were in the business of making C compilers have shut down or are
>suffering from greatly depressed revenues (which means that they
>likely WILL shut down shortly). 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?

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? I think very few people would, unless the 
improvements where in a very dramatic level which I doubt is possible for a 
small company. And even so I think most people would be still happy using 
the GCC for free.
And if a company improved it dramatically, soon the open source GCC would 
catch up, even if no code is released back from that company.

Look at Apache web-servers. They are free but not GPL, but does this make a 
difference? Apache is ruling the market and which company stands a chance?

Maybe at the it is not the license that destroys businesses, but the 
availability of free software at all, regardless of license.

As Roger Fujii wrote:

>Yes, but the GPL causes problems in the economic sense too, since 
>non-leveragable,
>zero cost items, drives out most of the competitors.  In the physical markets,
>this is called "dumping".
>

And the same applies for BSD licensed free software.

Roland