Re: GPL and Economics (was Re: GPL vs. sweatshops (was Re: Bias))

"Deven T. Corzine" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Matt Seitz wrote:
> > Dumping is an act committed by a dominant player primarily in an attempt to
> > drive substatially less well funded competitors out of business.  If an xGPL
> > project were a dominant player, with substantially more resources than any
> > competitior, then one could compare the xGPL to dumping.  I agree that if
> > this ever becomes the case, then there would be a need for corrective
> > action.
> 
> Dumping can be done by dominant players and non-dominant players alike.
> 
> However, it's only really dangerous when done by a player so dominant as to
> have an effective monopoly on the market.  This is exactly the reason why
> antitrust laws exist, but only apply to the monopolists.  It's perfectly
> legal for a non-monopolist to take actions (like dumping) that would become
> illegal if taken by a monopolist.  That's the nature of antitrust law.

Well, there are exceptions.  In a tightly competitive market (examples would
be like the RAM market, HD) or stressed markets (like today's airlines), even
dumping by minor players can have significant effects.  

> The GPL is constantly dumping.  That's its nature.  This only becomes truly
> dangerous if and when the GPL becomes an effective monopoly, as you said.
> Of course, this is the exact situation I've been expressing concern about.
> I'm not concerned about it as long as the GPL is just another player in a
> diverse marketplace.  But if Stallman has his way, it will become dominant.

Note that it (GPL) doesn't have to be dominant do start reducing the
diversity in the marketplace.  The "walmart" effect will happen regardless
of its market share.
 



Matt Seitz <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Deven T. Corzine" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > Right now, I think the *GPL is basically a good thing but IF it were to
> > become an effective monopoly, I could see that as being a very bad thing.
> I think this is an excellent distinction to make.  Tactics that are perfectly
> appropriate in a competitive marketplace may become inappropriate if one
> becomes a monopoly (a distinction that Microsoft and its supporters either
> don't grasp or choose to ignore).  The question then becomes:  what is the best
> way to prevent an xGPL project from becoming a destructive monopoly?

You have 3 choices:
   Change the copyright law
   Have it thrown out in court 
   Don't use it.

It's questionable if using such tactics is desirable anyway, especially in the
free software (altruistic) context.  


Anthony Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> You've discovered the core difference between the GPL and BSD: the GPL
> is written with the idea that groups of people will collaborate on
> software, with the idea that no-one can exploit the group effort without
> participating in the group.  The BSD is written with the idea that
> groups of people will collaborate on software, but anyone is allowed to
> exploit the code.  That is the difference.

You know, I keep hearing this claim being made, and keep reading many, many
examples of acrimony between the participants (xemacs vs emacs, mysql vs
nusphere, glibc, the whole kde/qt mess, not to mention the wine/rewind
I'm sure there's more - those are off the top of my head).

> The GPL is hardly proprietary to the extent you claim; it does not allow
> for code sharing back to other "open-source" licenses, and that is the
> biggest flaw.  BSD folks get upset because the GPL is allowed to use
> code from BSD, which is explicitly allowed withing the BSD license, but
> won't give code back to BSD.  This is ironic, considering they don't get
> upset when commercial developers do exactly the same thing.

I think you are misinterpreting the BSD objection.  The objection has more
to do with GPL claiming the mantra of being "free" as opposed to GPL using
BSD code.  

> "Proprietary" means
> 
> *2* *:* something that is used, produced, or marketed under exclusive
> legal right of the inventor or maker; /specifically/ *:* a drug (as a
> patent medicine) that is protected by secrecy, patent, or copyright
> against free competition as to name, product, composition, or process of
> manufacture.
> 
> The GPL is none of these things, as users are granted a non-exclusive
> right.  In fact, users are not allowed to make anything exclusive.

in a GPL context.  You can only use GPLed code in GPLed programs.  Sounds
pretty exclusive to me.

> So the GPL is innately anti-proprietary.  The BSD is pro-proprietary, in
> that it does not forbid creating an exclusive license.

Not being against something doesn't mean it's "pro".  An agnostic is not
pro-atheist, nor is s/he anti-religion.  BSD is agnostic in the proprietary
debate - it is free for ALL to use.

> >The code still benefits more people if more people are using it, even if
> >some of those users are paying for proprietary versions of the code.  And a
> >proprietary version doesn't need to offer "many" compelling features, only
> >a single one.  And that feature might well be support or documentation, not
> >necessarily code.  Anything the user is willing to pay for.
> 
> This is fine, until someone in a dominant position takes the code and
> extends it in an incompatible fashion.  This is what Microsoft attempted
> with Kerberos last year.  In this way, because of their current market
> dominance, they can make it painful to use any version of Kerberos but
> their own, thereby making worthless the original code.

M$ could have done this with or without the BSD code.  Even IF Kerberos
was GPLed, they could have re-written it or are you actually going to
say they don't have the cash to do this?

> Red Hat itself is not doing badly.

what metric are you using?!  They have never made a profit (though I think
they had revenues exceed operating expenses at least once).  

> The fact it is still around is a testament to the strength of their business model,

This is horseshi+.  It's a testiment of stupid investors paying $100 for RH stock.
If they had a good business model, a) they wouldn't be changing it so often and b)
they would be making a profit.  Suse and Mandrake were within a hair's breath of
filing for bankruptcy.  How on earth can you think this is a good business model?

-r