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

On Wed, 12 Jun 2002 14:20:32 -0400 (EDT), "Deven T. Corzine"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 12 Jun 2002, Alexandre Julliard wrote:
>
>> "Deven T. Corzine" <[email protected]> writes:
>> 
>> > Would you have any objections to Transgaming's business model if they had 
>> > their 20,000+ subscribers and was releasing their code under the X11 and/or 
>> > LGPL license?  Is it only because their plan failed that you object to it?
>> 
>> Well, from a philosophical standpoint I think the idea of a model that
>> helps the project in case of success and hurts it in case of failure
>> is flawed (and one of the nice properties of the *GPL licenses IMO is
>> that even failures benefit the project), but from Wine's standpoint I
>> would of course have no objections at all if they had reached their
>> goal.
>
>Ultimately, isn't that the risk of most startup businesses?  There's a lot 
>of overhead cost in running a business, and without a critical mass of 
>revenue to offset the costs, failure is always looming.
>
>I suppose Transgaming could have released the code from day one, but that's 
>going out on a limb even further than developing it, because it reduces the 
>incentive for anyone to sign up.  Given how much trouble they had getting 
>people to sign up as it was, would this have been wise?
>
>Maybe their mistake was underestimating the capacity of their target market 
>to support their venture, or the market's interest in their code?  They say 
>they have 3,000-ish (maybe 4,000?) subscribers.  If that's most of the 
>people using Wine/WineX to run Windows games, then they underestimated the 
>market.  Then again, if there are well over 20,000 people playing those 
>Windows games under Linux, it seems like it should have worked, especially 
>if there's 20,000+ using WineX under the AFPL.
>
>But I don't suppose anyone knows the number of people using the code for 
>free, so it's hard to know if the market was too small or simply failed to 
>rise for the occasion.  Certainly, from the perspective of an individual, 
>it's more rational NOT to subscribe, and get the free benefit from letting 
>others shoulder the burden.  Of course, therein lies the funding dilemma 
>for Open Source software...

The current TG stance is in question, since the 20,000 offer is no
longer mentioned on the web page. A new subscriber can have no
confidence that his $$$ would count toward that goal. Realistically,
the time for that offer has expired. Software which might be released
in 6-7 more years (optimistically assuming a linear rate) has almost
no practical value to a project like Wine.

Given that TG has dropped its offer, and has recently added a bunch of
its non-strategic code to the ReWind tree, whence it showed up on
wine-patches soon after... maybe they are working on a newer business
model, as yet undisclosed.

john alvord