Re: GPL and economics

On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, Deven T. Corzine wrote:
[...]
> But what makes you think a monopoly under the proprietary GPL license would
> be any more rosy?  I'm sure Bill Gates thinks he's doing wonderful things
> for the world, and Stallman would think the same.  (He already does.)  With
> monopoly power, Stallman would probably abuse it as readily as Microsoft,
> without believing he's doing anything wrong, just as Gates clearly believes
> he's in the right and doesn't understand why so many people oppose him...

You got it all wrong:
1. 'proprietary' and 'GPL license' are antithetic.

From: http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=proprietary

    proprietary adj.
       1. Of, relating to, or suggestive of a proprietor or to
    proprietors as a group: had proprietary rights; behaved with a
    proprietary air in his friend's house.
       2. Exclusively owned; private: a proprietary hospital.
       3. Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark
    or patent: a proprietary drug.

Trademark and patent are not relevant except as two ways to 'exclusively
own' intellectual property. Thus 'proprietary software' is software the
source of which can be used by an individual or company to the exclusion
of all others.

The GPL ensures that everyone has equal access to GPL software: all can
use it, modify its source and distribute the modified source.
This is the opposite of proprietary software.

2. So let's forget about the 'proprietary' part and see that part about
the "monopoly under the GPL license". Well, this is impossible too. You
cannot have a monopoly based on GPL software. Again, dictionary.com says
in part: http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=monopoly

    monopoly n.

    Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling
    a commodity or service

But by their very nature the GPL licenses ensure that no single entity
has 'exclusive control' of the source.

Let me illustrate this to make it easier for you to understand. If you
(well, if one...) license the source code of Windows in order to sell
services to companies that wan to port Windows applications to Unix
(e.g. MainSoft) and Microsoft then says that you have to give them 90%
of your profits (which iirc is more or less what happened to them),
there is strictly nothing you can do. This is because they have a
monopoly on Windows. If you hire RedHat to do some work on the Linux
Kernel for you and they suddenly jack the prices up, you can keep your
source and work on it yourself, or hire Mandrake, Connectiva, IBM, or
pretty much any other service company to replace them. Nobody has a
monopoly on GPL software


3. So all that's left of your argument is that somehow a market
dominated by GPL software would give some kind of power to Stallman.

But:
 * he, or the FSF for that matter, don't even own the copyright to
most of the GPL software out there.
 * FSF employees don't contribute to the any significant portion of the
software out there.
 * even for software for which the FSF owns the copyright, what could
they do? Refuse to do any more work on them or to distribute them
anymore? So what? The GPL gives anyone the right to take their place.

So there is simply no way Stallman (or the FSF) could 'abuse his
monopoly power'.


So your point is completely moot.
Please, before building catastrophy scenarios, at least try to make
they make sense (and then you can start to worry about whether they
have the slightest hint of plausibility).


--
Francois Gouget         [email protected]        http://fgouget.free.fr/
            Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes.
       That way, if he gets angry, he'll be a mile away - and barefoot.