Re: GPL and Economics

[email protected] wrote:
> Message: 5
> From: Patrik Stridvall <[email protected]>
> To: "'Matt Seitz'" <[email protected]>,
>    Wine License
>          <[email protected]>
> Subject: RE: GPL and Economics
> Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 10:21:02 +0200
> 
> > Sorry, I found another statement I question:
> >
> > "Patrik Stridvall" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected]...
> > > Note that the possible economic transaction are not as fine
> > grained as they
> > > are in normal markets. So the market is not truely free
> > because of this.
> >
> > They are the terms the owner has chosen.  In a free market,
> > the owner has a
> > right to set whatever terms they want.  Just because a
> > potential customer
> > doesn't like the owner's terms doesn't make it any less a
> > truly free market.
> 
> I you only have two actors on the market this is absolutely true.
> However if you have more than you have the problem that if say
> X number of people make a GPL:ed work together it becomes quite
> more difficult for invidual contributors to change the terms of their
> work to something else if another group of people comes along
> and wishes to cooperative. Not impossible but more difficult.
> 
> The point is that each transaction on the market limits the possible
> future choices of people on the market, so it is not truely free in
> the meaning of a normal free market.

But that's the point of copyleft!  By releasing modified code that
others have released under the GPL (any copyleft license, as what a lot
of people state as being xGPL-specific is just basic copyleft) you have
entered into contracts with all of the previous developers of that
code.  This is no different from a proprietary vendor who makes use of
several other proprietary libraries. If they want to change the license
on their end product to something that is against the terms of their
contracts to use those libraries, they must contact each library vendor
to change the contract.

Both individual contributors and the proprietary vendor above may
relicense/reuse their own work however they want, but that doesn't give
them the right to reuse the work of others in violation of the contract
terms with which they received rights to distribute that work.

GREG