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

Francois Gouget <[email protected]> wrote:

> The OS X example is very ill chosen because it proves strictly nothing:
>  * they have not been using the FreeBSD code long enough to prove that
> this enables them to have a viable business (unlike Brett said).

Given the acceptance of OSX, it's not like it's going to disappear
in the near future.  You may question whether or not the trees will
remain in sync, but its success is more certain than the various linux
distributions.

>  * their revenue primarily comes from their hardware sales and not from
> any potential sales of OS X they may make.

Apple historically uses OS upgrades as a revenue stream.

>  * the fact that they are using FreeBSD is irrelevant since their
> advantage is not there but in the proprietary GUI that they are using.

and the ability to place that UI on an OS and make multimedia enhancments
to the OS that they can keep.

>  * since their advantage is in their proprietary GUI they could just as
> well have built it on top of the Linux kernel. So this does not prove
> any superiority of the BSD license over the GPL.

Since linux is more advanced than BSD (or so the linux people claim), why
choose BSD in the first place?  You think they flipped a coin?

>  * similarly, they don't need to kill their open-source competitor since
> it is not a competitor in the first place.

so FreeBSD/ppc doesn't exist?  How are you defining "competitor" here?
 
> > Would it be very successfuly without the proprietary GUI?  Of course not.
> > The point was it was possible to add proprietary extensions (the GUI) and
> > have it stand on its own, unthreatened by the original openp-source code.
> 
> Exactly the same way one can built a proprietary GUI on top of the Linux
> kernel. You are not proving anything.

Just because one is ABLE to, doesn't mean that it is as EASY as.  Building
something like this for linux would have cause a huge negative uproar by
the GPL advocates, plus you have to be more wary of what you programmatically 
touch.   How else do you explain their choice?

-r