Re: BSD bad for proprietary development too (was: Re: Vol 1 #154 - 10 msgs)

On Fri, 14 Jun 2002, Greg Alexander wrote:

> Suppose that there exists another library LibB, which contains most of
> the functionality of LibG and LibY, only under a BSD license.
> 
> With libB in existence, company Y will no longer be able to sell copies
> of LibY, because LibB is effectively a dumping competitor.  Company X
> will choose LibB over LibY, because the licenses offered for LibY will
> be substantially more expensive than simply using the code offered for
> free in LibB.
>
> Company X can still sell SoftX (maybe even at a higher profit), but
> company Y no longer sells any licenses, and thus there are fewer
> software jobs overall.

So?  If LibY can't compete effectively against LibB, then company Y can 
extend LibB in a proprietary fashion to create LibBY, which they can then 
sell to company X because it will be better than the LibB alternative...

Deven