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

On Fri, 14 Jun 2002, Roger Fujii wrote:

> 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.

Well, you certainly know more about the acceptance of OS X than I do. So
I'll take your word for it.


> >  * 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.

And would you care to tell us how much of their revenue that is?


[...]
> >  * 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?

FreeBSD is a good OS. I strongly believe that it's VM is much better
than that of Linux for instance. So maybe it's because, just as you
said, it is better than Linux at least for some things. You seem to
think that their decision was 100% based on a dislike for the GPL. Why
don't you give more credit to the technical quality of BSD?

Not that I believe the license had nothing to do with it either. Apple
does not really have a history of openness. Going with a GPL operating
system would have been a tremendous change in direction for them.
Building proprietary extensions on top of FreeBSD certainly was an
easier sell in the company, a more reassuring one. But that does not
mean that using a GPL kernel would have been impossible.


> >  * 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?

You can only compete if you are in the same market. The way I preceive
things, FreeBSD/PPC is more in the server market while OS X more in the
'desktop for graphics designers' market. These are quite different
markets.


> > > 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?

License-wise it would not have been more difficult. From the PR point of
vue, I think you are exagerating the reaction of the 'GPL advocates'.
It's not like they would be the first to build on top of Linux.

And don't try to paint all 'GPL advocates' as extremists either. There's
quite a few very vocal BSD advocates too that can mount quite an uproar
when they want. This list is witness to that!


--
Francois Gouget         [email protected]        http://fgouget.free.fr/
      Broadcast message : fin du monde dans cinq minutes, repentez vous !