Re: Economics and the GPL

On Wed, 19 Jun 2002, Tony Lambregts wrote:

> OK your purpose for this is what? proprietary is just a word that has an 
> accepted meaning. At this point it obvious that proprietary has no 
> relevence when discussing with you the differences between X (what do 
> want us to call  commercial products of a closed sourse nature that are 
> not GPL licenced?) and Y (GPL licensed software). Are you saying that 
> they are the same? That does not seem to be your point. That they both 
> use the same method to protect there software was never been a point of 
> debate.  Is it that you want to be able to say that the pot is calling 
> the kettle black? I think this is your point is it not? OK fine. Pots 
> are not kettles though, are they?

X and Y are both proprietary.  Calling X proprietary is correct, but does 
not distinguish it from Y.  Calling Y "free" and "non-proprietary" is false 
and misleading.  Demonizing "proprietary" software is simply ironic when 
GPL software is also proprietary, albeit in a different way.

If you want terms that would be more accurate, yet be able to distinguish X 
from Y, I suppose you could call X "closed proprietary software" and call Y 
"open proprietary software".  GPL software is open to anyone, but remains 
proprietary software, nevertheless.

Deven