Re: licensing

On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 01:21:18PM -0500, Taran Rampersad wrote:
> Jeremy,
> 
> The point is that when it comes to software developed by a government, 
> the citizens are the people paying for the product. When you pay taxes, 
> you pay your government to do certain things.
> 
> Why would you pay your government to write software that another company 
> - in another country - can profit from? I don't know how to atomize this 
> further for people to understand, but if I need to, I will try.
> 
> Taran
> 
> Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> 
> >>You're right. We disagree. Intellectualization of reality still leaves
> >>us with reality. That farmer will still pay for code in proprietary
> >>products if their government chooses a BSD license.
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >I don't understand how the farmer is forced to purchase proprietary
> >products.
> >
> >But I do understand how the farmer (since he is knowledgeable) can choose
> >to build a proprietary product (and a financial livelihood) based on the
> >properly-licensed code.
> >
> >  Jeremy C. Reed
> >  http://bsd.reedmedia.net/

I am not sure if I have something new to say but maybe this just needs to
be said again.

Most software used to be free. That was because hardware was expensive
and proprietary. For example, if you bought an IBM 360 mainframe you got
an operating system. Or, if you bought a Calcomp plotter you got the plot
software. 

You then developed your own applications for that computer. Some of them
you might choose to share with others/other companies. Others, you might
not. It was your software and it was your choice. Or, you could pay
someone for applications. As they got more complicated this was the more
likely situation.

Today, with inexpensive, non-proprietary hardware, some companies have
tried to make a profit from systems software. As long as they are a
choice--that is, they don't control the market--I am fine with that.

For applications software, you still have the choice of developing your
own or buying something. So, again, no big change.

Now, to the issue at hand--licensing for government software. On the most
basic level a government could develop their own software and share it
however they wanted. For example, you could write software to keep track
of property taxes and give it to ten other municipalities. Your choice.
You wrote it for your own use and you can share it however you want.

But, there is something to be gained by a more formal arrangement.
Two obvious things come to mind:
  1. The overhead of sharing is reduced because there is just one
     agreement rather than different ones with different users.
  2. You can likely get some help from the new users to enhance or
     at least debug the software.

Note that in all of this discussion, software was freely exchanged.unless
it came from a commercial software-only company. That is, IBM wrote and
distrubuted an operating system to sell hardware and you wrote your
applications to use that computer system.

Now, if you put your software under a BSD license, you would be giving a
software vendor a starting point for building an open or proprietary
product. That is, it would be their choice. That vendor, in turn, will
likely enhance the software and want to sell it. Under a BSD license, you
could become one of their paying customers.

Picking a GPL license means that they could still enhance it but those
enhancements become part of the software. You could elect to buy their
product (it might have non-GPLed documentation, on-site support or a
whole host of other things making it worth it to you) or you could just
take their enhanced code and use it. It is your choice.

As an aside, others can still take the software and enhance it without
having to give the enhancements back to you. That only becomes an issue
when they elect to re-distribute it. 

If I was the taxpayer, I would pick the GPL. The most important reason is
that control of what you payed for is not given away. Even if buying
enhancements and support is what you end up doing, you should still
maintain that choice.

There are alternatives. Some software (Qt is an example) is licensed such
that the purchaser has a choice. If they use it to build a free product
then it is free. Or, they can make a proprietary product and pay a
licensing fee. If the GPL is too scary for you, look into these
alternatives.

-- 
Phil Hughes, [email protected]  Phone/FAX: 506-483-1265 
Aptdo. 89-4060, Alajuela, Costa Rica