Re: Total Joy of Ownership

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, May 27, 1999 at 09:18:02AM +0530, Raj Mathur wrote:

> Not really.  One of the ways to make money in the GPL world is to
> solve a need for a particular entity and get paid for it;

That is _a_ way of making money, but not the only way and IMO, not
the way most of the money in software is being made.

But lets not lose sight of the objective. The objective is _not_ to
make money. The objective is to provide enough financial incentive for
a bright developer to keep free software competitive with commercial
software.

> 
> Afraid I disagree again.  If the GPL movement gains enough momentum,
> all software (except maybe some very specialised packages) will
> eventually become free.  IMO it is better to aim for that objective
> and not keep compromising at each step, leading to dilution of both
> the message and the power of the GPL.
> 

That's like hoping that the whole world will become a peaceful place
and no one needs a military. Investing in military will send the wrong
message about our intentions.

I don't think that's practical. Also GPL != Linux != All of free
software. I'd say Linux has gained momentum and GPL has gained momentum
as a result.

> But don't forget, the only reason that these large software vendors
> are porting stuff to Linux in the first place is because Linux is GPL
> and hence popular!

I don't see a cause and effect relationship between the two (GPL and the
success of Linux). There is a opinion piece which explores the question
about why Linux is successful as opposed to GNU Hurd or FreeBSD:

http://www.freebsddiary.org/freebsd/linux.htm

> Enforce the [L]GPL more strictly and Linux will probably become more
> popular 

That's speculation and I'll bet against it.

This discussion is going a little bit off topic - but I think everyone
needs to think critically about licenses and their consequences instead
of using one because it's cooler than Kelvinator or Godrej (Till recently
I fell in this category).

Again, if you have done your homework, and think GPL is the right one for
your work, more power to you.

	-Arun


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