Re: Realtime/embedded project to help with employment.

[Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@d2-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:
: Georg B. wrote:
:> 
:> Does that define a capitalist as someone who regularly takes
:> everything and gives nothing?
:> 
: Where did I say that?
you didn't that is why I have asked to make sure.

: 
:> : If I'm 
:> : going to work for free, perhaps there are more deserving recipients of 
:> : my charity than RedHat?
:> 
:> Possibly. Any ideas?
:> 
: I've been saying elsewhere that an alternative form of license is 
: possible that permits personal and business use without allowing 
: for-sale use. Details TBD. Read the rest of this thread.

I have tried to give an example in another post.

: Where do you get this from? Every business must by this analogy be a 
: "mobster" because it is pretty much by definition an "exclusive group" 
: and that distributes its products for the benefit of its members and the 
: detriment of other vendors.

Not necessarly, I think. A traditional view is to "live and let live".
I don't know how popular this view is in the USA's economy though.
So there might be some moral reserve to just blindly distribute products
knowing that this will ruin other vendors.
This has happened, but it hasn't always succeeded.

If you look at the Mickey Mouse copyrights, things become more
involved in that the "Disney gang" seems to have (co-)managed
modifying factors external to business to "better protect" their
source of income, establishing favorable rules (law). IOW, they used
techniques of influencing outsiders (polititians) and can now rely
on techniques of law enforcement. If you think of this in terms of
the mob, are there thechnical differences? :-)

: Where was I suggesting that we put guns to people's heads and insist 
: that they use our products and not someone else's? That is a "mobster". 

What I have had in mind is the requirement of the license
to pay you for commercial use of the software as opposed to you asking
for a voluntary contribution, or requiring payment for your support,
not for use of your software. (You do not just drive the lorry loaded
with the liqueur bottles, you sell the liqueur too, and you make sure
that your liqueur recipe cannot be used commercially without fee.)

: Developing a superior product and out-competing other vendors and 
: playing within the bounds of the law is a perfectly moral and decent 
: thing to do.

If you make a superior product and out-compete other vendors,
what does this mean? Does it mean that these other vendors will
have to find a new job? Do we have to have it that way?

Suppose you develop a superior software
and offer it under a BSD-style or GNAT-style license. Who will take your
software and build a business around it that spoils you, the
originators? That might well happen, but, in the long run,
will it succeed?
- you know the software, because you are the
  developer, others will first have to make an investment to
  learn about your software
- any semi-smart manager will know that software use requires
  knowledge of the software, and people to provide that knowledge.
Iff this is known, it shows that supported software is the crucial
thing, not just software. This is, I think, one of the reasons
why the GPL model can work, and also why it may be difficult, but
feasable to not be ACT and still offer support for GNAT.
Or to offer another compiler under an interesting license and
attract customers who will take the compiler and buy the support.

Imagine what profit a software project using Charles might gain
from a personal introduction by Matthew Heaney?  (If you allow me
to assume that he wouldn't be opposed to being payed for this 
introduction.) Maybe someone who has made this (or a similar)
experience can comment?
Again, if you allow me to speculate, will the producer of Charles
have more or less bureaucratic cost if he switches to ADCL,
picking up an argument by Hyman Rosen?

Whether playing within the bounds of the law is a perfectly
moral and decent thing to do is, in my view,
a/ depending on what the law allows one to do
b/ oversimplifiying reality
Moral and decency and law are not necessarily implying each other
totally, for sure?

Georg