Re: GNAT GPL is not shareware

["G.B." <bauhaus@futureapps.invalid>]

On 04.02.15 09:38, Pascal Obry wrote:
> Le mercredi 04 février 2015 à 08:00 +0000, Mark Carroll a écrit :
>> No, it also means that those customers can pass it on to anyone else,
>> modify and resell it or give it away, whatever. The GPL is about far
>> more than just making the source available to customers.
>
> And? Do we have a single example of this happening?

We have all seen this "re-distribution at no cost"
happening in the closed source business:

Microsoft got its market share also by insufficiently
protecting their office software from being copied.
They have continued to get market share by trying
to make the first encounter with computers cost-free,
e.g. to students and to researchers at universities.
(And to some African governments, they say.)

"Do you have a copy of ... for me?" is not unheard of
by anyone who had a PC.

Imagine OTOH what it would mean to Microsoft if they
started to sell Microsoft Office under a copyleft license!
I believe it would either kill them at once, or at least
make the company shrink a lot. Because the ROI depends on
the decency of users, a trait that is not shared by everyone
everywhere, in particular after the software market was
flooded for a long time with copies of pricey software
at no cost. Microsoft is not wealthy because of a developer
support business, TTBOMK, so they'd suffer from any kind
of uncontrollable "free" distribution, such as copyleft
or BSD.

The market for MS has been a mass market, and also
comparatively anonymous. Does such a market work for
vendors producing GPLed pieces of software?
First, assume a sum of $$ or $$$ per copy sold.
Is this enough money for the kind of software you
have in mind? I guess making this type of software will
take a larger number of customers who pay for a copy.
Try crowd funding.
And then, a sufficiently large fraction of customers
must prefer to not give away copies for free. Instead,
you would want them to point others to you, the producer.
Is this a realistic business plan?

I doubt that you can sell GPLed or otherwise freely
redistributable software if there isn't a contract
between two parties aware of business needs,
enough money to keep production going for some time,
and no intention to betray.

So, if there is an example of a piece of GPLed software
fully financing a business, then it is an example of an
exceptional situation, I think.