From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "G.B." Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL is not shareware Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2015 13:27:56 +0100 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <0Kgqw.953330$_k.685364@fx16.iad> <87bnmetex4.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <4ae7f0d5-d681-4be9-95bc-b5e789b3ad40@googlegroups.com> <87tx06rve6.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <87lhlirpk0.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <4984c229-bdcd-4032-bd88-cde66482e6df@googlegroups.com> <6950687c-7b03-440e-ba15-e1092f86a3d0@googlegroups.com> <1423034861.30930.71.camel@obry.net> <87vbjicdi1.fsf@ixod.org> <1423039132.25516.4.camel@obry.net> Reply-To: nonlegitur@futureapps.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2015 12:27:21 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="b96887e80893c84a90c3007226ca0d1c"; logging-data="19465"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+YBtxXfdk68q1NGf98jYATgxDRlnpDm+s=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.9; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.4.0 In-Reply-To: <1423039132.25516.4.camel@obry.net> Cancel-Lock: sha1:Q9TsyyZNmyuv7jq70RW5q4j/5FI= Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:24872 Date: 2015-02-04T13:27:56+01:00 List-Id: 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.