[OT] open-source license issues

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Daniel Gibson" <metalcaedes at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:io1als$jsc$15 at digitalmars.com...
> Am 12.04.2011 12:24, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:
>> "Russel Winder" <russel at russel.org.uk> wrote in message
>> news:mailman.3416.1302591172.4748.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>>>
>>> Personally I find licences such as BSD, MIT, ASL, etc. ones to avoid
>>> since they allow organizations to take software, sell it for profit and
>>> return absolutely nothing to the development community.
>>
>> I've never seen that as a realistic concern. Here's the basic scenario:
>>
>> 1. I make program Foo and release it under BSD/MIT/etc.
>>
>> 2. The company EvilSoftwareCo takes Foo and sells it giving me nothing.
>>
>> That's what's seen as the problem, right? I'm not concerned because the
>> obvious next steps are:
>>
>> 3. I go around spreading the fact that EvilSoftwareCo's Foo is available 
>> for
>> free (both meanings of the term) from my site.
>>
>
> What difference does it make? You don't have the money to reach
> EvilSoftwareCo's (potential) costumers. Ranting in your blogs and some
> mailinglists or whatever won't change anything.
> They do big marketing to sell your software (with their small
> additions), they claim its stable and certified etcpp.
> So they still make big money with your code without giving anything
> (neither code nor money) back.
>

Sending out a press release is dirt-cheap. If EvilSoftwareCo is actually 
making significant money, then it's very likely that some news outlets would 
jump at a story like "Big company charging people for a free program."

Or even better yet: EvilSoftwareCo would have done the hard work of proving 
that there's a viable commercial market for Foo. Since I already have the 
same product, I either de-OSS the next version of Foo or cave and make it 
GPL, go get the world's easiest VC or business loan (again, EvilSoftwareCo 
did the hard work of proving the viable market), use those funds to 
advertise/market about being "The real creator of Foo", undercut 
EvilSoftwareCo, and then laugh all the way to the bank as EvilSoftwareCo 
goes under.


>> 4. There isn't a fucking thing EvilSoftwareCo can do about it.
>>
>> "But what if EvilSoftwareCo makes proprietary changes to Foo and sells it 
>> as
>> FooPlus? Your Foo doesn't get any of those extras!"
>>
>> Don't care. If they put in the time and effort to add value to something,
>> then they *should* be allowed to ask for compensation for their work 
>> under
>> whatever business model they choose. And if the value they've added is
>> merely trivial, then A. My version of Foo can still compete and B. I can
>> just add it to my Foo myself (or anyone else can).
>>
>
> The problem is not only that they get money for your code (+their
> extras), it's also that suddenly there's an incompatible version of your
> program.
> Maybe it's incompatible with your file formats etc. If their FooPlus is
> successful your Foo may become obsolete.

That would still be equally possible even if FooPlus were a completely open 
project.