[OT] open-source license issues

[Daniel Gibson]

Am 12.04.2011 13:02, schrieb 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.
> 

What's left on that market when EvilSoftwareCo is already in it?
"I wanna sell a Office Suite, Microsoft makes millions with it so it's a
viable market"

> 
>>> 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.
> 

But than you could at least integrate their changes into your version to
support their file format etc