Re: [gentoo-user] Re: License issues [was:Daniel Robbins' come back ?]

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Monday 14 January 2008, James wrote:

> I just do not see the harm in letting a small (sub 1 million dollar
> company) build a product and not provide any details or what they did
> or how they did it. In the end, their success is more likely related
> to how slick their marketing campaign is  or how well conceived the
> product/service is or how good their support is or some other twist.

Well, there is nothing wrong and no harm at all. They can surely write 
their product from scratch and choose to not release any detail about 
it. In fact, many companies do this all the time.
What is wrong is when a company or individual, to save time and money, 
decides to pick (or usurp, depending on one's point of view) an already 
existing piece of code and adapt it to their needs, without respecting 
the rules set by the author of such code (remember that the original 
author(s) of a GPLed code still retains their copyrights on the code). 

> The GPL goes a long way to discouraging/preventing many of the serfs
> from ever trying.... IMHO. I believe that the GPL is the spawn of
> satan. I think the 'serfs' (the greater gentoo community) would be
> better off with a BSD style license related to Gentoo technologies and
> still use GPL software, as the individual chooses. After all, most of
> the BSD variants and derivatives (except those RTOS that large
> corporations use in some of their products)  Still manage to use GPL
> software.
>
> Obviously, you think that GPL is a panacea. OK we agree to disagree.

Not exactly a panacea. But I do think that the ideas in the GPL are not 
in contrast with the possibility of making money, both for small 
companies and big ones alike (and there are real-world examples to 
confirm this). Of course, all of this IMHO. Your views do have their 
good points, and I respect them.
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