Oliver White wrote:
> Ok, more to the point, what are you qualms about the failings of the GPL in a
>commerical sense? I'm not so > bothered myself, but many free software/open source
>developers really arn't happy about
> contributing code to a community that allows people to then take those changes and
>incorporate them into > their own product without contributing their own changes to
>the pool of software.
It's not just the commercial sense. Everyone needs an income
unless you happen to live on government grants. Then you'd better
hope others have an income to pay taxes so you can get your
grants. <s>.
The point is that for open source to be sustainable, you must be
able to generate income from it or something related to it so you
can continue to fund development.
Linux grew because the people that COULD develop it were the
people that WANTED to develop it. In vertical markets this is not
the case. So the people that CAN; need and incentive TO develop.
> I think what you need to understand from a commercial perspective, especially the
>case of the health care industry, the advantage we have is of pooling resources and
>standardising on a code base.
> The thousands of health care organisations benefit from the open source *process*
>(as opposed to the source code itself) by being able to cooperate to develop one
>piece of software which they can
> all copy freely, rather than pay for each copy they make, and dissallowing them from
>contributing to the software.
I agree. Healthcare is THE perfect venue, worldwide, for open
source applications. But if I use the GPL and it restricts me
from combining with a proprietary library or database et.al. Then
I will HAVE to develop and maintain that portion as well.
Case in point. Drug database with interactions. Huge
maintainance application. Constantly changing data. What if I
can use a commercial product that the physician CAN subscribe to
for service. I don't really care if they are open source or
free. The physician can make the decision to maintain her own
database or purchase one from a vendor. IF, the GPL restricts me
from doing that, then it reduces the overall quality of my
product. At a cost that the customer is willing to pay, but
can't.
> I don't see any advantage in letting persons fork the code into a proprietary
>product that may take resources away from the primary pool of source code, and indeed
>there are many disadvantages. This
> is a matter of finding a better process for developing software, not altruism.
True. I would hope that as a community we can gain the public
relations advantage by showing the customer the real advantages
of using and supporting open source applications. But if the
customer can't get the performance they require it won't matter.
I am deeply concerned that the GPL can & will affect us in ways
that we haven't even imagined yet. It is simply too controlling.
Customers are loyal if you treat them fairly. Would you use a
proprietary application if it was derived from an open source
application? Only if, you could not get the service you need.
I'm betting on the customer being loyal. Now this DOES mean that
we have to GO BIG OR STAY HOME. If we don't the name-brands WILL
do what you suggest and incrementally steal our code & ideas. To
swim with the sharks you have to first get in the water.
> The money will always be in the services you can provide to support the free code.
>It is indeed short sighted to think that there can be money made in selling a
>propriatary product without harming
> the efforts of the free software code base.
Exactly. So how do you think that a BSD license will hurt us? It
will only if there is no customer service.
> Be shrewd in your decision.
I think I am. <VBG>
Thanks,
-- Tim Cook, President --
Free Practice Management,Inc. | http://FreePM.com
Office: (901) 884-4126
Censorship: The reaction of the ignorant to freedom.
_______________________________________________
Freepm-discuss mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freepm-discuss
