Re: Subscription/Service Fees - OSD Intent
On Thu, Mar 29, 2001 at 07:51:15AM -0500, Forrest J Cavalier III wrote: [...] He explained the difference using the example of a museum open to the public. Any member of the public has a "right" to enter the museum. But they still have to pay the admission fee. I would have said that, precisely speaking, a member of the public doesn't have "the right to enter the museum." He has "the right to enter the museum upon paying admission." Many rights are limited or assume certain conditions. Living the the US, I have the right to free speech, but that doesn't mean that it is the "right to free speech without limits." Maybe I missed the distinction you were making. Chris -- Chris Sloan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Systems Software Engineer Green Hills Software
Re: Subscription/Service Fees - OSD Intent
At 01:23 AM 3/31/01 -0800, Chris Sloan wrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2001 at 07:51:15AM -0500, Forrest J Cavalier III wrote: [...] He explained the difference using the example of a museum open to the public. Any member of the public has a "right" to enter the museum. But they still have to pay the admission fee. I would have said that, precisely speaking, a member of the public doesn't have "the right to enter the museum." He has "the right to enter the museum upon paying admission." Many rights are limited or assume certain conditions. Living the the US, I have the right to free speech, but that doesn't mean that it is the "right to free speech without limits." Maybe I missed the distinction you were making. Chris -- Chris Sloan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Systems Software Engineer Green Hills Software Stepping away from a technical interpretation of the OSD, the requirement of a license fee seems inconsistent because it jeopardizes the primary byproduct resulting from the open source model of developing and distributing software - the stability and high quality of the product. When the potential talent pool from which a product can draw programmers is the world - the consequences show in the quality of the product. Charging a license fee to run the product reduces that talent pool to a company's programmers and its paying customers. What's more it means centralized control. This isn't bazaar - its cathedral. Carol
RE: Subscription/Service Fees - OSD Intent
On Saturday, 31 March 2001 11:32 PM, Carol A. Kunze wrote: - Stepping away from a technical interpretation of the OSD, - the requirement - of a license fee seems inconsistent because it jeopardizes - the primary - byproduct resulting from the open source model of developing and - distributing software - the stability and high quality of - the product. - - When the potential talent pool from which a product can draw - programmers is - the world - the consequences show in the quality of the product. - - Charging a license fee to run the product reduces that - talent pool to a - company's programmers and its paying customers. What's more - it means - centralized control. This isn't bazaar - its cathedral. I believe most organizations which have looked into charging a license fee on software which would otherwise be Free Open Source do not wish to charge everyone. In fact, the common intent seems to be to charge ONLY those companies that use the product for a commercial purpose and derive revenue from it. In essence, "If you make money using the product then you must pay, if you use it privately or just make modifications to it then you don't need to pay." With this approach anyone may still work on the product. Furthermore, in many cases the intent of charging the license is twofold. 1) Naturally the creator is trying to get a return on their investment of creating a product which perhaps would not exist if they didn't invest the time in the first place. 2) More importantly, many creators wish to share the revenue in some way with developers who contribute modifications to the project thereby encouraging development. In most bazaars the prime space for stalls is often owned by someone who rents it to the merchants. Perhaps the "owners" were merchants themselves when the bazaar was a free-for-all an managed to hold and expand their prime position, this is the nature of enterprise. The owners of space do make money but they generally reinvest in the infrastructure for the bazaar to the good of everyone. Regards, David Davies
Re: Subscription/Service Fees - OSD Intent
on Fri, Mar 30, 2001 at 11:40:35AM -0800, Laura Majerus ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: -Original Message- From: Ben Tilly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... In the case of Open Source licenses, however, this stuff is too new for there to be any value in simply sticking with bad language. I did a search of Lexis recently and could not find a single case interpreting the GNU GPL or the Mozilla GL. There is none for the GNU GPL. The resulting uncertainty is often branded as a weakness. But IMHO it should be viewed as a strength. Plenty of companies who were not particularly friendly to the GPL have been challenged for GPL violations. *NOT ONE* (after full review by their lawyers) thought that their odds of winning a case against it was good enough to take it to court. In my books that is pretty reassuring. :-) Cheers, Ben _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com I'm collecting information on gpl disputes that have been settled amicably (or at least settled out of court). "Plenty of companies" is a bit vague. Pointers anyone? Among the more often cited, NeXT computer and the g++ compiler extensions. For general information, Eben Moglen or the FSF are a good start. Jeremy Allison, Samba Team (and VA Linux employee), has chased after any number of folks who've really liked the idea of a Legacy MS Windows-compatible networked fileshare but didn't feel quite the same about the GNU GPL. Some entertaining stories there. John Carmack, of Doom and Id Software fame, has had a few brushes, including one fellow who essentially tried to release Doom under an NDA-type agreement. This story was carried at Slashdot, which is also a good place to look for various allegations of GPL violations -- the words "GPL violation" turns up several hundred articles. The Carmack story is here: http://slashdot.org/articles/00/02/23/2014205.shtml My own experience in this light was with Microsoft's Unix Services for Windows NT. Several GNU utilities were included in binary format w/o sources or other GPL section 3 requirements. A note to Doug Miller (Microsoft VP of product marketing, former CEO of Interix, from whence the product was derived) wrote back with a "thanks for bringing this to our attention, we'll fix it". Not even an attempt at a fight. They pick theirs, I'm sure, and this certainly wasn't it. -- Karsten M. Self [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org PGP signature
Re: Subscription/Service Fees - OSD Intent
Corel had two recent GPL conflicts. First, they held a "private" beta that wasn't that private. Nothing much came of this one. The beta ended and all the source was publicly available. Second, they wrote a (pre-GPL) Qt front end to Debian apt-get. In this case, the original author gave Corel permission to do so. -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org
