Re: [libreplanet-discuss] help with FSF incompatible but community oriented licence(s)

[Patrick]

I just realized that this list seems to be set up so that relies are 
sent as private messages. i was hoping to keep the discussion on list.

I hope you don't mind me posting this Thomas.....



Well,

I'm aware of problem one person has pay for a Dia cdrom copy, and she 
didn't aware it was available for free on Internet: the reseller simply 
didn't mention the name of software but "a free version of Visio" (which 
is absolutely a lie: MS-Visio is convenient for business-plans 
presentations and alike but not for a technical schematic of any kind, 
while Dia produces less eye-candy material but highly readable, even 
with a projector, and has "coding connectors").

Nothing prevents a GPL'ed software to be sold, provided sources can 
comes with no extra cost.

Anyway, whatever proprietary or free license you'll use, anywhere, 
anytime, someone can ether do a robbery.

About publicity, VIM have publicity for a donation to help children of 
Uganda (:help iccf) and nobody would left out that even if its outside 
license terms. On the other hand, Bram Moolenaar (why did I typed Braad 
Molinar?) didn't asked for his name to be known, and it is :)

On second project:

depending on needed expertise to adapt software to instrumentation, you 
can earn money for that (and/or training course with or without 
"accreditation/enlistment").

That model is working well for Koha SIGB, where "Libre support" is 
offered for fee, there is code feedback from "integrators", and I think 
there is no restriction of any kind on support/selling: all involved 
earn enough money.

See also PostgreSQL support model, which has a license far less 
restrictive than GPL, also about RDBMS the Ingres proprietary/Libre 
swaps (I'm unsure how Sybase/MS SQLServer from forked).

HTH,
TH













Hi Thomas

No one has screwed over Bram and the Ugandan kids yet but if the 
opportunity arrives someone will. I think that GPL/BSD/MIT or any number 
of licences work well for widely deployed, infrastructure like projects 
but I also doubt that these projects really generate that much money 
though...

If VIM was source included but people had to pay for it, lots of Ugandan 
kids would have more food.

I could see Google giving a little money to the VIM project as they 
probably use it but in my case I think few labs would contribute back 
any money, especially the ones outside of N. America. I think they would 
just fork the code and do whatever they wanted with it. i also don't 
think I am so special that they could not find some other programmer to 
continue the project without me.

About the training.... This is another weak point in the GPL. I don't 
have the advertising revenue for people to know that I wrote it. I am up 
against companies that have billions in revenue. If they fork the code 
and tell people they are the best people to offer support, they will be 
believed and people will think I am a liar.