[ILUG] open source article

[David Murphy]

Quoting <20000313205916.A14247 at avalon.no46.wombat.ie>
by Kenn Humborg <kenn at linux.ie>:

> I.e., it's perfectly legal for you to take a GPL program, add a
> feature and sell CDs of the improved program for $10000 as long as
> you publish the changes you made to the source code. In practice,
> this doesn't happen very much, because your competitor down the
> street is able to get your changes and sell exactly the same thing
> for whatever he chooses.

So, effectively, there's no money to be made in GPL software. Note
carefully that I say "GPL software", by which I mean copies of or
per-user/per-machine licences to use GPL software. I do not mean
consultancy on the selection, deployment, or tailoring of GPL
software. I do not mean training on the use of GPL software. I do not
mean hardware bundled with GPL software that enables one to ues the
hardware. Those are all ways to make money using GPL software, 

[ESR]
> Take away the freedom to distribute your fixes and improvements and
> most of the incentives to contribute go away.

True, but that is a freedom provided by many licences, of which the
GPL is only one.

-- 
When asked if it is true that he uses his wheelchair as a weapon he will reply:
"That's a malicious rumour. I'll run over anyone who repeats it."
Stephen Hawking - [http://www.smh.com.au/news/0001/07/features/features1.html]
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