Tim wrote:
On Thu, 2006-01-19 at 04:43 -0800, jdow wrote:
this is why I do not elect to develop for Linux. I see it's viral licensing as being too big a risk for one person to face alone. That is all I said in that first comment. It's all I continue to say. For *ME* it is not a suitable choice for development efforts that are designed to provide me with my living.
Not knowing anything about what you might be doing, if you considered it worth your while, is this really a problem for you, a lost opportunity for us, or just an intellectual discussion?
That all depends on perspective, doesn't it? I've given an example of the reasoning of lawyers in large corporations with regards to the [L]GPL. In particular, the LGPL is thought by the lawyers I talked to to have clauses which would not stand in court, specifically the reasoning that linking with a library creates a derivative work.
OTOH, going to court might well mean revealing the source, and demonstrating that none of the code is actually derived kills any trade secret status of the code, because it has been revealed. In any case, companies are unwilling to risk going to court in order to use Linux, when other OS with more interpretable licenses exist, and which are as cheap as Linux when you factor in the support issues which come with the "cost free" Linux versions.
There's plenty of other computer OSs to earn your living through, with a wider user base, too. And have we *really* suffered, as Linux users, because we don't have Microsoft Office, et all? Much of what I've used that's commercial hasn't been "better" than what wasn't commercial, just different. Thus far, virtually everything has been an improvement, the more I've moved into using Linux instead of the dark side.
In part it depends on whether you consider deployment good for an OS. If you don't mind being a 2% market forever, then you don't care whether you get deployment. If you want to grow, then you have to ask whether the deployment you are missing is deployment you want.
It also depends on whether you think that eventually everything you will ever want will eventually be provided in a form which conforms to the GPL, and whether you are willing to wait. In particular, I'm aware that many new devices have proprietary interfaces, so you can't create device drivers for them in a timely manner. This is a topic of discussion here, on a frequent basis. Is that something you consider "suffering", or is it just a minor nuisance? Or is it something that you think you can defeat by refusing to purchase these items? If the last, then 2% of the market is not much muscle, and we wind up with the deployment question again.
Some people seem to *like* the idea that they are suffering in some way, and like to enjoy it being because "other" people are "greedy".
As an abstract concept, I can't really think of a way of making masses of money out of selling fancy writing paper, and aren't concerned that
I don't understand what the allusion is.
other things don't allow me to do so. I make my money in some other way. Now, if the thing that I couldn't exploit was the only possible way that I could earn a living, that would be a problem. But it isn't.
I tend to view Linux like many other things that are hard to define their worth in dollar terms, but it's existence is worthwhile. Not everything in life should be about money.
Hmm, you may be one of the "some people" I mentioned above.
Eating is often about money, and is something I like to do on a regular basis. I love creating software, and I want to have a job doing what I love to do. So long as the GPL applies to GNU (and "Linux" is mostly GNU) then GNU will not be a target of my efforts.
Those things I wish to contribute to others, I don't do by hamstringing them with the GPL or even LGPL. I do it by putting them into the public domain. Then it really is free. GPL and LGPL are, IMO, not the way to contribute to a free effort. I am philosophically opposed to them, as well as practically opposed to them. For those who live in the USA, I recommend investigating Benjamin Franklin's position on patents. He was opposed to having a patent office in these USA, and failed. He therefore indeed got patents, and promptly put them into the public domain, because he was philosophically opposed to profiting from something that could benefit his fellow man. If that is the way you feel, then public domain is the way to go, not GPL or even LGPL.
Mike