Re: Linux Torvalds on GPL2
Ray Smith wrote:
>
> Chris Bensler wrote:
> >
> > Ray Smith wrote:
> >
> > [SNIP]
> >
> > > It is a niche product, not a mainstream product where alot of alternatives
> > >
> > > already exist.
> >
> > What difference does that make? If a person thinks they could make money in
> > a saturated market, what concern is it of yours?
>
> It's not of my concern. Anyone is obviously free to do what they want.
> It's much more difficult to sell something in a saturated market where "great"
> free alternatives exist.
>
> BUT ... if 2 or 3 people each go and make closed source versions of Euphoria,
> each with a different feature set ... how does this help the long term future
> of
> Euphoria?
> It will just make it more complicated.
Commercial versions can invest money into researching and developing their
version of the language. There would still be the opensource version if people
want to incorperate the same features.
Commercial versions could also act as testing grounds to see what features work.
Commercial versions would typically employ more highly skilled programmers,
developing better quality code.
Not all, but some, if not many of the people who use the source for commercial
products would likely want to support the product that seeded thier own, if only
to help foster more free code that they could use.
I don't see anything wrong with that.
Take Apache for example. Many companies fund it because they use it and they
want it to continue developing.
> Even if 1 closed source version became the winner ... and everyone started to
> use that ... we are back to were we started from with 1 man running the show.
How would it be the same? Rob's source would still be available.
How would it be unfair if a company invested $1,000's into advertising and
development to make a quality product and expected to be compensated for that
investment? It's not as simple as just cashing in on Robs work.
> Which worked ... "ok" ... but nowhere near as productive as many of the
> currenty open source competitors.
That's just your opinion. You have any data to verify that?
> > Here's a question for you Ray, not really related to this reply, but anyway:
> > If a product is opensourced under LGPL, or GPL or whatever, the basic
> > premise
> > is 'tit for tat' as Linus Torvalds put it.
> > How much 'tit' = 'tat'? At what point have I satisfied payment for the
> > source
> > to be used at my own discretion?
>
> Difficult question, not a single answer obviously.
> Persoanlly, I'd be happy for people to make lots of money with Euphoria.
> Making IDE's or debuggers, that "plug in" to the Euphoria interpreter.
> And as long as these people always had the long term future of Euphoria in
> mind I'm sure everyone would be happy.
We could already make extraneous applications to support Eu and sell them, I
don't see that happening. Before there can be supply, there needs to be demand.
> But, unless the core is always open and free there will be occasions when
> things won't work "well" together, or different versions make it difficult
> for someone, of multiple efforts are required to keep "versions in synch" etc.
Without competition, you will be driving in a tunnel.
> As long as a way forward exists where everyone works together for the same
> goal
> then I think everyone will be happy :)
That's naive, IMO. People very rarely agree on things.
Sounds like Communism :)
In theory it's utopia, but in reality it just doesn't work.
~ The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra ~
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