🚀 go-pugleaf

   From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)

   So we are stuck on the horns of two dilemmas, as it were:

   1.	When is my revenue in a for profit operation deriving from GNU
	   code instead of other code (and more important, where does GNU
	   believe this demarcation occurs)?  Is it when I make a profit
	   off of software patches requiring GNU compilation at the user
	   site, for instance?

Somehow I think that Cygnus is doing a fair job of creating revenues from
work on GNU software, given that we're 31+ employees right now, all being
paid via work on free software.  What we do is not to sell the software,
but the service that we add to it.  We provide warranty support
(bugfixing), porting (effectively consulting work), integration with
customer fixes, shrink-wrap distributions, and more.  We give the software
away.  We charge for the things that actually cost money -- the costs
associated with the physical manuals and tapes, and the costs associated
with the time that we spend fixing bugs and improving future releases.

   2.	What is "reasonable" as it is used in the GPL?

This isn't that interesting of a question, imo.  It's valid only in the
context of trying to sell the software.  But the right way to go about this
sort of operation is to sell the service, and give the software away. 

If one of our customers wants to make copies of our software and give them
to other people, that's fine.  That's happened.  We've even encouraged it.
But if someone who gets a tape from our customer calls us up and wants a
bug-fix for gcc, we're going to sign them up as a customer before we'll fix
it for them.  Again, the software is free.  My time as an software author
is not.  


  david d 'zoo' zuhn |    The problem with politics is that it puts you in
    cygnus support   |    contact with the sort of people that you'd really
    zoo@cygnus.com   |    rather try to avoid.