🚀 go-pugleaf

nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) wrote:
>   First we have two options.  We can either include the linkable versions
>   in all distributions, or we can provide it upon request.
>     a) Provide with standard distribution
> 	This doubles our distribution size.

On SunOS and SVR4, if the GPLL'd library is a shared library, your
ordinary executables are *already* linkable versions.  The user can
simply replace the shared library, which is automatically linked
with your code every time you run it.  There is only one version,
and it's the one you are already shipping to your customers.

In reviewing drafts of the GPLL, we tried to make sure that a good
shared library implementation would make this part of the GPLL painless.
It is.

>   Now in both cases there are some other costs.  Not the least of which is
> support.

Cygnus Support knows something about that :-).  Most customers are
happy with the binary Some want the ability to read the source.  They
aren't trouble, except that they report bugs they noticed from reading
it.  Of those customers who recompile from source, 95% know enough
about what they are doing that they only ask for support when they
really need it.  They tend to send back enhancements and bug fixes.
There will be a few who recompile for the hell of it and don't really
know what they are doing.  You will have to deal with them.  Is this
pain worth whatever you gain by using free software?  It depends on the
gain -- a month of development time?  Maybe.  Half a day?  Maybe not.

Motorola only provides support for their 56K compiler to people who
have not bought the source from them.  That was their solution to this
potential problem.  (If the customer was smart enough to get the source
via a third party, the customer is probably not one of the few losers.)

>   Now I get more specific to our case.  When we started out we got initial financing
>   from several companies in return to source rights and reduced royalties.  Those
>   companies have the right to source to new versions of our product.  We cannot
>   give them source which restricts their use of our product.  Using the LGPL would
>   do exactly that.

When you donate code to FSF, putting it under copyleft, you and FSF
sign a standard contract.  Part of your rights in that contract are to
request and receive from FSF an unencumbered copy of the source at any
time.  You can do whatever you want with that copy (sell it, take it
proprietary, etc).  FSF will continue to have the right to distribute
it too, of course.  You will have to enhance your taken-back version or
it won't be any better than the free version.

If you freed your software, you could immediately take back a version
which you could give to the companies that financed you.  This would make
the software copylefted for most people, but versions distributed by
your financing companies would not be free.  This is still better than
it being free for nobody.

> The real bummer here is that I really would like to use a particular piece of
> GNU code, in particular I've been looking at different versions of malloc. But
> there's no way I can justify going through all of that mess just to get a new
> version of malloc.  Because the cost above is static, no matter what I use.

At the bottom of the GPL it says to talk to the FSF if you want other
possibilities.  For example, if you GPL'd your whole program (and dealt
with your investors as above) then FSF might be willing to give you or
your investors an unencumbered copy of malloc, to satisfy this
particular constraint on your situation.  The result would be more free
software, which is why the FSF might consider it.

>                  If you believe that's wrong, and that software should be
> free and we should all follow Cygnus's example, then as I say, go for it
> with GPL.  I even think it's a nice ideal, but I wouldn't apply it just
> to software.  It's even better if applied to basics like food, clothing
> and heat.  But practically speaking we haven't figured out yet how to
> make that kind of society function.

When we can reproduce food, clothing and heat at near-zero cost per person,
we had better have figured out how to make that kind of society function.
Many people are working on the technology to do just that.  Consider GNU
software an economic testbed for the potential post-scarcity society.
-- 
John Gilmore   {sun,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu   gnu@toad.com   gnu@cygnus.com
"It isn't given to us to know those rare moments when people
 are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal."