🚀 go-pugleaf

ian@airs.com (Ian Lance Taylor) writes:
>mathew@mantis.co.uk (en font terrible) writes:
>>Then what should have been done is that several AMOS users should have
>>re-ported it themselves and provided source code for their port.
>
>I don't understand why this is ``what should have been done.''  Why
>can't I similarly say that what should have been done is that NOS
>should have been released under the GPL in the first place, avoiding
>the duplication of effort which you are suggesting?  Why is it better
>to force a desired action through economic competition than to simply
>require it in the first place?

The GPL could not have improved this situation in the slightest,
although it could easily have made it worse.  Since we assume the
company released this product to grab a quick buck, we can certainly
conclude that had NOS been GPL'ed, THEY WOULDN'T HAVE USED IT.	Their
goal was to make money selling the program -- so anything with
requirements in conflict with that goal (e.g., GPL'ed code) would
not be tolerated.  The alternatives which might then have occurred
are:

  1. No product would be released at all, because the effort
     to create one from scratch exceeded the expected value.
     This is certainly worse than what happened -- if you
     have a buggy product, you may be able to work around
     the bugs, but if you don't have the product at all,
     you're stuck.

  2. Or, the company would write their own product completely
     from scratch, so that (unlike a GPL derivative) they
     could sell it (which, again, was their main goal).
     Since they didn't even manage a good port of NOS, it
     seems a safe assumption that any equivalent which they
     wrote entirely by themselves would be even buggier.
     Not only that, but its users would have no chance
     whatsoever to get the source code so they could fix it
     themselves.  Also, if the company wrote their own, the
     added effort required would likely result in a higher
     price.  So the users would end up paying more money
     for worse code.

Either way, the GPL would make the situation worse.  (And without
ever advancing the stated goal of the FSF, since in no case would
the final product's source be released.)


Jesse Perry   jesse@franklin.com   uunet!frnkmth!jesse