🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3NOV199114383049@minnie.me.udel.edu> johnston@minnie.me.udel.edu (Bill Johnston) writes:
>In article <25096@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>, cs199ak@uape_14.ucsd.edu (Eiffel Kills C++) writes...
>>As far as I know, if I write a software package and copyleft it, and
>>sell it to someone, what's to stop them from undercutting my price and
>>selling a mess of copies?  Is there any provision for further
>
>But you can't sell it either.  All you can do is charge "distribution"
>fee and perhaps sell them a manual.  You are highly unlikely to be 
>compensated financially to the extent that you could earn a living
>from the work you have done with your product.  

This is incorrect.  You can sell software which contains copylefted
code to whomever you want for whatever price you can get (what is a
"distribution" fee, if not a selling price?).  The only constraints are
that you must make the source for the whole program available to the
person you sell it to, and you must not restrict their ability to
redistribute the program further on the same basis by which you were
given the right to sell GPL-licensed code in the first place.

If you feel these constraints won't allow you to make the amount
of money you want from the sale of your program then just don't
include any GPL-licensed code in your program in the first place.
Sometimes you can't have your cake and eat it too.

>If you want to donate your efforts to the public, that's fine.
>People will love you for it.  If you want to guarantee that the
>code will be unavailable for commercial use, then CopyLeft it.
>
>If you do this you should recognize that that you are giving up 
>all rights to use the code in traditional commercial applications.
>
>Fortunately, this is not the only way to publish source code.
>To preserve your commercial rights, and release your current source
>to the public all you have to do is "g alt.sources" and hit "p".
>
>That way, your rights to use the code as a foundation for later 
>commercial work are protected, and the right of others to use the 
>code are not restricted.  

This is nonsense, you really should read the GPL if you are going
to comment on it (that is my only qualification).  There is nothing
in the GPL which prevents you from distributing a version of your
own code under the GPL now and under some other terms later.  You
have the right to do whatever you want with your own work, when ever
you want.  It is only if your program contains code written by
someone else and obtained by you under the terms of the GPL that
constrains you to make your program available under the terms of
the GPL if you are distributing the program at all.  You are perfectly
free to do whatever you wish with your own code, but if you use other
people's code you really do have to respect their freedom to do what
they wish with their own software.  This seems fair.

Your whining paranoia, and belittling of the efforts of others because
you don't think you'll be able to get rich enough selling software
they wrote under the terms by which they made it available to you,
grows tiresome.

Dennis Ferguson
University of Toronto