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From: kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: GPL (was Re: Linux vs FreeBSD)
Message-ID: <kevinbDJnvyt.8oo@netcom.com>
Sender: kevinb@netcom.netcom.com
Reply-To: kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Organization: Frobozzco International
References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4alpl5$a39@klaava.helsinki.fi> <4an3hq$r6l@helena.mt.net> <4art3r$2ap@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>
Distribution: comp
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 04:18:29 GMT
Lines: 40
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:31261 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:11060
In article <4art3r$2ap@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>,
Donal K. Fellows <fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <4an3hq$r6l@helena.mt.net>,
>Nate Williams <nate@sneezy.sri.com> wrote:
>> In article <4alpl5$a39@klaava.helsinki.fi>,
>> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
>>> Now, nobody in his right mind uses floppies for software distribution
>>> any more, so I don't really see the reason for whining about the size of
>>> sources. You can easily fit sources on a CD (or two - CD costs can't be
>>> high if people actually make money off selling 4-CD distributions for
>>> $25 USD). And that releases you of all future obligations..
>>
>> *IF* you're a CD rom manufacturer and/or a software house that sells
>> thousands of copies of software I'd agree with you, but if you're a
>> small software house you'd be lucky to sell 1000 copies. Doing
>> one-off's require that buy a *LOT* of hardware ($$), or, you could
>> have a CD house build you (minimum of 1000 copies) a CD and sell
>> that to your customer. Either way you've got to recover those costs
>> somehow, and those costs are significant.
>
>But the GPL _does_ allow you to recover those costs. It merely forbids
>you to deny access to the sources, and it allows someone else with the
>sources to distribute them on to a third party (which tends to cut the
>quantity of profit you can make out of providing the sources :^)
However, note that if the vendor has to increase the price of his
product significantly in order to distribute the source (e.g., by
including the appropriate reader), then that vendor will become less
competitive (due to the extra charge to the customer) in the
marketplace than he would be otherwise.
Just thought I'd point this out...
--
Kevin Brown kevin@frobozz.sccsi.com
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