iPhone restricts users, GPLv3 frees them

[Charlton Wilbur]

On Jul 2, 2007, at 1:58 AM, Anthony Morton wrote:

> Let me put it more capitalistically.  If you're the creator of a  
> piece of software and you want to take it open-source but retain  
> control over it, you don't want your competitors to take advantage  
> of the IP you've just magnanimously made public in order to take  
> away your market share.  So a GPL-style licence works as a kind of  
> patent, that allows others to benefit from your stuff while you  
> retain control over your IP.

Except that the control is illusory:  once it's given away, you have  
no more control over it.  The GPL does prevent other people from  
selling it where you can't, and the existence of dual-licensing  
approaches like MySQL's means you can still profit from it.  On the  
other hand, the profit motive is a large part of why people develop  
software, and nobody who contributes to the software can profit  
directly from that contribution.  There's a reason that Apple built  
OS X on a BSD-licensed base, and it's not purely technical.

For that matter, you never give up control over your IP; you always  
hold the copyright, and in fact it's the copyright that makes the  
license meaningful and enforceable at all.  The primary difference in  
control between the GPL and the BSD license is that the GPL tries to  
exert control over other people who want to use the code, putting  
restrictions on what they may and may not do with it.

And from a profit-seeking capitalist point of view, the GPL is a  
disaster, because it restricts what license-holders may charge while  
giving any license holder the ability to duplicate the software.  It  
is impossible to profit from GPL-licensed software directly; you can  
sell the first copy for as much as you like, but the purchaser can  
turn around and *give* the software away, completely legally.  It is  
*designed* to do this, and it's foolish to pretend otherwise.

Wise people who want to profit from their code directly (and not from  
support contracts for their code) don't release it under an open  
source license in the first place, or produce a legal hedge such as  
MySQL's approach, where the GPL doesn't apply if it's for commercial  
redistribution.

> The alternative, if you want to maintain control over your IP, is  
> of course the traditional approach where you don't publish  
> anything.  Should I presume those who call the GPL 'communist' or  
> 'anti-competitive' because of its restrictions have a similar  
> attitude to developers who don't publish their source code?

If you want to maintain control over your code, you don't release it  
under any open source licence.  Once it's released, you retain just  
as much control over the IP with the BSD or MIT license, and the  
choice of licenses determines how much you control over other  
people's IP in the form of works derivative to yours.  The fact that  
the FSF has managed to redefine "free" in such a way that the GPL,  
with all its restrictions on how subsequent users may use the  
licensed code, is considered more "free" than the BSD or MIT license  
is a triumph of propaganda over clear thought.

Charlton





-- 
Charlton Wilbur
cwilbur at gmail.com
cwilbur at chromatico.net