


On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 03:46:57PM -0500, Brian T. Sniffen wrote:
> As I said: existing mechanisms of licensing Free Software (e.g. GNU
> GPL and MIT/X11) provide an impetus for improvement.  A
> compulsory-sharing license, as might bring us closer to BrinWorld,
> removes much of the financial incentive for such improvement.  In such
> Akamai, Apple... all wouldn't have been made, and our software
> technology would be that much more primitive.

"The GPL removes much of the financial incentive for such improvement."
After all, you have to provide source and you can't restrict people you
sell copies to from giving it away for free, so the entire sales model of
selling individual programs on the shelf, and licensing software per-seat,
goes completely out the window.

I disagree with this argument, of course (as everyone here probably does: it's
true that the same sales model doesn't work, but it certainly hasn't stopped
innovation), but your argument seems to be exactly the same.  Why is this
argument valid for web applications where it's clearly wrong for other

(To be clear, I'm firmly against forced-sharing; the GPL goes far enough.  I
just don't think this particular argument is valid.)

Glenn Maynard

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