[nycbug-talk] Re: wasabi

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006, Marc Spitzer wrote:

> ok you are having issues with economics.  For example lets say a project
> costs $10 million dollars to build.  You go to a vc firm and ask for
> money.  They see that your product is bases on gpled code and is
> targeted to sell for $100/unit.  If they know their business they will
> walk away from the deal because your company does not own its product.  
> That $10 million is actually worth $100 because If I give you $100 I get
> all of your code.
You are now trying to make things ambigous. "Based on GPL'd code" is not a
clear thing. Say, you are making a toaster that runs linux. There's no
issue with the fact that the code is GPL'd - your product is not a derived
work. 

Now, say, your name is Abode Software and due to customers being pissed
with your existing software, you are coming out with a much improved
graphics design product Gimposhop, which is based on GIMP and your 
existing Shopophot product. Yes, indeed, you will be screwed, because you 
"don't own the product". And, yes, you *should* be screwed, because you 
are using the labor of thousands of people to make money, without paying 
the original developers off. Your 10M$ that you spend on Gimposhop may 
look like a lot to you - but it pales with thousands of man-hours spent on 
the product you started with.

> Many times the only way to make software afforable is to make it a
> product so the cost can be shared among a pool of users who find value
> in the product.  the GPL makes that entirly too risky to make it make
> sence from a bussiness perspective.
GPL is not designed for that. That's called commercial license.

-alex