Re: Petreley on commercial support for non-MS OSes

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

Brett wrote:

>Alas, it's people trying to write commericial ANYTHING who are "screwed"
>by the GPL. The GPL was intended to hurt those who developed ANY
>commercial software.

Oops.  I meant Linux in particular, as an example of a GPLed OS, not the
GPL itself.

>I'm afraid that Eric Raymond, in his paper, "The Cathedral and the
>Bazaar," got it wrong. In fact, we now have three entities: the
>Fortress (Microsoft), the Cathedral (GPLed software), and the Bazaar
>(everyone else). Both Church and State find the free-wheeling Bazaar
>to be dangerous and seek to control or extinguish it. And they may
>yet do so if we do not work to prevent this from occurring.

I don't see many vendors releasing GPLed products.  If that changes, maybe
the GPL will be a threat, but I doubt it will happen.

>Watch for Red Hat to start offering attractive deals for a bundle
>containing its version of Linux and the office suite of its choice.
>Ditto Caldera and Corel. When one of them becomes dominant, you may
>see a similar situation to the one with Microsoft. No, there's nothing
>in the GPL that precludes this.

Sure it does.  The GPL ensures that you can get the original GPLed product
without any of the add-on bundled items.  Linux will still be available
without bundled office suites or browsers, whereas Windows is only
available in whatever bundles Microsoft chooses to sell.

>Methinks that you might be drawing an artificial line between OSes and
>other products. Why grant a special exception for one type of software
>product? I can see a potential "slippery slope" here.

I'm not saying I think this should or should not happen... just that this
sort of division is something I can imagine many ISVs finding desirable.
Companies that make OS enhancements are likely to have a difficult time
with GPLed OSes, but that doesn't mean other vendors won't forge ahead with
it despite the headaches it will cause others.



--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/)
Cornell University, Field of Biochemistry, 377 Olin Chemistry Lab

Piano, n.  A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor.  It is
operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the
audience.
-Ambrose Bierce