On Wednesday 12 March 2003 04:34 pm, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > Right, so here's what I'll do. I'll create a non-free derivative of > GNU Foo, which adds a splendid text-manipulation function that many > people want. And I'll write a CGI so that people can type in text and > my web site will run the modified GNU Foo. I'll charge people money > for this service, and never release my changes. The original GNU Foo > did make its source available over the web interface, but my > modification does not.
I know you meant this as a code hijacking horror story. But I don't see wrongdoing or problems with this. By definition, you are providing the computing hardware to run the above service. That costs money and is provided as a service. You have a right to charge for that alone, IMHO. Furthermore, if you made enough modifications and/or innovations to prevent being outcompeted by a free competitor derived from the same GPL sources you used, then you have committed considerable capital resources. Once again, IMHO, you have a right to charge for your work. If I don't like to pay you, I have an easy option -- just replicate from "GNU Foo". The point is, if it's *easy* I don't have a problem and if it's *hard* then you earned your money. Either way though, there's a non-negligible market force pressing you to release anyway, since as your user-base grows then either your costs increase (perhaps non-linearly since web services don't scale in a completely linear way) or your service level declines. Either way, it becomes increasingly attractive to switch to multiple providers or a distributed library (for users). Unless it is extraordinarily hard to duplicate your work (or run the server), this will happen. And if it is so difficult that is a legitimate reason to keep using the service. (Think of the Google example again). I personally do not think that putting Google into the pincher is a desireable goal. Surely the carrot -- allowing free developers to improve the software instead of having to bear all development costs on yourself -- is adequate to encourage release, without the stick. > David Turner thinks this should be prohibited, and therefore the GPL > should be changed to prohibit it. You have said that as long as no > distribution happens, it's fine. Which is it? Well, I don't know what *he* thinks, but *I* think the GPL as-is is a better thing. I think the change would cause too much "collateral damage" to be worth whatever it might save us from. (at least, including your example, I haven't seen a compelling reason to fear the present rules continuing). Again, this is mostly the perspective of a user. Although, I am in fact developing a web application, and for me the "carrot" is far and away sufficient to release the code, even though I expect there will be few actual deployments. I'm hoping users of my site will be motivated by the desire to make my site more useful to them. I do see the counter-point though: what if Microsoft adopted my code and put in 1000s of man-hours into out-competing me on the web? But I'm not convinced that's a serious threat -- there are serious reasons why their product would be inferior to mine if I am accepting free-collaboration. Maybe a more concrete example of threat would change my opinion. But the counter-threat of eliminating the flexibility of web services would stifle innovation (do *you* know the full potential of such services in 10 years? I don't). And you have to erode "fair-use" to impose such a restriction, which I don't like in principle. Hmm. Terry -- Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com ) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com
