Re: Calling a program without knowing the parms

On Friday 06 July 2001 16:55, Chris Rehm wrote:
> > If I'm going to give you software for free, I'm not going to make
> > money on it anyway.  Why should I spitefully restrict you from making
> > money on it?  My main goal is to help people (and hopefully encourage
> > them to help me in return).
>
> That is the difference in philosophies between the two. GPL says, "I
> built this to be free to anyone so if you are using it as a component
> in your code you have to give it free too." and BSD is "I'm giving this
> away free but you can charge." I'd think you'd want to cover your BSD
> license a bit with a requirement for "substantial enhancement" before
> charging or something.

Don't confuse free (gratis) with free (libre). A more accurate term might 
be freedom software. You are perfectly at liberty to charge a fee for 
your GPL'd software but you must make the source code available for free 
(or reasonable distribution costs). The idea is that you don't restrict 
the rights of those who receive your software (this is the copyleft bit) 
- they can even choose to give away the package you sold to them. With 
BSD software this freedom doesn't exist - Microsoft based their TCP/IP 
stack on the BSD code but I can't see their changes (if I had a copy of 
windows, that is).

> > In the AS/400 (iSeries) world, where EVERYTHING is based on business
> > needs, the use of the GNU GPL could very well be a major reason not
> > to use your software.
>
> Well, certainly. But wouldn't there already be a major difference? I
> mean, you want to use the GNU stuff if what you are doing is running on
> top of or in concert with an existing GNU component. Then your customer
> is simply required to have that component (which you can obtain/install
> for them as part of your agreement). But if you want to modify an
> existing set of code to provide a function within it, that's when you
> need to look at a different license.
>
> The GNU guys simply feel that if you want to change a couple of lines
> of code within the zillions they've written, that doesn't give you the
> right to sell their work as your product. That is how they license it.

Correct with a qualification. You can't claim you wrote it, but you can 
sell it as a product. If there really are only a few changes it would be 
tricky to get away with calling it a different product.

> > All I'm asking is that you weight the alternatives before jumping
> > onto the GPL bandwagon...
>
> That's a very good idea.

Agreed.

> > See these links:

The GPL FAQ I mentioned elsewhere on this thread is worth a perusal too.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-faq.html

> > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
>
> http://www.privacy.nb.ca/cryptography/archives/coderpunks/new/1998-10/0
>032.h tml
>
> > http://www.softpanorama.org/OSS/license_classification.shtml
>
> http://interactive.wsj.com/fr/emailthis/retrieve.cgi?id=SB9928191574372
>37260 .djm
>
> > (sorry if any of those links wrap to the next line...  if they do,
> > you'll have to cut & paste them to make them work)
>
> Chris Rehm
> javadisciple@earthlink.net
> If you believe that the best technology wins the
> marketplace, you haven't been paying attention.

Regards, Martin
-- 
martin@dbg400.net / jamaro@firstlinux.net
http://www.dbg400.net  DBG/400 - DataBase Generation utilities 
Open Source test environment tools for the AS/400 / iSeries and 
miscellaneous database & spooled file management commands.
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