At 11:31 AM 2/8/02 -0700, Brett Glass wrote:
Perhaps a simple economic analysis would help to assuage those egos.
[SNIP]
The (L)GPL destroys this delicately balanced symbiotic relationship by making it impossible for the vendor to add unique value. As a result, the scenario described above can't happen, and it's a lose/lose rather than a win/win. The
I agree with most of what you said, but have a few NEW questions:
1. Companies that benefit from WINE in this way have no incentive to contribute back. So why should they? That means that this kind of companies are of no big help to WINE, so why should we help them with the licensing scheme?
2. Companies like CodeWeavers that have a different business model probably would share code back even with the xGPL. They don't lose anything for doing it. And with the xGPL they don't have to fear that a competitor will make money out of their work. In fact any producer of a Windows app is a potential contributer to WINE, since he will help to make its app run under Linux. A xGPLed WINE would help ensure that the improvements made by those companies come back to the community. This of course without loss to the contributer, since selling WINE will not be his business.
So after all it seems that maybe xGPL is an advantage, even if it prevents some companies from making money from WINE.
What do you think about that?
Roland