New subject: Wine license change

13 Feb 2002


      Steve Langasek vorlon@dodds.net wrote:
...
...
you cannot sell *gpl binaries.  You can sell the media, but not the content.
Think sun has a good idea with dual licensing and having assignment of the
copyright.  This allows them to change the license so that they can make
a productized version.
Since this is not the first time this mistruth show up in the discussion 
here, I think a clarification is warranted.
it is NOT a mistruth.  Maybe I should have said, "you are not really selling
*gpl binaries", but the meaning is the same.  By the license, the source
and binaries are freely distrubutable, thus they have no monetary value.
So assuming the people in a commerical transaction don't give something 
for nothing, the monies paid must be for cost of copying, media...
...
The second paragraph of section 1 of the GPL (v.2) states:
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
  you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
How I read that is that you can charge for the _service_ of copying, but you
are NOT charging for the content.
...
The only limits that the GPL places on sales is that once someone has 
received a copy of binaries from you, you can't sell them the SOURCE at an 
additional cost that's higher than your distribution cost.  Up to that 
point, you can charge people whatever you want to for access to GPLed
^^^^^^^^^^
...
*content*.  You just don't have any power to make sure that others don't 
sell that same content at a price lower than yours, or even give it away.
no disagreement here.   But nothing you said so far contradicts what I have
said.
...
And although the LGPL is a different license (which is important to keep 
in mind when talking about '*gpl'), the same permission is granted by the 
LGPL to charge a fee (an arbitrary fee) for copies of the software.
you are confusing the what was said.  I did NOT say "you can't charge for
GPLed stuff; they must be distributed free".  What I said was "you can't
charge for the *gpled binaries" because by the license, by section 1,
the receiver can make as many copies as s/he wants (providing it falls
within the *GPL).   The by-product of all this is that the *GPL makes
content "zero cost", thus you can only make money by focusing on something
other than content.
Another way to look at it is like getting a can of compressed air.  Do
you think you are buying air, or do you think you are buying the process
the compressed, canned and distrubuted the air?
-r

Re: Wine license change