Re: SCO identifies code?
On Wednesday 20 August 2003 07:14, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 06:27:03PM +0100, iain d broadfoot wrote:
> > * Bijan Soleymani (bijan@psq.com) wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 08:43:21AM +0100, Mark wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 09:33:03PM -0400, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> > > > > This makes a lot of sense. I mean if the FSF hired you to write a
> > > > > GPL program, they wouldn't want you to release a proprietary
> > > > > version of it after you quit working for them.
> > > >
> > > > Why would they care? They would have their GPLed version, if you
> > > > choose to write a closed version, that's your choice.
> > >
> > > If they didn't care about closed version they wouldn't use the GPL.
> >
> > This is broken logic.
> >
> > The FSF would have nothing to lose from a closed version of a GPL piece
> > of software being developed.
>
> It's not nothing. Let's say half the users use the FSF/GPL version and
> half use the closed version. The FSF has just lost half its users. By
> the FSF's theory half the users have lost their freedom.
No, they've chosen (for some presumably good reason) to use the 'closed'
version. They still have the freedom to choose.
The most you can say is, by using non-'free', they're helping (financially)
the 'closed' version and reducing the user base of the 'free' version. That
doesn't matter much so long as the versions remain compatible.
If it's M$ doing the 'closed' version, of course, we know what would happen -
copyrighted non-free 'features' get added, after which they try to squeeze
the free version out. OTOH, if it's a company with the slightest degree of
ethics, then the two versions could offer a wider choice to users.
cr
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