Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Intrinsic vs. Market Value

Author:David Adams
Posted:8/25/2000; 12:54:21 PM
Topic:Next survey: Are you an open source developer?
Msg #:20244 (In response to 20239)
Prev/Next:20243 / 20245

I can't sell you the air you breathe, for example; it has zero market value. But it has great intrinsic value to you; you'd die without it.

So is it unethical for plants and trees to provide oxygen? They've driven its market value to zero and you can't make money selling it to me!

But this is what the GPL does to programmers. It deprives them of something which has no market value but great intrinsic value.

But it doesn't deprive them! The price of using GPLed code in your project is the price of releasing your modifications. So why not look at it this way: If it costs you US$100,000 to re-implement the functionality of my GPLed code, consider that the price I would otherwise assign to the code if I were going to license it to you.

Yeah, the GPL is more restrictive than "Brett's Truly Free Licenses," but that's the point.

-dave

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