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

Re: Intrinsic vs. Market Value

Author:Brett Glass
Posted:8/25/2000; 3:57:07 PM
Topic:Next survey: Are you an open source developer?
Msg #:20276 (In response to 20249)
Prev/Next:20275 / 20277

One part in the idea of intrinsic value and market value that escapes me in the GPL vs. "TrulyFree(TM)" licenses debate is how the "TrulyFree" licenses raise the market value to any significant degree.

They don't raise the market value of the original code. That is still set at zero when it becomes available at no cost. However, they do not hinder the creation of new market value via incremental improvements, nor do they prevent parts of the code from being incorporated into other programs to enhance their value. For example, Perl is given away at no cost. But I can do an enhanced version, or I can incorporate Perl into my own product and enhance its value.

We can't stop the release of freely available software from driving the market value of existing products to zero. So, what can we do to keep creative people working, and innovating, and not leaving the business out of frustration with this phenomenon? We afford them the chance to make money by advancing the state of the art still further. It's only fair. The GPL does not do this, and so causes stagnation and causes people to quit the business and quit innovating. (We've seen this in the C compiler market. I was once a compiler writer, but I quit doing it when the GPL destroyed the market.) However, in the BSD world, we see products like BSD/OS doing very well in the presence of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. Why? Because it keeps a few steps ahead and is synergistic with the open source projects. (BSDi often contributes code to them.) The BSDs are a prime example of the way a Truly Free license promotes cooperation and affords opportunities for programmers to make a living.

OK, given that a TrulyFree compiler would drive competitive compilers out of the business, what is left is the ability for creative developers to add marginal value to the TrulyFree compiler by taking the TrulyFree compiler and making proprietary extensions. I am sure there is great short-term profit available there. But, the "problem" with open source, in general, is that there's always developers out there who are interested in improving the base of TrulyFree or even OpenSource software that they will eventually get around to making the same extensions TF or OS.

True. But isn't that what we want: an incentive to innovate further? Fair competition, from both commercial developers and from truly free software, will let developers survive by evolving the product as time goes by. But the GPL kills this ongoing process.

--Brett

P.S. -- You mention Peter Deutsch's GhostScript. Actually, this is an example of someone who was badly hurt by the GPL. He initially tried dual licensing, and did get paid a bit for customizing GhostScript, but made nowhere near the amount of money he could have made if he had sold it exclusively as a commercial product. He realized, too late, that "dual licensing" didn't work.

Alas, he couldn't back out because he'd accepted contributions under the GPL. He tried to blame publishers who distributed the GPLed code on disc rather than the GPL itself, which is what was really at fault. So, he created a license with an even more bitter "poison pill" than the GPL -- one which attacked publishers who distributed the code. This license, the "Aladdin License," didn't do any good because the disc vendors were not the real problem. The real problem was that GPLing the code drove the market value of the code and incremental improvements to it to zero. Deutsch fell into the GPL dual licensing trap, and could not get out. He lost millions.

There are responses to this message:

This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:17 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.