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

the cost of complying with the GPL

Author:Seth Gordon
Posted:8/28/2000; 12:12:02 PM
Topic:Next survey: Are you an open source developer?
Msg #:20393 (In response to 20392)
Prev/Next:20392 / 20394

"Compliance with the GPL" cannot be considered to be the "market value" of anything because its value is not defined. In fact, it entails a potentially infinite loss on the part of the programmer.
I'm not sure what you mean by "a potentially infinite loss on the part of the programmer". Any GPLed program could be rewritten from a non-GPL base. That cost may be high, but it's never infinite.

Translating the GPL into a monetary value is difficult, because the practical cost of compliance is different for different people. For example, if I have no interest in writing, debugging, or improving a C compiler, then obeying the GPL on GCC costs me nothing. On the other hand, for example, if I wanted to implement a compiler for a new language as a GCC front-end (as NeXT did with Objective-C), then my cost for obeying the GPL is equal to the revenue I would have made from selling my compiler under non-GPL terms, minus the cost of reimplementing GCC or licensing another compiler.

This reminds me of how "differential pricing" works in the commercial software world, where students can buy the FooSoft Academic Edition for $100 a copy, working stiffs (or their employers) buy FooSoft Professional for $500, and anyone who wants to develop FooSoft plug-ins has to license the FooSoft Software Developers' Kit for $1000/year.

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