IPL as a burden
Ian Lance Taylor
ian at airs.com
Wed Jan 17 02:11:55 UTC 2001
Manfred Schmid <mschmid at intradat.com> writes:
> > But the clarification that is likely to happen will not
> > be to your liking.
>
> If the whole construct is clear and consistent, we all know where we
> stand. I would prefer that to the current situation.
The current situation is that we all know where we stand--at least,
everybody but you. We're telling you where we all stand, but you do
not believe us.
> Put yourself in the position of a normal company (not IBM, HP or
> comparable), lets say 100 employees. Any company will sooner or later go
> out of business if it cannot compensate the costs incurred by an
> appropriate revenue stream.
I've been working on free software for over 10 years. I've heard this
argument all along. Over that time there have been quite a few
companies who have made plenty of money on open source software--heck,
I've made plenty of money myself.
But maybe those are all exceptions. Maybe you're right: maybe you
can't stay in business working on open source software.
So what?
The lesson to draw from that is to not build a business on open source
software.
You seem to be drawing the lesson that we need to redefine the meaning
of ``open source.'' That doesn't make any sense. If every company
working on open source software goes out of business, that in no way
lessens the value of open source software.
> Since we will be claiming license fees from the customers, we will give
> money back to the community in a clear and transparent way. We think
> that this is a good idea for all parties involved
Great! Go for it.
Just don't call it ``open source.''
Ian
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