is it just summertime?

[MAILER-DAEMON at crynwr.com]

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, Mitchel Sonies wrote:

> This is addressed in the comment to the license.  It is a new provision,
> but I think it plugs a loophole in the whole licensing schema, and I
> wonder why it's never been addressed before.  I think small open vendor
> A is probably saying that Monopoly X shouldn't be able to take the code
> base, do nothing more than slap the "X" brand label on it and charge a
> lot of money simply because they advertise their brand on television.  

Huh?  This seems a strange goal for an otherwise-open-source license.  I 
think it'll be hard to find a judge that agrees that branding and 
advertising have no value.

If someone doesn't like paying for the branded service, they can get the 
original software from the upstream provider and do it themselves.

> That may be "efficient" in the sense that people pay for brands, but it
> may not result in better software, more competition, more innovation or
> better options for users, etc.  I think the point is that you want
> distributors to charge for true value-added services, not sham
> offerings.

I want distributors to charge for whatever they like.  Recipients of the 
software get source and the ability to distribute as well, so competition 
provides the protection against pricing abuse.
--
Mark Rafn    dagon at dagon.net    <http://www.dagon.net/>  
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