Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 23:00:06 11/10/98
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On November 11, 1998 at 01:47:38, David Blackman wrote: [snip] >2. How easy it to sell chess programs for Linux? > Answer: probably a lot harder than for Windows, because Windows is what > most chess players have on their computers at home. Instead of "How easy is it to sell chess programs for Linux?" we might instead ask "How can we produce and sell chess programs for Linux?" Linux is a copyleft product. All the development tools for Linux are also copyleft. If you produce something with copyleft tools, it also is copyleft. 1. How can you possibly sell something, when it is illegal to do so, except for the cost of the media? 2. Will you spend a million dollars developing something, when you have to give away the source code to anyone who asks? The answer is plain, you *cannot* develop commercial chess programs for Linux. However, you can get very good programs such as Crafty and Phalanx which are produced by people who won't starve if they don't sell ten thousand copies of a chess program. That does not mean that the independently developed tools will not become even better than the ones you have to buy. As an illustration, GCC is one of the best C & C++ compilers around. I am especially fond of its diagnostics. Yet it was developed under copyleft. It might be possible to give away the razor and sell the blades. This technique is being used by some in the copyleft arena. They sell technical support and other related services. On the other hand, there may be some who are more creative than I am and can figure out a way to develop commercial programs on and for Linux. [IMO-YMMV]
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