Author: David Blackman
Date: 00:30:31 11/11/98
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On November 11, 1998 at 02:00:06, Dann Corbit wrote: >Linux is a copyleft product. All the development tools for Linux are also >copyleft. This is true, at least for the most popular tools. > If you produce something with copyleft tools, it also is copyleft. This is not true. I suggest you actually read the GPL. Nowhere does it say this. There are a large number of programs for Linux, many of them developed with GCC and other Gnu tools, that are sold under proprietry licences. Richard Stallman is probably a bit unhappy about this, but he has said several times he is not going to change the GPL to make it illegal. >1. How can you possibly sell something, when it is illegal to do so, except for >the cost of the media? Again, this is not illegal. If you develop something using GPL tools, the result is not GPL unless you want it to be. And even if it is GPL, you can sell it for any price you like. The only catch is if you sell GPL software, you have to give the customers a copy of the GPL, and if they bother to read it, they will find it is legal to give copies to all their friends, or even sell it. >2. Will you spend a million dollars developing something, when you have to give >away the source code to anyone who asks? It is actually possible to make money doing this kind of thing. Red Hat and others are making a fair bit out of Linux. Andrew Tridgell could be making heaps out of Samba if he wanted to (and i think others actually are) although the source code is freely available for that. I'm not sure if the chess software market is big enough for that though. Even the guys selling chess programs in the traditional way are struggling now, from what i hear.
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