On Friday 31 December 2010 09:02:44 Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
2010/12/30 Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) raju@linux-delhi.org:
So with the GPL everyone wins. The client wins because she has the source code of the software and is not dependent on the original author for maintenance. The original developer wins because if the client wants to make money from selling the software the developer can ask for a cut for changing the licence.
True. The GPL was designed to ensure wins for both the developer and the end user. The party that loses in this system is the distributor - he now has to play by the rules, or drop out of the system altogether. GPL-violations.org tracks those distributors who are being difficult about it.
Only violators are losers. Whoever abides by the rules and tailors his business to the rules wins, including distributors - in a way everyone is a minor contibutor to the overall system and everyone is a distributor, including distro vendors like canonical, slackware, whoever. Whiccever way you look at it, everyone is taking orders of magnitude more than they are putting in. The best part is this is intended by design.
Binand