[fpc-devel] LGPL vs BSD

Joost van der Sluis joost at cnoc.nl
Fri Aug 4 14:14:47 CEST 2006


On Fri, 2006-08-04 at 13:59 +0200, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

> I see your point.  I think of it as how each camp can have leverage
> over the other.
> 
> GPL software needs some type of leverage over commercial software as
> they don't have the financial backing (or whatever else).  They do
> this by forcing everybody else to publish there changes, which helps
> the project along.
> 
> Commercial companies feel they need some leverage over GPL software,
> as they invested a lot of money and man-power into some project to try
> and create a better product the end of the day.  They want some return
> on investment. If they had to publish all change, nobody would bother
> buying their product, as they could just use the GPL (free) one.

Commercial companies should find their leverage in those things the non-
profitable section of the GPL-users can't do: Supply the support,
documentation, guarantees that you'll provide help in case of a problem.
And implement and sell things...

Or, in case of fpc - build those specific applications with it, which
are not common enough for a community to write.

Joost




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