[Haskell-cafe] Why Not Haskell?

[Immanuel Litzroth]

"Brian Hulley" <brianh at metamilk.com> writes:


>
> I meant "even a non-programmer" in the sense of  "even someone who is
> not a C hacker" to show that the threat of people being able to "steal
> code" from a program is not the only source of problems that GPL could
> impose on a commercial application. No derogatory implication towards
> people who choose not to learn computer programming was intended.
>
>>
>> The GPL itself refers to a cost of distribution, since it recognizes
>> such things are not free-in-price.  This is in reference to offering
>> a copy of the source code.  The price of a binary copy can be as
>> large as desired. Likewise for the cost of support.
>
> Well I understand the "free as in free speech not free beer" motto,
> but suppose person A is talented at writing software but prefers a
> peaceful existence and lacks the contacts/refs/desire/energy etc to be
> a consultant or contractor, and has had the bad experience of being
> forced to work extremely long hours with low pay while in an employed
> position, and person B is outgoing, ebullient, and talented at
> marketing and advertising. Now person A spends some years quietly
> writing some code, which uses a GPL library and is therefore GPL'd,
> and sells it, as is his/her right under the GPL to person B. Then
> person B is free, as in "free speech" to do whatever he/she likes with
> the software, and so in particular could use his/her marketing skills
> to completely undermine person A's one and only hope of earning a
> living, so from person A's point of view the *amortized* effect of the
> GPL is to make his/her software free as in "free beer" as well.
>
Then someone discovers a bug in the program of person A. Person B
is being so busy being outgoing, ebullient and effervescent that he
does not easily find the cause of the bug. Moreover the code needs to
be ported to a the new Warthog MacOSX release. Person A being not only
talented but also shrewd now uses the contractual obligations of
person B as leverage to screw him out of most of his previously made
profit for delivering said work. He lived peacefully ever after.

What is this, Economic Analysis by Parable?
Immanuel
-- 
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Immanuel Litzroth
Software Development Engineer
Enfocus Software
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Email: Immanuell at enfocus.be
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