[vorbis-dev] Vorbis license terms?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Alexandra Ellwood wrote:
> The GPL denies freedom to commercial users of the software by forcing 
> them to the pay licensing fees set by the author (which may be set so 
> high that the company can't afford it).  The GPL also denies freedom 
> to projects using other free source licenses by tainting code. 
> Because all MIT software falls under the MIT (BSD) license, I can't 
> use or contribute to GPLed code at work, even though all our source 
> is available freely for download.  We don't even make any money off 
> it!

What are you talking about? No where is it stated that commercial =
propritary. You statements are utter BS. 

There is nothing wrong or weird with having commercial software under the
GPL.
 
> I believe the Free Software Foundation originally intended the GPL 
> not only to make source freely available to non-profit uses, but also 

I suggest you read the GPL. No where does the GPL control the USE of code.
You sir, are speaking from your ass.

The GPL also positivly affirms that GPLed works may distributed *AT ANY
COST*

> to hamper the commercial software industry by denying or discouraging 
> their access to the source (something the BSD license failed to do). 

The GPL says nothing about *WHO* can havee the source. Nor does it say
anything about using the software. All it talks about is distributing
GPLed source, or resulting binaries.

> The eventual goal of the FSF is for all software everywhere to be 
> GPLed so that any computer-savvy user could get software for free by 
> downloading and compiling it.  This is why the GPL is intentionally 
> viral -- so that anyone who wants to take advantage of GPLed source 
> also has to take the GPL with it.

Even RMS acknoweldges the GPL isn't always the right hoice. He wants
everyone to have the same freedom with software that they have with a
Kitchen Chair. You should be able to modify it, etc..

> The Free Software Foundation wants us to give source away to anyone 
> who wants it, 

Untrue, you only need to give the source to people you give the binaries
to. You may charge *ANY* price for the binaries/source as long as your are
always willing to include the source with the bins at no extra cost.

> not make loads of money selling it to large 
> corporations (and thus supporting the existence of the for-profit 
> software companies).

The GPL states that profitable software companies are good. After all,
they can pay programmers. 

Redhat has a market cap in the billions, and I dont hear RMS screaming
about it.

>  The GPL was not intended as an excuse for why 
> you can't give a company exclusive rights to software they are paying 
> you consulting rates to work on.

Actually, the GPL encourges people to make work GPLed when they wouldn't
otherwise because of political ease of being consertive. Witness
Objective-C.  If someone is paying you to work on an internal app then
there is no cost to them to make it open, the GPL would encourage you to
go that path (by reducing development time with prewritten code) when you
wouldn't with the alternatives. 

If the company was developing a propritary product then they can put up
with a little extra development time to rewrite the gpled code.
  
> I've never heard of anyone volunteering to answer tech support calls 
> at RedHat, despite the fact that RedHat's software is free and GPLed. 
> But people contribute to Linux source all the time.  The difference 
> is that people personally *use* Linux and if they work on it they can 
> get exactly what they want without having to pay for it.

I answer questions on lists and IRC on slow days, it's fun and
enlightening. If RedHat could forward calls to my house I wouldn't mind
taking one or two a weekend. :)
 
> My point is that the primary reason people donate their time to work 
> on free software projects is because they want to use the software, 
> not so a company can make money off it.

If a company wants to make money, why does it bother me? If they want to
sell me back an improved version of my own stuff, now thats offensive.

> This is the Martha 
> Stewart/Norm Abrams mentality: the finished product better if I make 
> it myself rather than letting Microsoft/Apple/Sun/etc make it for me. 
> Who wants an operating system that says "No user serviceable parts 
> inside?"

Commercial sofware can be user serviceable. I bought my car, yet I can
still replace the oil myself or add a supercharger, timing chip, etc.

[snip]
> If the goal is maximum penetration of Vorbis into the encoder market 
> (both free and commercial), then the implementation has to be free 
> (price-wise) to everyone.  If the goal is to be a free source project 
> then feel free to stay GPLed, but there won't be a SoundJam MP 
> plug-in (unless I take a liberal interpretation of the GPL).

I agree with the point, if not the argument.

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