From: bashford@scripps.edu (Don &)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
Date: 8 Jan 93 03:50:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: zippy.BASHFORD.93Jan7194947
	<1id6n6INNcn5@agate.berkeley.edu> <2B4BC9F1.666E@tct.com>
	<FRIEDMAN.93Jan7055058@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Organization: The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA

>>>>> In article <FRIEDMAN.93Jan7055058@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, friedman@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Noah Friedman) writes:

noah> In article <2B4BC9F1.666E@tct.com> chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
Chip> I propose that a software system can have either industry acceptance or
Chip> GPL coverage, but not both.  I make one exception: software development
Chip> tools.  After all, tools are by and large obtained at specific programmer
Chip> request, and programmers love source code.

noah> You may be right, but no one knows for certain yet.  The GNU
noah> Project hasn't produced much except development tools and
noah> unix-replacing utilities which by and large are only used by
noah> people who like those sorts of things.  :-) That's already got
noah> us too occupied to do much else.

I think Chip is probably sort of right.  Programmers tend to build
for themselves the tools that they want or need.  They enjoy sharing
them with others (See how clever!) and, as Chip says, programmers love
getting a program with source.  Tools like wordprocessors and spreadsheets
needed by non-programmers are things that programmers are less apt
to produce unless someone is paying them for it explicity.  So I
think there is more likely to be GPL'd programming tools than GPL'd
"common user apps" not so much because of lack of "industry acceptence"
but because they are less likely to be produced in the first place.

But if, say, a good PC word processer were released with a GPL, I suspect
it would do well.  The reason I think so is that there is so much
"pirated" PC code out there that the software companies are complaining
about billions in lost sales due to this "theft" and are trying to
crack down.  I think think these millions of "pirates" would welcome
a useful program that they could legally use, copy and share even
without any formal vendor support (which they don't have as "pirates"
anyway).

noah> There may be any number of reasons why nobody else has developed
noah> any GPL'ed "applications" yet.  A large part of it, in my
noah> speculative opinion, is that it's a fairly new idea and most
noah> companies don't yet accept that it could work.  Very few radical
noah> ideas have met with overwhelming approval at their introduction.

Its not the newness or radicalness of the idea, its the smallness
of the profits to be had.  The GNU Manifesto is up front about the
fact that free software is not as profitable as hoarded software.
Very few companies have any sort of social vision other than profit
as their basis, so they cannot be expected to produce free software
unless something like a GPL on a piece of code they want very much
to use drives them to it.  That's capitalism in the pre-post-scarcity
world!

noah> We'll see if Oleo takes off when it gets into better shape. 

Is there a WISYWYG word processor in the works?

Don Bashford
bashford@scripps.edu