On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 08:26:22PM +0900, Patrick Shirkey wrote: > My beef is that he outright lies about his commitment to the audacity > team. He says he has the consent and that he is contributing back. He has implicit consent because the GPL allows him to do what he's doing. I don't see why charging a "fee for the physical act of transferring a copy" (GPL) shouldn't include an element of profit. As for contributing back, if he says he is doing so, I agree that some semantic acrobatics might be required to justify this ;-) If the developers want some financial support, they should (as has been suggested elsewhere in this thread) offer the software for sale in a similar way. Most GNU projects that are available for Windows would sell, for reasons that have already been discussed. Linux versions wouldn't do so well because the marketplace is both smaller and smarter, but again lots of Linux users (including myself) have paid for CDs of software for good reasons so there'd be some business there too. Perhaps sourceforge should set up a CD distribution sideline. The fact that it's possible to get it free won't stop some people paying for it. http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk started as a service for the convenience of the UK Linux community, charging only to cover its costs, but became a full time business. -- Anahata anahata@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx -+- http://www.treewind.co.uk Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827
