Re: [HACKERS] BSD vs. GPL

Bruce, Marc, et all,

For those interested in a possible way to make money with 
PostgreSQL, yet, still keep it "free", and "open", please
visit http://distributedcopyright.org and send comments
to discuss@distributedcopyright.org

I'm going to fix it up this web site of these weeks (I'm 
hit hard) with a more detailed summary.  Richard Stallman 
has posted some sound advice to the discussion list (to both
help improve it and to also voice his objections).  

I think it is possible to form an community-based 
organization having an open business environment that 
would create, maintain, and sell a 'commercial' database.  
In this case, one that is "free" as in liberty, but not 
necessarly free as in "free beer".   Also, I feel that a 
good amount of corporate support could be generated if an 
appropriate way for investors (and sweat equity developers)
to get a reasonable return on investment could be established.

Anyway, it is clear to me that no single person
can create a new business model, I've tried to 
bootstrap some ideas .. primary from others thoughts
which have been floting around various mailing lists
for a while.  

If a core group here is interested, I'll dedicate
more time to it.  A law firm in Washington DC
has made an offer to help work out the legal stuff
pro-bono if there is enough interest from a 
decent size development community.

PLEASE follow up to discuss@distributedcopyright.org and
not to the hackers list.  

Best Wishes,

Clark Evans



Don Baccus wrote:
> 
> At 10:14 PM 6/20/99 -0400, Clark Evans wrote:
> 
> >However, RedHat's business is NOT distribution, it is
> >standardization.
> 
> Thank God and I deleted the rest, thank you.

Didn't realize that I was preaching, my apologies.

> > And this allows them to spend money
> >on open source _if_ it is in their best interest.
> 
> Wow, a tautology!  

I don't think this qualifies as a tautology.  A tautology
is an implication where the premise and the consequent
are identical.  Tautologies are useful in some places
where the form of the premise and consequent is different
and this different form allows the argument to proceed.
This pattern is common in many logical proofs, and is
extremely useful.  

> I've heard these are really hard to prove correct.

Actually a tautology is always correct.

Let me try and explain what I was saying again:

The electronic distribution business is a very competitive 
market, since the barrier to entry is very small.  Thus, 
there is not a large profit margin, nor is there expectation 
for a large profit margin.  Thus, it is unlikely that any 
company in the this business would make a significiant 
investment in open source research and development.
The tech-support business is almost identical, as
there are limited economies of scale.

However, the standardization market is by nature 
monopolistic, i.e., the standard defines the market.
In an emerging standards market, initial customers make 
their choice based on the quality of each product, however, 
after a short period, quality becomes secondary as the
value residing in the complementary product and service 
market becomes more important.   Eventually, competition 
between standars becomes price inelastic since the value 
is primarly determined by the size of the complementary 
market, and no longer determined by quality.   This allows 
those who control a large, established standards market to 
extract large tax on the customers in the market.

Thus, I'm just pointing out that Red Hat is forming
a market, that they will try to own using what ever
legal might they can.  Certainly they will be weaker
than Microsoft at protecting their market since they
lack copyright law to aid them (or do they, since 
they are making a compilation, which is also 
copyrightable -- this will be discovered in court? ).  
Even so, they still have trademark protection, and,
possibly with future corporate deals, patent protection.  

> The deeper problem being that open source MIGHT become
> as tied to one vendor as closed source, if I read your
> argument correctly.

I think you have it, the issue moves from the right
to have open source, to the right to determine what
is in the "standard" distribution.    

My argument is that "open source" is only half of
the problem, "open standard", via trademarks is
the other half.   And it seems to me that many people
are still missing this point.  But, you are correct that
it is much less of a problem.

I'd still like to know what percentage of profit
RedHat gives back to the community.  If it is large
now, it would be cool if they put it in writing --
that it will stay large well after the RedHat 
tradename becomes a household word.   Perhaps Linus
could work this out using the Linux trademark.

In any case, "free of price" should be the least of 
our concerns, don't focus on price, focus on freedom.

Anyway, so much for the rambling.

> Well, let's imagine for a moment that I concede that
> point...
> 
> There's still a difference...you still get the source.

And this is cool, which is why it is no where near
as big as a problem as Microsoft.

> I've got candles for sale if you need some to burn at
> your Open Source Means Everyone Works For Free Always
> shrine.

Well, to my recollection, I never said this or anything like
it. If I did, would you help correct me by being more explicit?


Nicholas Bastin wrote:
> Clark Evans said:
> > I doubt that it is anything "significant", and if it is, I would
> > call Red Hat's situation exceptional.  They have a near monopoly on
> > corporate/consumer distributions, and their $80 price tag is the
> > proof.  Do you think after the near monopoly becomes a full monopoly
> > that this % of revenue will increase or decrease?  I'd bet
> > on the latter.   The Microsoft pattern, albeit a much less powerful
> > strain, is about to re-occur.   What good is a bunch of software if
> > it can't be named?  It isn't.  In the software world, a trademark
> > is a name for a standard.  And RedHat is about to own it.
> 
> I didn't really want to get into this discussion, but I thought it necessary to
> point out the obvious fact that you can buy RedHat 6.0 from CheapBytes for $3
> on CD.  If you have an internet connection, you can download it and burn your
> own CD, or do an FTP install.  RH can raise the price tag as much as they like,
> but we'll still be able to get it for free (or virtually free).

I am familiar with CheapBytes.  I am also weary about trademark law
being used against companies like CheapBytes.  It won't happen yet
since RedHat would get too much bad press.  However, in my non-legal
opinion, compilation copyright law and trademarks could be used
to successfully limit copying of distributions.   This I guess
we will have to wait and see.  I'm not a lawer, so I can't say one
way or the other.

> Also, FWIW, RedHat spent something like 10% of its revenue 
> on R&D last year, which is pretty good for a company that lost money. 

Interesting... Why are they loosing money?  Answer:  Beacuse they 
are trying to establish a market monopoly by owning a standard.  
Otherwise Dell and other companies would not be taking an equity 
interest.   You can expect this to change once most of the competition 
is eliminated.   Profits will be prevalent, and R&D will drop 
like a rock.

> After all, if it were microsoft, they'd probably save money by cutting the R&D.

No.  Microsoft looses tons of money in R&D on new markets.  However,
once the market is established, then they jack up the rents and
cut the R&D.  You have only seen one side of RedHat now, the side 
trying to establish a market.  With Dell and others owning interest, 
they will be forced to behave like Microsoft when it is time.


Thus, RedHat is becoming a trustee for an operating system standard.
Yet, we have no legal agreement by which we can hold them
accountable.  Instead, we only have market forces, which do
not work in a monopolistic environment.  Better than Microsoft?
Sure.  Can it be better?  I think so.  Alot better.

Best,

Clark Evans