Discussion about the GPL: shovels and holes
I had an IM conversation with a law student friend of mine to help her understand the GPL a little better. It focuses mostly on the economics of free / open software and a little on copyright. Well, it actually focuses primarily on shovels. Please pardon the typos and scary structure, I didn’t quite feel like editing :P
(19:56:30) friend: do you think the gpl undermines the independent commercial software sector bc it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution? (19:56:47) me: not at all (19:56:53) friend: why
(19:56:54) me: my company would not be in business if not for the GPL (19:57:07) friend: that's cool (19:57:13) me: kinda :) (19:57:22) me: most companies are that way now though (19:57:30) friend: can you briefly explain? (19:58:03) me: it's because of the complexity of the software ecosystem (19:58:18) me: let's talk about shovels (19:58:27) me: let's say you make a shovel (19:58:45) me: you charge $20, but it's only $5 in parts (19:59:03) me: if I start a shovel company and charge $10, is that unfair? (19:59:32) me: no, because that's the market (19:59:40) me: but what if I charge $5? (19:59:46) friend: no, but how do people that make improvements make profit (20:00:00) me: it's not about the shovel, it's about how you use it (20:00:21) me: if you have a $5 shovel, you can equip 4 times as many diggers (20:00:26) friend: ahh (20:00:33) me: maybe you can afford to start a digging company, where as before you couldn't (20:00:40) me: i work at the digging company (20:00:48) me: shovel's free (20:00:49) friend: haha i like that analogy (20:01:09) me: i mean, if you were at the old shovel company i bet you'd be pissed (20:01:43) me: and you'd wonder, how can these shovels be at cost? How do they make money? (20:01:57) me: they make money because it's not about shovels, it's about holes. (20:02:01) friend: what are the greatest advantages to open source products? (20:02:21) friend: and what would you say are the greatest disadvantages (20:02:29) me: well, I spoke about cost because you asked about commerce, but many people don't even care if they have to pay (20:02:40) me: they care about being able to change the prodcut (20:02:59) me: the analogy starts to wear thin here, but let's keep talking shovels (20:03:27) me: let's say i've got a simple metal bottom and a straight stick for a top (20:03:43) me: well, what if I want a handle? (20:04:06) me: if i'm using the shovel to, let's say, carry coal, it's want a handle to make it easier (20:04:32) me: the designer of the original shovel didn't think about coal, only digging (20:04:55) me: if i had the freedom to change the "schematics" of the shovel, I could add a handle (20:05:02) me: man, i'm on a roll. (20:05:29) friend: haha yeah, this is actually helpful (20:05:43) me: here's the big deal about software: it's not real. (20:05:44) friend: are you under obligation to share improvements? (20:05:54) me: well, who cares if you are? (20:06:00) friend: just curious (20:06:01) me: if you care about coal, it shouldn't be a problem (20:06:13) me: but if you care about shovels, it would be a problem (20:06:23) friend: ah yes (20:06:40) friend: were you going to say something else about software not being real? (20:06:45) me: yeah (20:07:13) me: the difference between software and shovels is that you need wood and metal to take a plan of a shovel into a useful shovel (20:07:27) me: you need exactly nothing to take a schematic for a program into a program (20:07:38) me: the schematic *is* the program (20:08:45) me: now, the schematic should be covered by whatever we decide is fair for copyright by default, butt if the author wants to change the terms of the copyright, that's within the author's rights. (20:09:13) me: let's say i want to ... run a website :) (20:09:18) me: to sell shovels (20:09:26) friend: haha (20:09:27) me: i'm in the selling shovels business (20:09:38) me: i don't give a shit how the shovels get on the internet (20:10:00) me: maybe I need to put some money into making that happen, but i'm not interested in changing my business (20:10:25) me: so whatever code i maake to maake my website run, i give away (20:10:37) me: that's a program called apache (20:10:47) me: it runs about 70% of the internet. (20:11:25) me: if, for some reason or other, it gives me trouble while i try to sell shovels, i can fix it and share my fix with others (20:11:50) me: whether I *have* to share my fixes or not is up to the original copyright owner (20:12:20) friend: and he tells you when you buy it? (20:12:24) me: and that's the cost of taking what they gave me (20:12:48) me: yes and no (20:13:24) me: they do, but they are under no obligation to give you the source code at all anyway, right? they just do because they are nice (20:13:56) me: and even if they gave it to you, it's still under copyright, right? so you can't legally modify it *at all* for anything other than private use (20:14:02) friend: isn't that part of what the gpl does? make people share the source code? (20:14:04) me: / "fair use" (20:14:20) me: well, if they make changes (20:14:24) me: which they don't have to (20:14:41) me: if i change the shovel schematics, i may have to share them (20:15:01) me: but I probably don't have to change them, if i'm just digging (20:15:11) me: goes back to shovels / digging again (20:15:25) me: it's only a problem if i'm in the shovel business