> From: Dana Powers > So I appreciate your approach to analyzing competitors v. no > competitors, but I think what you've missed is that releasing source > code reduces the entry costs of potential competitors. A monopolist > could quite reasonably conclude that the short-term revenue gains from > releasing source code will be less than the long term revenue gains > from non-competitive pricing of other goods (i.e., binaries, source, > etc).
If you enjoy an effective monopoly - because you have no competitors - then this raises the price of the source code. This is still the case with GPL today. If I've produced some superfantastic source code (built upon other GPL code), then no law on earth can compel me to release it to you unless I decide the price is right. Post-copyright abolition, the only difference is I get to give you some binaries to demonstrate how good the source code is. Whereas at the moment I have to: 1) produce my demos from non-copyleft code, or 2) let you remotely utilise the demo binary running on my server, or 3) let you visit my premises to use it, or 4) infringe copyright and give you a binary anyway (and I'm very unlikely to be prosecuted, precisely because I don't believe in copyright) I'm still fascinated by the idea that post-copyright-abolition there's still an economic incentive to withhold source code in a competitive market. With competitors, the binaries are worthless. People will only pay for source. Vendor S: work with source $500 Vendor T: work with source $510 Vendor U: work with source $490 Vendor B: work with binary $250 If vendors S,T,U are pricing their labour competitively, then if vendor B significantly undercuts them simply by withholding the source where are they going to get the other $250 from? > I also fear that you haven't read clause 2(b) of the GPL. How do you > reconcile the requirement of no charge licensing with your claim that > someone could charge $5,000,000 for a downstream license? Please tell me where I claimed "someone could charge $5,000,000 for a downstream license"? _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
