In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Timothy Miller" writes: > On 5/24/06, Dieter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Actually, it's a double-edged sword. Without putting GPL on the RTL, > > > I can't get enough community support, but many people who would buy > > > our products would shy away from them on the grounds that someone may > > > legally copy our design and put us out of business. A vendor need > > > staying power, and it's hard for them to have that when they "give > > > away" every detail. > > > > Why would the possibility of a copycat product make customers shy away? > > They wouldn't. That isn't the problem. > > > They would then have a 2nd source. Having a 2nd source used to be > > considered a good thing, often considered essential. > > Second sourcing is fine for the customer. But if it puts the > designers out of business, you only get one chip. Who's going to > design the next one?
The developers and end-users need the thing to be well documented. The business wants protection from competition using that documentation without paying for its creation. This is exactly the problem what copyright and patent protection were invented to solve. So... maybe what you want here is a conventional copyright, rather than the GPL, the so-called "copyleft". Or perhaps a conventional copyright that automagically converts to GPL after 'x' period of time. _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
