Re: Software relicensing, how is it done ?

[Mukund Sivaraman <muks banu com>]

Hi Tristan

On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 05:06:07PM -0400, Tristan Van Berkom wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Richard M. Stallman <rms gnu org> wrote:
> [...]
> > As free software developers we naturally feel good to see our own
> > programs in wider use.  But what is really important is for free
> > software to replace proprietary software.  We can achieve more for
> > freedom if we focus on the deeper and more important long-term goal.
> >
> Hi,
>     I dont see how I can agree that entering in direct competition
> with anyone who wants to make a dollar from a software solution is
> going to bring us to that long-term goal.

Free software doesn't mean it cannot be put to commercial use, or
profited from. Developing free software commercially and making money
from it seems to actually work very well.

 * Companies which create free software profit from it.

 * There is money to hire developers who work on the project, so the
   rate of development is faster.

 * As free software evolves from many using it / modifying it / leaving
   feedback thanks to its freedoms, the quality of free software also
   increases.

> Frankly, the company I formerly worked for, chose gtk+ for its C
> object orented model, and it was possible because of the LGPL
> licence. I would never had been paid to originally work on Glade for
> the few months that Glade was my job assignment, I maybe would never
> have heard of Glade, since then I can count the number of
> substantialy large contributions on one hand, and half of those are
> from vendors, or contractors working for vendors.
> 
> Writing software is hard work, people rightfully want to get paid for
> it, I hope that free software is the best software, and continue to believe
> that we need to do it together, leverage people who are paid for their
> work to make free software better, so that all projects can benefit, the
> important part is to not get effected when commercial softwares have an
> edge, and continue to slowly write better, free software.

It's apparent from your description that this company (your former
employer) created proprietary software. It's nice that they could hire
you for improving Glade, this in itself does not mean only proprietary
software companies can hire developers to work on free software which
they would use in their proprietary software.

A lot of free software development work takes place at companies such
as Red Hat. It is freedom which makes derivative projects such as
CentOS possible. While MySQL and Sleepy Cat (Oracle) are not
appropriate examples in this context (as they own copyright and can
offer their software under different licenses to proprietary users),
you have other examples of free software vendors who make a profit:
Mozilla, Wordpress.

It's a business issue on how to make money with free software. IMHO, an
IDE may be a bad idea of a commercial free software project. But on the
other hand, the developers who use such IDEs can themselves extend it
when they scratch an itch. Service oriented companies seem to do well
with free software, so businesses need to think about adapting.

In other words, free software does not limit you from making money, and
you can get paid for writing free software. [1]

> 
> I dont feel offended that someone else may write a frontend that
> uses libgladeui and makes money on 6 years or so of my own work,
> I offer it freely, and don't feel comfortable myself to be denied the
> same freedom I would offer a user of the libgladeui library.
> 

You should feel offended according to your earlier argument, if you
feel that writing free software is hard work and developers should be
paid for it. I completely support you here. Get paid for your time.

[1] The GNOME Foundation bounties are a good example of this. I've had
someone remember many months after writing code, to send me a cheque
for a bounty. With free software, money chases you. :)

		Mukund