Possible GPL violation by Armorware inc

[Christian Mueller]

Am Samstag, 10. Dezember 2005 15:31 schrieb John:
> I suppose the point I was trying to make is that this is a very very 
> commercial world and I am not sure that the gpl offers authors sufficient 
> protection from it. 


I think that's up to these very authors.  If they don't feel protected enough 
then they should use a different license.  

But take kdelibs or GTK for example: 
They're both using the more permissive LGPL and thus make even closed-source 
apps possible (for Qt there's the dual-licensing).   That doesn't look 
to me like authors feeling they're not "protected" enough.  It seems they 
are fine with the rules of the game. 



> As to making the source available and acknowledgement I'm  
> not sure that it achieves anything. How many windoze users for instance are 
> interested in the source? They are only interested in the package. The same 
> thing will happen with Linux as the user base grows. 

That doesn't change anything.  
It is *possible* to get and modify the source, and no one can take that 
away.  No one can monopolise the code.  People interested in the code 
can work with it, people with additional software requirements can pay 
developers for new features.  You can't do that with proprietary software. 

That's one of the main points Open Source is about.  It's not about 
preventing commercial success though.  


> So why should some individuals profit on the hard work of  
> others? 


If armorware doesn't add real value that is worth $485 to their 
potential customers then they won't make any profit.  
If they do then they deserve what they earn.  


Christian.

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