RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)

[Matthew James Gering <mgering@ecosystems.net>]

Jim Choate wrote:
> This is bogus reasoning. If the API is released there is 
> *more* motivation for the original distributor to keep 
> backward compatibility and bug-free.

Duh, I never said otherwise. More motivation and more cost.

Sometimes (more often than not) it takes a couple drafts and re-writes
before things are the way they ought to be. APIs will often progress
from private to public as an evolution from immaturity to maturity,
disorganization to organization, ad hoc hack to flexible functionality,
custom purpose to generic usefulness. You evidently completely missed
that point.

> You want quality code that is bullet-proof then release the 
> API and let the fittest survive.

Which is fine unless you are liable to support the inferior.

> If you release the API you'll find those midnight hacks 
> go away, *not* increase as you seem to be claiming.

Midnight hacks will never go away.

But again, you missed my point. I stated many APIs start out as midnight
hacks.

> Solaris, HP, BSD, NT, etc. *wish* they were as stable and 
> popular as Linux.

Let's not start OS wars. Each to their own, OSs are tools not religions.

> Free-market *requires* fair competition

By whose misguided definition? Free market required freedom (freedom
requires absence of coercive force), nothing else. Freedom is about
actions (motion), not static states (past/present/future), and so is
Competition. Id est, competition includes potential competition, a free
capital market guarantees potential competition, only force [regulation]
can hinder that.

> it means there are no outside regulations applied. 
> It says *nothing* about internal regulation applied 
> by either the producer or the consumer.

"Regulation" generally = political power (= force). Whether than is
externally applied or internally applied under the threat of external
force makes no difference. When the politicos talk about wanting
deregulation and industry self-regulation, what they really mean is they
want industry to bow to their whim under threat of their arbitrary
power. Such actions then avoid the scrutiny and protections
theoretically provided by the political/legal system.

The only legitimate force is economic -- the decision to purchase or not
to purchase, or to purchase a competing or alternative product. Economic
force is not a regulator of the free market, it is its heart and soul,
the essence of the free market. Economic force requires absence of
political force to truly work properly.

> If you are seriously saying that the only workable market 
> scheme is to let people cheat and steal from others
> (which is what poorly written and unreliable code does)

How so? You have a choice to consume or not to consume, there is no act
of coercive force, I cannot steal from you without it. Cheat I may, a
fool and his money are easily parted. Civil liability and reputation
naturally regulate such things, no govt. regulation necessary. [And you
say, but wait, civil liability requires govt. regulation -- it does now
but it need not, free market legal systems can provide such with
reputation instead of guns as its basis]

> Malarky. Microsoft has so many hidden, undocumented, 
> incomplete API's it isn't even funny.

Did I say they did not? I've worked at Microsoft, I not only know that
but I know why (and it's no conspiracy, chaos is more like it). 

They also have good many published APIs, and at the application layer
they are way ahead of most other vendors. At the OS layer I think open
source will win out, so you are preaching to the choir.

Open source will prevail if it makes economic (business) sense, all
other reasons are corollary. Regulation will destroy the free market
that could make open source viable.

     "There is a fantasy that open source and capitalism are 
     incompatible," Allman said. That misconception was at the 
     center of the decision to drop the "freeware" moniker in 
     favor of "open source." As Allman and others explained, 
     open source is a model for doing business, for making money.

(source: http://www.upside.com/texis/mvm/story?id=3564b5500)


	Matt