Dr. Seuss, licensing, and WINE

[Andreas Mohr]

On Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 10:30:08PM -0700, Brett Glass wrote:
> At 04:57 PM 2/8/2002, Andreas Mohr wrote:
> 
> >Sure (which I didn't address in my explanation)
> >I merely wanted to drive home the point that that EVERY CENT part is wrong.
> 
> The "every cent" part is absolutely true. Let me explain why via a
> simple scenario. Let's suppose, for a minute, that the user first
> obtained WINE for free (as he certainly could do!) and then bought
> an add-on enhancement package made by the third party vendor. This
> package contains none of the original WINE code -- just patches.
> 
> I'm sure you'll agree that, in this scenario, the only thing that 
> the user paid for was the enhancements, not WINE itself. Again, 
> every cent that the user paid was for the enhancements.
True.

> Now, the only difference between this scenario and shipping a
> modified version of WINE is that, in the latter case, the vendor
> is making things a bit more convenient for the user. Nothing
> whatsoever wrong with that.
> 
> To put it another way: To claim that the vendor who provides
> enhancements to WINE is "making money off of" WINE is akin to
> claiming that a company that makes accessories for cars --
> say, fuzzy dice -- is "making money off of" the automobile
> manufacturer because it is enhancing the manufacturer's car.
Nope, there is a very fundamental and fatal difference here.

Or do they sell the accessory at a very moderate price
- and also include the car for free ??

Damn, I think I really need a new 1000W car amplifier :)
(for the new car that I'll get with that deal)

> Just as anyone has the right to make and sell fuzzy dice, anyone
> should have the right to sell enhancements for WINE. Since 
> WINE is available to anyone at no cost, what the user is paying 
> for, if s/he buys a disc with the enhancements already integrated,
> is the enhancements.
> 
> Do these analogies make things clearer?
Nope :)

*If* the company is providing a separate "Wine enhancements" patch,
then they deserve every cent for the *patch*.

If it's integrated into the main tree as a bundled offer, well... ;)

Damn, I didn't really want to waste more time on a relatively useless
by-product of the license war :), but somehow I thought I still had to reply
to make things clear :)

-- 
Andreas Mohr                        Stauferstr. 6, D-71272 Renningen, Germany
Tel. +49 7159 800604                http://home.nexgo.de/andi.mohr/