Clarification on my call for license change

[Patrik Stridvall]

> Roland wrote:
> 
> > I just don't understand one thing:
> > How does your company expect to make money once WINE is 
> xGPLed? If all your
> > code has to be contributed back, why should I buy it from 
> your company?
> 
> The same way many companies work also with their properiteary 
> code. You
> know your code needs a feature but you don't have the time for
> implementation because you have no customer who says he 
> really needs it.
> Of course many customers may be gald to have it, but none is 
> willing to
> pay for it. The someday a customer turns up who says he needs 
> that stuff
> badly and he wants to know how much you charge for it. Then you
> implement that feature, you might have implemented anyway 
> some day, and
> once it is available you can give it to all your customers, or you can
> charge a price that others are willing to pay even though 
> they wouldn't
> have paid the develeopment price. I worked for a company that worked
> exactly that same way

Actually I work for a company that works this way as well for
some of our products.

> and this works also for GPL code as well.

No, it won't. There is nothing save ignorance that would
make the other customers pay for it when can have it for free.

Granted most customers are ignorant (as far as software
development is concerned). But building a viable business model
of it is not possible. If just somebody in the world realizes
the flaw he can contact the companies in question and
point this out to them and for a fee do the work of recompiling
their application for them.