Clarification on my call for license change

[Patrik Stridvall]

> > But the second more important question was (in my words):
> > Why should I buy a Wine distribution from you?
> > 
> > If you are forced to contribute back everything I can just do:
> > 
> > cvs update ; ./configure ; make install
> > 
> > What I and other have been trying to say is that some business
> > models like consulting business makes sense with a LGPL:ed Wine
> > but others like Transgaming:s might not. Read what Gavriel wrote
> > in his first(?) reply again.
> 
> 
> I have been avoiding this debate although reading it closely. 
> However i
> thought i would step up to the plate on this one, as someone whose
> salary depends on Jeremy's vision.
> 
> The simple of it is.. you, Patrik, would not buy a Wine distribution
> form us. Why would you? You are a developer, and a wine 
> developer on top
> of that. If your critical app crashes you can just hack on 
> the code and
> make it work. In fact we dont really expect anyone on this 
> list to buy a
> Wine distribution from us. 

Yes, that is pretty obvious.

> However if a company unfamiliar 
> with Wine, or
> even linux wants to get a critical app working on Linux using 
> Wine they
> have to choose. The could hire a developer and have that person figure
> out wine and do the work, or buy a distribution of Wine supported by
> proven Wine developers. 
>
> It is these sorts of people and companies that we want to target. And
> financially Patrik's money for his license or even the money form all
> the wine developers would be nearly insignificant compared to a 100+
> seat site license.

The problem is not that I or the other Wine developers don't pay.

The problem is that the company needing a 100+ seat license
runs Red Hat, SuSE or Mandrake or some other Linux distribution.

They turn to their respective distributor say Red Hat and say that they
are prepared to pay $XXX per year for a better supported Wine.
Red Hat in turn hires me (or some other on this list) to do this and I do:

cvs update ; ./configure ; make install

That is your problem.

Sure Red Hat might write a contract with you instead but then perhaps
they consider you a competitor and hire me instead or perhaps they
believe I'm better or whatever.
 
> As a developer who has worked on far too many
> proprietary Wine trees and seen all the fights the Jeremy has gone
> through. I want to be assured that i can give my code back to the wine
> community.

Assurance about some things can be given but everything has a price.
Will you pay it?
Will it really do what you expect it does?