Commercial support

[Shachar Shemesh]

Tom Wickline wrote:

>On 5/7/05, Shachar Shemesh <wine-devel at shemesh.biz> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>This is actually a very good point in favor of not charging money at
>>all. If you charge money, you create obligation. That's the way the
>>legal system works. If you do not, you can easily delist any known LGPL
>>offender.
>>    
>>
>
>It could be looked at as a minimum donation request, and any funds
>raised should go to the WPF.
>  
>
Or it COULD be looked on as a commercial transaction. They pay money, 
you provide ad space. If this goes to court, who's going to pick up the 
legal costs? Besides, what court will accept a "compulsory voluntary 
donation" theory?

If you want to delist violators, make sure you either sign them up on a 
contract (expensive) or not take money from them.

>I believe giving away the only resource that winehq.org has for
>generating revenue for the WPF is insane.
>
I don't know. It seems that WPF is doing sort of ok without this, and 
that wine at large is doing ok without the WPF. Having published 
commercial support is important for wine to do better, which is the real 
goal here. Not WPF.

>I think we should explore ways to raise money
>for future Wineconf's and other worth while expenditures. While 10k/yr
>may be a high target 100/yr is a bare minimum at best.
>  
>
Go ahead. It's just that entering a legal obligation with commercial 
companies we don't trust, and without a contract, is a bad idea in my 
very humble opinion.

>Or do you really think that Lingnu is going to
>  
>
>>hold back code from Wine?
>>    
>>
>
>No I don't, I never have and as as Ive already said before I believe
>everyone in this discussion is responsible and supporters of OSS.
>  
>
But you are thinking of asking for an amount of money Lingnu will not 
pay, which means Lingnu loses (no visibility) and Wine loses (one less 
company that CAN provide support, will donate changes back, but is not 
listed). A good deal is one which is win-win, not lose-lose.

Let's consider what we have so far:
10K/yr - lose lose
100/yr - win-lose (Lingnu doesn't mind paying 100/yr, but WPF will get, 
at best, 1000$ out of this, not enough for anything, and you can no 
longer easily threaten with delisting in case someone doesn't play fair. 
Can you imagine the PearPC page still listing CherryOS as a "commercial 
support", even after they have been found to be violating the GPL?).
I think 0/yr is a win-win in the short term. Maybe when wine is more 
attractive we can have a different optimum (I somewhat doubt it).

Also, don't under estimate specific sponsorship of wineconfs. This 
year's wineconf was over sponsored - we had more companies willing to 
sponsor than actual money requirements.

>About what will happen if a rouge company shows up?
>I for see winehq.org setting up a page like PearPC and asking the
>community for help.
>
But how will charging people money help here? It will make your position 
somewhat more serious because of 1 above. Also, don't forget that any 
company willing to pay for ad space is also a company who has an 
interest in other companies not violating the Wine copyright. In short, 
I think you worry about this at the wrong place.

> But some people here think we should have trust
>and faith in people and not be pessimistic like myself.
>
>http://starport.dnsalias.net/index.php?show=article&id=352
>
>And on the out come of this discussion, read the entirety of this
>thread and apply "bays theorem" and a result will soon follow.
>
>http://psych.rice.edu/online_stat/chapter5/probability.html
>  
>
While it's very nice of you to send me to a 10 page explanation on a 
topic I already know something about, I really don't have the time to 
read it just so I'm enlightened by some inner knowledge you think I will 
gain. Care to explain what it is that you are trying to say here? Please 
do work out the math for me.

          Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
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