RFC: New business modell for free software development

[Marcus Brinkmann]

On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 08:55:18PM +0200, service at metamodul.com wrote:
> Its looks like that i was not precise enough..
> The GPSA  - General Public Support Agreement - is a business contract and not a license. I
> have thoughts about a GPSA License but these thought are at a pretty early state.

Well, my comment was about the GPSA License which was explicitely mentioned
as one option, as an alternative to the GPL.

The description of the GPSA (I understand it is not available yet) indicates
that it would not be a free software license.  I think that it is quite
strange that a web site describing a business contract and business model
for free software companies describes a non-free software license as an
alternative to the GPL.

I can not say if the business model you describe is feasible or not -- I
don't know enough about economics to comment on it.  But I can tell you that
the description of the GPSA license (not the business model) is in violation
of the fundamental freedoms that the GPL aims to protect.

You might want to study http://www.gnu.org/philosophy and make sure that
your ideas and business models are compatible with the word and the spirit
of free software.  And you might want to remove the description and the
references to the GPSA on the web site to prevent any potential
misunderstanding.  This would then make it clear that your concern is about
a free software business model (with the focus on free).

Thanks,
Marcus


-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' GNU      http://www.gnu.org    marcus at gnu.org
Marcus Brinkmann              The Hurd http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/
Marcus.Brinkmann at ruhr-uni-bochum.de
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de/