juridical Question on software and GPL

[Ricardo Andere de Mello]

On Saturday 27 March 2004 01:00, Moritz Sinn wrote:
> Frank Heckenbach <frank at g-n-u.de> writes:
> > Moritz Sinn wrote:
> >> yes, that's what the part of gpl that i quoted in my last mailing
> >> says. and that's why you cannot earn money with programming free
> >> software.
> >
> > As others have explained, paying for programming doesn't have to
> > mean royalties per copy. Quite a few who make money with programming
> > free software are probably in this list, so making such a broad
> > statement in public, telling us that it's impossible to do what we
> > just do, seems a bit silly ...
>
> ok, what you can do is: ask money before publishing it or ask money for
> publishing it. but you'll always earn more money with proprietary
> software. and that's what i meant when i said you have to decide
> whether its about software or money. if money is the main goal of course
> closed source is more successfull. if its about the software, the art,
> the joy of programming what so ever.. free software is the better.

There is another point of view.
Some software coders just would not have chance to show their software to 
anyone. The internet is a huge consumer market, but you will be just one in 
thousands selling the same kind of software. Making it free software is a 
chance to have a broader audience, mainly if you don't have money to start 
your own businness. Think about mysql and postgresql people. How they could 
compete with sql server and oracle marketing if their software was not free 
software? They earn money just because their software is good and they use 
it's fame to have more services.
I earn money doing free software, just because I'm good in what I do. Free 
software has no mercy for incompetence. ;-)

[]s, gandhi

-- 
Ricardo Andere de Mello
Quilombo Digital - Presidente
gandhi at quilombodigital.org / 55 11 3271-7928