FC4 or FC5

[Les Mikesell]

On Sat, 2006-06-17 at 13:36, Joe Klemmer wrote:
> > 
> > If you had read any of the postings, you should know that my
> > complaint is that the GPL has done more than anything else to
> > keep Microsoft in business and a monopoly.
> 
> 	I'm afraid you lost me totally here, Les.  I was following you all the
> way (since I've heard the exact same words SO many times over the years)
> up until this part.  How did you come to the idea that the GPL is
> helping keep MS a monopoly and in business?  That's like saying taking
> arsenic will help you live longer.  Everything else you argued has merit
> and is reasonable.  This one, though, is like something out of a deep
> Opium dream.

Microsoft can make any arrangement they want to license existing
third party components and include them with their own works
and can thus provide any functionality they think a
consumer wants.  A potential competitor can take BSD licensed
code and do the same, making it easier for a company without
Microsoft's resources to develop a good competitive product.
However, many of the needed components can never be released
under GPL terms because they are already patented by others
or the best implementation is under someone else's copyright.
The terms required to license these components may be perfectly
acceptable to the end user but if they don't specifically match
the GPL, the 'work as a whole' clause prevents any GPL'd code
from being used.   So paradoxically, the end user can separately
obtain all the parts, but is prevented by the GPL from having
a working combination distributed to him.  So, all the work that
has gone into GPL'd code is wasted in terms of helping build
competitive products that need additional components under other
terms.  

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com