GPL Sued For "Software Price Fixing"

[Mike Reinehr]

On Wednesday 04 May 2005 02:08 am, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-05-04 at 00:06, Alma J Wetzker wrote:
> > Bill Campbell wrote:
> > > On Mon, May 02, 2005, Collins Richey wrote:
> > >>http://linuxbusinessnews.sys-con.com/read/80782.htm
> > >>
> > >>Wonder if this guy's on the M$ payroll, too?
> > >
> > > Are you sure it wasn't posted on April 1st?
> >
> > It is correct.  Groklaw has a link to the PDF of the complaint.  It is a
> > hoot.  If you can figure out what he is trying to say, let us know.
>
> I think he means that as a person who makes commercial software (you pay
> for it), he cannot compete with FOSS. FOSS is too cheap. How does the
> FOSS software stay at this cheap (free) price? Someone has set it that
> way. He points the finger at OSF and the GNU license all like to use.
>
> It is an odd idea that making something open is price fixing. I think
> that you could charge for your product that includes changes done to GPL
> code, as long as you make the source available.
>
> Will doctors now complain against free clinics? Or professionals against
> volunteers in any field?
>
> >      -- Alma
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It seems to me it's only price-fixing, or predatory pricing, if you have a 
monopoly position in the market. Since, I believe, FOSS is a long way from 
that, he should have valid complaint.

An interesting question might be, in the event that FOSS did acquire the 
majority of the software business, who could be sued, since there is no 
single entity to sue. Are you going to sue every single contributing 
developer/programmer in the Debian project, the Gentoo project, etc.?

cmr
-- 
Debian 'Sarge': Registered Linux User #241964
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"More laws, less justice." -- Marcus Tullius Ciceroca, 42 BC
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