Re:Dual licensing GPL for fame and profit
by ignoramous on Sunday October 04, 2020 @08:58AM
(#24678692)
> Why can Google develop TensorFlow? Because they can make a lot more money from selling/renting TensorFlow optimized hardware.
Joel said it the best (in 2002!):
Smart companies try to commoditize their products’ complements.
...
Headline: Sun Develops Java; New “Bytecode” System Means Write Once, Run Anywhere.
The bytecode idea is not new — programmers have always tried to make their code run on as many machines as possible. (That’s how you commoditize your complement). For years Microsoft had its own p-code compiler and portable windowing layer which let Excel run on Mac, Windows, and OS/2, and on Motorola, Intel, Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC chips. Quark has a layer which runs Macintosh code on Windows. The C programming language is best described as a hardware-independent assembler language. It’s not a new idea to software developers.
If you can run your software anywhere, that makes hardware more of a commodity. As hardware prices go down, the market expands, driving more demand for software (and leaving customers with extra money to spend on software which can now be more expensive.)
Sun’s enthusiasm for WORA is, um, strange, because Sun is a hardware company. Making hardware a commodity is the last thing they want to do.
Highly recommended reading it. This blog post gave us right framework to be able to decide which components to open source without worrying about licenses (we have used Apache and Mozilla Public License so far for different projects).
Also, enforcing GPL has turned out to be not straight-forward? If you intend to make money then open sourcing your complements makes so much sense that which license you choose kind of becomes moot (in fact, you're better off choosing a more permissive license like MIT or Apache). If you're going to open source your secret sauce, it better be because you're competing with an incumbent (GitLab -> GitHub; PostHog -> Amplitude) and desire that kind of a differentiation.
Joel said it the best (in 2002!):
Smart companies try to commoditize their products’ complements.
...
Headline: Sun Develops Java; New “Bytecode” System Means Write Once, Run Anywhere.
The bytecode idea is not new — programmers have always tried to make their code run on as many machines as possible. (That’s how you commoditize your complement). For years Microsoft had its own p-code compiler and portable windowing layer which let Excel run on Mac, Windows, and OS/2, and on Motorola, Intel, Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC chips. Quark has a layer which runs Macintosh code on Windows. The C programming language is best described as a hardware-independent assembler language. It’s not a new idea to software developers.
If you can run your software anywhere, that makes hardware more of a commodity. As hardware prices go down, the market expands, driving more demand for software (and leaving customers with extra money to spend on software which can now be more expensive.)
Sun’s enthusiasm for WORA is, um, strange, because Sun is a hardware company. Making hardware a commodity is the last thing they want to do.
Oooooooooooooooooooooops!
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/
Highly recommended reading it. This blog post gave us right framework to be able to decide which components to open source without worrying about licenses (we have used Apache and Mozilla Public License so far for different projects).
Also, enforcing GPL has turned out to be not straight-forward? If you intend to make money then open sourcing your complements makes so much sense that which license you choose kind of becomes moot (in fact, you're better off choosing a more permissive license like MIT or Apache). If you're going to open source your secret sauce, it better be because you're competing with an incumbent (GitLab -> GitHub; PostHog -> Amplitude) and desire that kind of a differentiation.