>Hi Jerry,
>
>LONG LIFE TO LINUX.
>
>I think this license question is very dificult because I understand (and in fact) all the people that work in this area will pass a bill to the client, I mean, everybody needs to eat. But that is one thing and another very much diferent is that you need to pay one time and after that over and aver again for a product that not is so good after all (don´t misunderstand me it have good things too), and is a clearly way of keep market cautive.
>
>I hope the people understand this point of the licensing and that the Linux OS grow again with the effort of all.
>
>Again, LONG LIFE TO LINUX


Nice! Sandwich you remarks between peace offerings! :)

The GPL is misunderstood by many folks. It's primary goal is to prevent exploitation of other peoples work without their permission.

A person can contribute an application to GPL licensing, or not. If they use as the basis of their app an app that has already been assigned to the GPL license then they must follow that license. IF, however, they have not built on someone elses work, by using their code base, but have started from 'scratch' and created their own application they have no obligation to put it under GPL. They can sell the binary, market it, shareware it, or any of the other avenues available to them in the WinXX platform.

The GPL prevents someone from taking and taking and taking, but never returning anything to the community. Consider the FreeBSD application, ftp. It has been incorporated by MS into their products (you can use a hexeditor on ftp and see the "regeants of Univ of Calif. License..." - which is all that the FreeBSD license requires) but you haven't seen any source showing any improvements, if any. FreeBSD and their community has not gained anything from MS using their app. Its alright by me if FreeBSSD wants to be exploited like that, because they wrote the software. However, MS shouldn't complain that other communities refuse to roll over and play dead that way.

So, even in Linux an independent programmer (5-10% of all programmers are independent, the rest are paid to write software by companies or gov agencies) can earn a living. Sean Reilly wrote MoneyDance as shareware and is doing quite well. I purchased MoneyDance for $25. I would have paid as much as $100 for it. It is an excellent checkbook program. I paid $200 for Borland's Kylix, which was well worth the money. I purchased WordPerfect 8.0 on CD for $45, also an excellent buy. I purchased Applix 5.0 for $95 a couple of years ago.

So, for good programmers who have discovered a viable niche, there is money to be made writing code on the Linux platform. However, just like writing apps that are already bundled in the WinXX OS (as HP is finding out concerning XP, which has incorprated graphic abilities which compete against HP's graphics products), you don't want to write code that is already under the GPL. I wouldn't start another Office suite. Nor would I write another graphics drawing program or a CAD vector program, nor an Astromonmy program, nor a Sound editor. All of these areas are covered by existing GPL apps of very high quality.

I had my own consulting business for nearly 20 years, before I retired it. If I were to restart it again I would choose Linux as my platform and Kylix as by GUI-RAD tool, writing to the PostgreSQL backend. With my physics, math, chemistry, biology, geology, and accounting background I could write almost any app and do so at a bid price that would make me a comfortable living and still underbid most competitors using WinXX platform and tools. Many programmers are doing so right now, and the numbers are increasing. That increase may be a future problem, because it will take away the advantage of competiting against a developer/client who are forced to subtract hugh license fees from their bottom lines.
JLK