[darcs-users] how to redistribute darcs+Eclipse (was: Darcs API?)

[David Roundy]

On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 04:05:14PM +0100, Simon Marlow wrote:
> On 6/4/05, David Roundy <droundy at darcs.net> wrote:
> 
> > This option seems best to me (assuming we go with any change at all).
> > I now see (from your explanation) that although the CPL is copyleft, it
> > is LGPL-style copyleft, which seems non-optimal to me (i.e. it would
> > allow a proprietary version of darcs).
> 
> Interesting - what's your objection to a proprietary version of darcs?
>  Is it "all proprietary software is bad", or something else?

I wouldn't say that "all proprietary software is bad", but would say that
the economics of proprietary software is harmful to users.  Makers of
commercial software have less incentive to do what is beneficial to their
users, but rather to induce a dependency on new versions of their software.
"Free" proprietary software is usually even worse.  The reason it is
proprietary is to benefit the developer, but because it's "free" it can
much more easily induce that dependency.  If Japanese chip makers were to
start giving away RAM for free, we'd slap retaliatory tariffs on Japanese
products in an instant, and yet similar anticompetetive behavior in the
software arena is considered "generous".

In the case of darcs, the danger would be that someone would make a
significant improvement and then ship his proprietary modified darcs for
free (at least for a time).  If users were to switch to this proprietary
darcs, the developer base of free darcs would be likely to be diminished,
and in time free darcs could bitrot and die, at which point the maker of
the proprietary darcs could impose ridiculous terms like requiring that
users agree not to contribute to another SCM, and that their employers not
contribute to another SCM, and that all employees of users' employers also
not contribute to any other SCM.  This has happened, and by someone who is
(and was) a supporter of Free Software, simply because he founded a company
to develop a proprietary SCM, and had a business to defend.  (For those who
don't follow the news, I'm talking about BitKeeper here.)

Admittedly, it's perhaps unlikely that someone will make such a major
contribution to darcs that they can convince everyone to switch to a
proprietary version, but even if they only *tried* to do so, you'd have a
drain on darcs developers, since they'd try to employ the best haskellers
around (and the best darcs developers, if they could get them).

There's also the factor that the (perhaps even at times irrational) fear of
such a scenario can lead potential developers not to contribute to a
project.  Some developers (in certain moods including me) don't *want* to
work for years laboring over a work of love and then have someone else take
advantage of that work, make a few improvements, but never contribute back
in any way.  It's a selfish sentiment perhaps, but a human one.

I guess that's enough philosophizing for now...
-- 
David Roundy
http://www.darcs.net