Hadron <hadronquark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> yttrx@xxxxxxxxx (yttrx) writes:
>
>> Hadron <hadronquark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> Thufir <hawat.thufir@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 06:06:22 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> But the Firefox _code_, unlike the _name_, is F/OSS. So the Debian
>>>>> developers rebranded it with different names, different pictures,
>>>>> different icons, and that's about it. Iceweasel. Oh, and "Icedove"
>>>>> instead of "Thunderbird", same reason.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This is the strength of the GPL, specifically linux. To my knowledge,
>>>> the same could be done with the linux kernel, if anyone bothered to.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Actually this is the weakness.
>>>
>>> More copy cat programs stealing the hard work from someone else. Another
>>> set of documentation. Another suite of "like but not quit like" issues
>>> where no one is quite sure who is responsible.
>>
>> Spoken very much like a programmer.
>>
>> Your "hard work", hadrin, is owned by the company you work for---so it is
>> not YOUR hard work, but instead the hard work of your puppet masters.
>>
>> You get nothing but a salary (that could be better) and some benefits
>> (though somehow never *quite* enough), and absolutely no recognition at
>> all. No one CARES who wrote the original unsharp mask for Adobe.
>
> "someone else" also encompasses firms.
>
> As it happens there are a lot of people out there who earn more money
> than we can ever dream about for things like the unsharp mask. They
> patented them and companies pay them royalties each and every day for
> such stuff as printer renderers, font kerning etc etc etc.
>
No, there are actually very few of those people---though admittedly
they do exist.
No big company is going to pay a licensing fee to a small time patent
holder for very long if that patent is lucrative for the big company--
they're going to buy the patent, or they're going to use the patent
without paying for it, banking on the small time patent holder not
having the resources to fight them in court for it.
That happens much, much, much more often.
-----yttrx
--
http://www.yttrx.net
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