Am 2025-09-03 02:37, schrieb Steve Litt:
> I sell books. Let's say I used the GPL 2 or GPL 3 license on my books.
> I sell the first book for whatever amount I can get. After that, the
> person who bought it sells copies for half my price, the people who buy
> it from him sell it for half his price, until finally people figure
> there's no money to be made so they give it away.

I think this is problematic anyway. Let's first think about how regular
goods are sold.
Let's say I make and sell a chair. It took time and resources to create
it. And now that it's sold, the chair is gone. To sell another chair, I
have to make a new one.
Now, software isn't like this. You have some work once, to create it,
but then, you can indefinitely copy it, no work, no resources, no costs
for you at all.
I agree that a developer should be able to sell the work of creating
such software. However, I do not believe that then selling copies of
that software,
which were created at no additional cost, or even selling the same copy
of a software to someone again and again through subscriptions, is a
just thing to do.

It is certainly more profitable for whomever is in a position to be paid
for it, to sell copies and/or subscriptions, rather than the real work.
However, I think it is unfair towards anyone who buys such software.
They keep paying for something that has no value, whose real cost of
production has already been paid for long ago several times over.
I don't think this is in the spirit of open source either.

It is now becoming a problem even for physical things one has bought
with his own money. More and more devices, or functionalities thereof,
now have similar subscription models,
so you keep paying for what you already own over and over again.

The twisted idea of intellectual property in the form it takes nowadays,
the business models it and modern technology have enabled, has
thoroughly corrupted the world.
I hope one day, this will change, and things will cost no more than they
are really worth.
And I hope it happens before we loose the ability to own anything at
all, to have anything at all.

Regards,
Daniel Abrecht