Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Scott Moore
Date : Tue Aug 23 2005 02:02 pm



Joe Butler wrote:
> This from that page:
> 
> "Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use software
> in all the ways that are socially useful"
> 
> The problem is that a commercial app is not given the freedom to use 'free
> software', even thought it may be of great social value.  Unfortunatly, the
> person/team that want to produce this software don't have the time to
> develop an app that is given away for free, and they can't give up their day
> jobs just yet.
> 
> How much money have Sun spent doing Open Office - your average
> company/person cannot afford to spend money like that just so they can give
> away the final product.
> 

Openoffice was not given away for free. It was done to help the sales of
our hardware products and to advance recognition of the Sun name in general.
Sun said so, and continues to say that with products such as open Solaris.

.