Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : David Golden
Date : Fri Sep 23 2005 04:35 pm

David Golden wrote:

> The whole purpose of granting you temporary monopolies is
> the theory that the UNfair competition will encourage you to field
> a team making excretions that those trading the excretions for the
> prizes you desire, desire.
> 

Gah, that's unclear or just wrong - what I should say is:

"... encourage you to field a team making new excretions desirable
by those supplying prizes (and by those seeking to produce new
excretions desirable to prize-suppliers, as new excretion patterns are
developments of old ones)"

(And team-owners and prize suppliers are not mutually exclusive at all,
and one must also consider what's "fair" for prize-suppliers.)

Of course, the whole analogy breaks down rather quickly, because 
playing fields are not much like trade markets.

Consider a race across an obstacle course - the leader might stumble
into more traps, but that's a price of being the leader, you might have
to work harder than followers.  Doesn't mean the followers owe the
leader anything, it was a free choice the leader made to do the extra
work in order to maintain the lead over the followers.

Of course, races aren't the same as trade markets either.

.