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In many cases this had the effect that you can sell them only once since the buyer then has everything he needs to sell it, and will presumably do so for less.

by fegu 6y ago

velosol 6y ago
While they could sell them for less they generally cannot sell as your product (name, logo, etc) is your copyright or trademark that you do not license when you license the code GPL.
- kragen 6y ago
  CC-SA and GPL exist precisely to prohibit this kind of thing, except for your name, logo, etc., which someone can remove in order to resell your derivative work.
  - velosol 6y ago
    I've always thought that a bit unlikely - if someone is going through the trouble to resell they take on business costs, probably some support or maintenance costs, and a desire to profit (otherwise they'd just post the GPL'ed portion publicly). There's also no guarantee the reseller has access to any updated upstream code (especially in the situation that undercutting results in the originator stopping production). Legal? Definitely. Profitable? Maybe, sometimes. As I understand GPL it has a provision to provide source code such that it may be modified by a recipient of source or compiled code. I can't find anything similar in CC-BY-SA [1] other than a grant that the recipient of compiled code may reverse engineer that code if they desire so long as anything that person adapts is also shared under a compatible license. [1]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode
    - kragen 6y ago
      Answers.com used to make enough ad revenue from their copies of Wikipedia pages that they sponsored Wikimania with it. And of course Cygnus, Soft Landing Software, Slackware, Red Hat, CheapBytes, and so on, have made a great deal of money on GPL software, most of which they didn't write themselves. It's true that CC-BY-SA doesn't include the source-code-provision provision of the GPL, because it isn't intended for software, and it isn't clear what the source code for, say, a photograph would be. A PSD, maybe; but what about the RAW from your camera? What if you don't shoot raw? Are you obligated to include documentation of the photographer's lighting setup in order to redistribute? Their thinking about the framing? Shots from the other angles they tried that didn't work out? Such considerations would probably have resulted in SA works being impossible to legally redistribute in practice, so the license doesn't impose them.
      - velosol 6y ago
        I wasn't aware of Answers.com; that's a great counter-example! I knew of a few of the others before this comment and I've viewed them as providing some amount of service or support for the price paid so yes they are selling GPL they didn't write, but they're selling something else (their time) along with it. There's certainly an argument that selling support for software you didn't write (or didn't write in large part) is 'bad'. I also believe that if you are selling the (free/gratis, GPL) software without support you're not going to be in business long. And all good points on the differences between CC & GPL, my only point was that selling compiled CC-BY-SA binaries provided security-through-obscurity level protection from someone reselling your product (when paired with trademark protection). Thank you for all the things to think about!

In many cases this had the effect that you can sell them only once since the buyer then has everything he needs to sell it, and will presumably do so for less.

by fegu 6y ago

In many cases this had the effect that you can sell them only once since the buyer then has everything he needs to sell it, and will presumably do so for less.

velosol 6y ago

While they could sell them for less they generally cannot sell as your product (name, logo, etc) is your copyright or trademark that you do not license when you license the code GPL.

kragen 6y ago
CC-SA and GPL exist precisely to prohibit this kind of thing, except for your name, logo, etc., which someone can remove in order to resell your derivative work.
- velosol 6y ago
  I've always thought that a bit unlikely - if someone is going through the trouble to resell they take on business costs, probably some support or maintenance costs, and a desire to profit (otherwise they'd just post the GPL'ed portion publicly). There's also no guarantee the reseller has access to any updated upstream code (especially in the situation that undercutting results in the originator stopping production). Legal? Definitely. Profitable? Maybe, sometimes. As I understand GPL it has a provision to provide source code such that it may be modified by a recipient of source or compiled code. I can't find anything similar in CC-BY-SA [1] other than a grant that the recipient of compiled code may reverse engineer that code if they desire so long as anything that person adapts is also shared under a compatible license. [1]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode
  - kragen 6y ago
    Answers.com used to make enough ad revenue from their copies of Wikipedia pages that they sponsored Wikimania with it. And of course Cygnus, Soft Landing Software, Slackware, Red Hat, CheapBytes, and so on, have made a great deal of money on GPL software, most of which they didn't write themselves. It's true that CC-BY-SA doesn't include the source-code-provision provision of the GPL, because it isn't intended for software, and it isn't clear what the source code for, say, a photograph would be. A PSD, maybe; but what about the RAW from your camera? What if you don't shoot raw? Are you obligated to include documentation of the photographer's lighting setup in order to redistribute? Their thinking about the framing? Shots from the other angles they tried that didn't work out? Such considerations would probably have resulted in SA works being impossible to legally redistribute in practice, so the license doesn't impose them.
    - velosol 6y ago
      I wasn't aware of Answers.com; that's a great counter-example! I knew of a few of the others before this comment and I've viewed them as providing some amount of service or support for the price paid so yes they are selling GPL they didn't write, but they're selling something else (their time) along with it. There's certainly an argument that selling support for software you didn't write (or didn't write in large part) is 'bad'. I also believe that if you are selling the (free/gratis, GPL) software without support you're not going to be in business long. And all good points on the differences between CC & GPL, my only point was that selling compiled CC-BY-SA binaries provided security-through-obscurity level protection from someone reselling your product (when paired with trademark protection). Thank you for all the things to think about!