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List:       gphoto-devel
Subject:    Re: [gphoto-devel] Re: gPhoto2 licensing clarification (was Re:
From:       Scott Fritzinger <scottf () gphoto ! net>
Date:       2000-08-27 17:43:48
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Richard Stallman wrote:

>     > Nowadays most users want to obtain free software in precompiled form,
>     > with dpkg or rpm.  So the company will feel pressure from their
>     > customers to make these binaries available even if the driver is free
>     > software.  Thus, they will not save as much as you envision.
>     even with binary packages, the number of drivers is the same. 10 for
>     this version of gPhoto2, 10 for this version... etc.
> That is my point exactly--they will have to support a large number of
> binary releases whether the driver is free or not.  So a free driver
> won't automatically relieve them of this burden.

But they would not be in charge of releasing the driver. the driver is
maintained by gPhoto2 developers in the official gPhoto2 source tree.
This would relieve them of it.

>     >     - Users on different platforms compile their own binaries,
>     > Non-wizard camera customers won't consider that "good support" for
>     > their cameras company.
>     again though, they would not need to worry about this if the driver was
>     Free and maintained.
> I see your point here: if the driver is included in gPhoto, they will
> not have to distribute drivers at all.  That would be a certain amount
> of advantage.
> (But if supporting gPhoto becomes vital, they might find it essential
> to distribute drivers for OLD versions of gPhoto, because they don't
> want people to be unable to use their cameras until the new gPhoto
> release.  This will get them into the business of distributing drivers
> just the same.)

since we are still in the beginning phases of gPhoto2 development, the
current drivers will be the 'old' drivers of the future. 

but the same point comes up: if someone want to use the driver with an
old version of gPhoto2, they will back-port it. this is how it has been
done (we've had gphoto1 0.5 drivers back-ported to gphoto 0.4.x
releases).

> The advantage of not having to distribute drivers won't persuade
> companies which *think* (whether rightly or wrongly) that they gain
> some great advantage by secrecy.  So the question that ultimately
> matters is how we can arrange for a lot of customers not to buy those
> companies' cameras.

people have bought cameras for Linux because gPhoto supported them. it
is already (and has been) to the point where people are buying simply
because of support. The camera companies are already benefiting from
gPhoto regardless of them opening up their specs or not. Kodak (who
provides specs) is benefiting just as much as Canon (who laughs in our
faces and tells us our fathers smell of elder-berries ;P).

We would give them the opportunity of "official" support by letting them
recognize that gPhoto is here to stay on ALL platforms.

To add incentive, we provide the implementation and maintainence of
their drivers. If they still want to create non-Free drivers, then that
is their (unfortunate) choice. How long until a developer writes a Free
driver? not long at all (i guarantee you that) because their driver will
more-than-likely be buggy. TWAIN drivers are a perfect example of the
buggy nature of in-house developed drivers. gPhoto drivers are more
stable and faster because of their Free nature. Companies win again
because the resulting driver is better than the one that could've been
developed in-house and end-users are a LOT less frustrated because
crashes are minimized.

In the end, camera companies want to sell cameras. Users want to use
their cameras without problems. We can facilitate this but also push and
prove the idea of Free development/software in the process to both the
companies AND users. Like you said, we may win some battles (Free
drivers) or lose some (non-Free drivers, but someone could reverse
engineer them), but in the end, we push the idea of Free software as a
valid solution to companies who wouldn't consider it to begin with. Just
taking it 1 step at a time.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-------------------- - - -   -    -
Scott Fritzinger		email: scottf@gphoto.net
gPhoto Project			  icq: 15884777
www.gphoto.net

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