At 12:35 AM 6/11/96 PDT, Brian J. Fox wrote:
>I disaggree.  As I stated originally, he is not giving his labor away,
>he is adding value to the hardware that he is selling.

There are two different things here -- the value Russ is selling
and the revenue he receives.  In the current business model, Russ
develops free drivers for hardware that he sells at the same price
as everyone else.

He is definitely adding value to the hardware.  However, because
he is not getting any more revenue than anyone else in the market
for the same piece of hardware, he is giving his labor away.  Since 
his competitors do not have to pay for driver development, they
have lower cost structures which they can use to drive price 
competition or to just sit back and enjoy higher margins from
Russ's free labor.

I'm sure the free advertising is great, but you're still just selling
your time and you have a very limited supply of that.



  This is not
>the same thing.  In addition to the added value (which in effect means
>that his hardware prices are, in fact, lower), there is the benifit
>that Russ mentioned of the free advertising aspect.  I cannot say
>enough about this, since almost all of my consulting gigs have come
>about based upon my reputation, and the ability to have viewed my
>previous work.
>
>Brian
>
>
>   At 08:24 PM 6/10/96 PDT, nelson@crynwr.com wrote:
>   >Brian J. Fox writes:
>   >
>   > > This is all well and good, but what I don't understand is why you feel
>   > > compelled to make the driver for this hardware proprietery.  If the
>   > > item you are writing a driver for is neat enough for me to want to buy
>   > > it, and you are charging the same as anyone else who is selling it,
>   > > I'll buy it from you, because I know that you are one in the best
>   > > position to deliver the newest and best driver for this product.
>   >
>   >Yes, I think that both of these points, plus the free advertising
>   >that comes of giving away your software, are sufficient for me to
>   >make the driver GPL'ed.
>
>
>