[Fwd: Re: Charging ($20) for GPL source?]

[Arnoud Engelfriet]

C.Grobmeier wrote:
> Why is it more expensive to distribute source code than bin's? If the
> company would say: "bins cost 30$ to download, sources too" i could
> accept this more easily.

It is more expensive only because it's not part of the standard process.
As a hardware company, you sell devices preprogrammed with certain
functionality. Your business process is aimed towards producing those
devices. Everything that is not in those processes adds extra cost,
because it must be done ad-hoc. 

Distributing third-party source code to customers is not common
enough to be part of the standard process. It's as simple as that. 
It takes time to adapt your processes.

Let's say you'd like to have daily backups for your data. This is
a good idea and many people say they'd like to do it. Yet, few
people actually do it. That is because it is labor-intensive as
you have to do manual steps. Sitting down and working out
a good way to do that automatically takes time and effort.

> However i guess this is a bit offtopic in the violationslist, please
> forgive me.

I think it's rather relevant really. I think it explains why so
many companies have trouble complying with the GPL. Saying "you
shouldn't use it if you can't comply" does not solve that problem,
because they already know that. They want to comply, but it's
a struggle to actually do that in practice. 

(Of course there are companies that ignore the GPL or even
willfully violate it, but that's another issue entirely)

Arnoud

-- 
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch & European patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/