Re: [libreplanet-discuss] help with FSF incompatible but community oriented licence(s)

[Jason Self]

Patrick said:

> Parents of autistic kids are already under 
> enormous stress and most won't end up knowing there was a free as in 
> beer alternative. parisites will swoop in an screw over the parents by 
> sellign them the software.

It's good that you're concerned that people might be taken advantage of but I
think your concerns are unfounded. There is remarkable self-correcting power in
the world. If someone is charging too much for a copy of the software someone
else will come in and undercut them by offering the same software at a lower
cost (maybe even free) and if the price is a big problem word *will* get around
so it isn't necessary for the license to mandate that the software be
distributed at no cost.

This is also discussed in Selling Free Software [1], specifically the "Will a
higher distribution price hurt some users?" section.

As an example, internet access isn't available everywhere and so the requirement
to distribute it at no cost means that I couldn't give copies to people for,
say, $5 each on CD to cover my costs of buying and mailing CDs because that's
not without cost.

Not only is distributing for a fee not a problem that you need to worry about
for the reasons I stated but mandating that there be no cost could also be a
hindrance to others that want to help.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

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