Firefox market share bounces back 6716

These companies may use linux instead of unix for their server needs, I will agree, but the issue was in using GPL code as a starting for continued product development. I don't think any of them do that.

Well, MS basically said to the OEM, "Hey, use Windows the way we created it or use something else!" And they were found to have a monopoly. Stallman says "Hey, use the GPL the way I wrote it or use something else!". How is that any different? I think you are biased, nut!

Easy for you to *say*, nut, but much more difficult to demonstrate.

Well consider that what I want to do is come up with a new application that does something beyond the ordinary and might appeal to a limited audience who could profit from its use. Is that a reasonable goal. Because I am going to provide my target customer with valuable buttistance in making his own processes more efficient, I expect to be rewarded and substantially so for my brilliance. My target customer is not the starving mbuttes in Zambesia or such, it is a rich manufacturing corporation such as Lockheed-Martin and they will make millions by using my programs.

So I want to lock up my programs so that my customer must pay me for each "seat" or such using my inventions. How do I do that if my invention is an extension of some GPL program? Say I need some basic PNG image processing to achieve my goal. What would I use?

I cannot use a GPL base and place any restriction on the part that I added, I have to use the same terms as the basis program that I am modifying. Well, tell Richard Stallman to sit on his thumb and whistle Dixie. I will use the CImage clbutt from Microsoft and add some of the suggested extensions from the samples and then I will add my own special understanding and wrap it all up in a product that I will sell with whatever terms I can get to benefit myself.

Contributing to the welfare of Lockheed-Martin by giving away your IP is stupid, IMO. Giving it away to IBM, RHAT, NOVL, or any other company that profits from the proliferation of linux, including Linus himself now that he charges to use the name, is equally stupid. BTW, I think that "ridicule" is overused in your post, nut! I would subsbreastute "laughable" in the second instance. Just a suggestion.

Seems kind of helter-skelter to me, nut. You are saying that you buy VS.NET, Qt, and Borland for each developer? That seems incredibly screwed up to me. Does your company make any money? What basic industry are you involved with?

LOL!!!

Well the point was to find out what people who do this for money, i.e. the pros, use. I think they use VS.NET if they are making Windows compatible programs. You seem to be doing that, too, but you throw in all these other names as a diversion.

I think you are misusing the term, nut.