On 6 June 2011 08:25, Greg Stein <gst...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hey. Feel free to spin your theories. > > It just isn't possible to divide markets around ALv2 code. >
We had a lot of these competition discussions/arguments with BECTA in the UK. They never grasped that FOSS is not a product in the sense of a product owned by a company or cartel sold at a price. They would say things like we can't back FOSS because it is an unfair advantage to one product and at the same time make a procurement framework that was only possible to bid for with software licenses! Anyone is free to use FOSS so it is not a product in the company ownership sense, its more like a business method that is open to all. BECTA was effectively giving unfair advantage to one business method over another for years yet no competition issue was ever raised. As far as I can see, saying the Apache role is to maintain a common code base and the TDF role is to use it in a specific way is no different from saying the OASIS role is to hold and define the ISO 26300 standard and other people can build products and services around it. OASIS is not bound to produce a product. If two dominant market players colluded to divide up a definable service based on any product eg by price fixing it would be illegal but I don't see any scope for this in these discussions. If we said we'll jointly market OOo T-shirts and promise to not sell them other than at $10, that would be illegal. I can't see that is the same as saying that in general people will be allowed to use the TM on T-shirts if they give back $X to the project development. While this is not really relevant to the incubator vote, I think clarification of consequences/issues of working together is still important.
