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Comment by marcus | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't exactly work when your revenue comes from selling shrink-wrap software or games.

Yes it does. The people buying shrink-wrap software don't typically go online and compile from source. The users that are capable of compiling their own version (and supplying their own artwork) based on GPL source code are likely to just use (or develop) free alternatives to commercial software. So releasing your software under the GPL, even when you're in the business of selling said software is not exactly a bad idea.

Someone can make a website called Compiled<x>.com and charge $25 (undercutting company) per download of the compiled product legally.

And then I can make one called CheapCompiled<x>.com and charge $10 per download, undercutting both...and then some jackass gets the great idea to make a bittorrent of it...and then it gets included in the next Fedora release...and then some jerk decides to fix the worst bugs and forks off Super<x> and starts a project at Google code...and then the damned thing has 20 million users who aren't paying us a fuckin' dime.

Actually none of these things sounds all that bad to me. But I also understand the GPL license and its relation to business extremely well. (My company sells a dual-licensed product that has a GPL variant, and we actually like the "and then the damned thing has 20 million users" aspect of Open Source.)

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