Re: Hey Terekhov: Wallace lost. Who'd guess.... ;)

[David Kastrup]

Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:

> David Kastrup wrote:
>> 
>> Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:
>> 
>> > David Kastrup wrote:
>> > [...]
>> >> Please specify which market you think this is supposed to be.  Up to
>> >> now you have only vaguely paraded "intellectual property" around.
>> >> Please specify _exactly_ what Wallace is supposed to be selling in the
>> >> presumed market.
>> >
>> > Operating system software. I'll make it simple for you. Suppose
>> > that all GPL'd software evaporates tomorrow. People will need
>> > software in place of it. That's the market.
>> 
>> So you are talking about selling licenses and media.  Fine.  RedHat is
>> operating profitably in that business, so no predatory pricing.  
>
> Red Hat recoups losses from GPL conspiracy (with other
> co-conspirators in predatory priced IP that is meant to kill
> competition) by higher prices of their subscription service
> contracts.

Reality check.

<URL:http://www.redhat.com/info/earnings/earnings_4q2006_tables.html>

By far the largest revenue comes from subscriptions to software.
Training and services, in contrast, are dwarved by a factor of about
4.

There are no "losses from GPL conspiracy".  RedHat sells its media at
a profit.  Whether the sales channel is most profitable on
subscriptions or on individual sales, is pretty irrelevant.

For your information, "loss" in an identifiable market segment means
"cost minus profits".  And Wallace, like you, has failed to specify a
defined market segment where RedHat would be making losses, let alone
permanent losses.

Apart from that, RedHat does not _set_ the price for licensing,
anyway.  It just follows the license conditions and has no choice
there where "conspiracy" code, namely that copyrighted by independent
parties, is involved.

Where they _do_ have a choice is when they are putting together
compilations where parts are (C) RedHat.  And RedHat has a history of
routing out non-free components drastically (GNOME instead of KDE/Qt
at a time when the latter was non-free still was one of the more
drastic measures) and of putting technology like the RPM stuff under
the GPL.  And guess what, this is what made people turn to RedHat to
such a degree that RedHat made the profits it does now.

The customers are seemingly actively involved in this "conspiracy",
too.  Does not seem to be very secret.  And RedHat fails to make
losses with its predatory pricing that it would need to recoup
elsewhere.

> "A plaintiff must prove (1) that the prices complained of are below
> an appropriate measure of its rival's costs and (2) that the
> competitor had a reasonable prospect of recouping its investment in
> below cost prices."
>
> Wallace is a sure winner on the merits as well, AFAICS.

As sure as the sky is pink.  And "as far as you can see" is not
particularly impressive as long as you keep digging yourself into
holes.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum