They STILL use proprietary software

gratis!!!*

What's your income from free software?

the mafia made a lot of people into millionaires too, that doesn't mean you should join it

No, it doesn't.
If you're a large corporation who spent tens of thousands of dollars on software that gives you a solid market advantage, why would you give it away for free? Just because it's GPL?

You are hired by a company that pays your salary, obviously.

How is that a counter argument? The claim was that you can't earn money from free software, something you obviously can, as demonstrated.

i don't know, why don't you ask that to companies like microsoft, google, facebook, etc who give plenty of software away "for free"
>business spending money on developing some shit product means they get to attack others' freedom
no

Depends on what your market advantage is. If it is people using the service you provide, and giving you their data (Google, Facebook), then you would obviously give away the software for free and encourage as many as possible to use your service and give their data to you.

Software they made, not software they bought from someone else for their own use.
See above; the point of the post was "free as in freedom is not necessarily free as in no price."

It isn't. People purchase software with SLAs.

I still don't think you're getting my point, but whatever.

You're trying to derail the discussion with a disingenuous premise, people and especially companies don't buy software, they buy software licenses. These licenses include SLAs/support/whatever. Free software does not refer to the price, it refers to the limitations and conditions of the software license.

>Software they made, not software they bought from someone else for their own use.
most software companies of that size regularly purchase other companies in order to take ownership of their copyrights, patents and trademarks, and they still give the software away "for free"

None of what I said contradicts any of that. I'm on the GPL's side in this debate.
Here's what I'm saying:
Company A make software X.
Company B want software X.
Because only Company A have software X, Company B get it from Company A.
Company A charge lots of money even though software X is GPL.
Company B pay money and now have software X.
Company C come along and want software X.
Company C "could" get software X from Company A or Company B.
Company B could give software X away for free to its competitors despite pay lots of money for the commercial advantage it give.
Company B not do that, because that's retarded.
Company C get it from Company A.
Company A charge lots of money even though software X is GPL.
Company C pay money and now have software X.
Company D want software X.
How do you think Company D will get software X? Is it clear now what I meant?

D will still pay A for it because enterprise software licenses are worth nothing without an SLA, software rot is real

So I don't know why you're arguing, since it seems like we're in agreement.

Person at company B takes software and sells it for half the price.
Company C buys it at half the price.
Person at Company C tries to sell it for half that to Company D.
Person at Company B undercuts him.
Price ends up at $0.

> t. NEET
If you're the only one in the market with the advantage of software X, and you sell it to a competitor, you've lost that edge. You'd charge way more than half to give that up, and you *definitely* wouldn't provide support or installation.

>If you're the only one in the market with the advantage of software X, and you sell it to a competitor, you've lost that edge.
If it's available elsewhere your only edge is in how much you can sell it for.

If you're in the business of selling software, then yes. If you're in the business of *using* software (e.g. if you're a business), then no. You're grasping at straws now, so I'm done arguing.

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>thinks you need to be in a business to make a simple deal
Good to know I can't sell my used computer parts unless I'm Best Buy.