On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Richard Stallman wrote: > Solely from your own point of view again. Sorry, you just managed to lose > your credibility on this whole matter.
> With all due respect, I doubt it. I could not lose any credibility > with you, because I had none to start with. You demanded explanations > for this and that with an unfriendly tone.
To the contrary, I believe my original message to you was pretty neutral. I even took great care not to be offensive. I however stated some _facts_ which aren't coherent with your credit/naming policy so you could clarify them. You instead chose to qualify the core of my mail as unfriendly and avoided the issue altogether.
> I figured that even if I gave good answers to all those accusations,
Accusations?
> it would be unlikely to win your good opinion.
At least you might have avoided the bad one.
> Insted I responded to the points that seemed worth responding to for the > sake of other readers starting with a more neutral attitude.
I was one of them, but since you chose to qualify most of my points as not "worth responding" since they challenge your agenda, I can only conclude that it's not possible to have a reasonable conversation with this narrow-minded attitude of yours.
Someone else replied to my original mail in private. We agreed to disagree after some really interesting exchanges, yet I didn't lose any respect for that person at all.
> The meaning attached to this symbol is one we disagree with (see > http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html), so we will not accept > it as the symbol of our work.
But you don't attach strings about naming in GPL, so you are SOL respect FSF owned software.
What is discussed here is the operating system (narrow sense, i.e., kernel only) called Linux, on which you have no claim whatsoever.
We all agree that the proper name for the kernel is "Linux." The disagreement is about the name for the complete system that people use on desktops and servers.
Richard Stallman wrote: >We all agree that the proper name for the kernel is "Linux." >The disagreement is about the name for the complete system >that people use on desktops and servers.
Richard,
Ok, let's just say that you're reasoning is not completely way off, that you may even make some sense with your GNU/Linux rant. Even if it was so, is it worth the trouble you go through everyday evangelizing that? Obviously the core developers don't give a damn about the naming scheme (the proof is that they didn't participate on this infamous thread) and even more obvious is the fact that people outside the development lists also don't care. So do you think you will ever change anything? Do you still have such hopes? Because, truth to be told, if I would go through this list archives and quote each and every one of your emails I'd be repeating myself an awful lot. You keep saying, with no deviation whatsoever, that GNU/Linux gives credit to every GNU hacker and not just to Linus or the kernel developers and pointing everyone to the GNU pages for clarification (on what is already simple). Really, if it didn't work until now what makes you think it'll work in the future?
Even if you were right, I honestly don't see, with all my good will, a successful ending to your quest. Do you?
Paulo Andre' wrote: > Really, if it didn't work until now what makes you think it'll work > in the future?
Oh, but it is working. I've seen quite a few web pages that say something to the effect of "I use GNU/Linux" or "this site runs on blah blah GNU/Linux".
I think it likely that each person who wrote the "GNU/" thought about why they wanted to write it, too - which is the real point, isn't it?
I don't know anyone who actually says GNU/Linux verbally though -- it's quite clumsy to say.
(For my part, I never say or write "GNU/Linux", but instead I tend to say I use and write "Free Software". Unfortunately people still have trouble recognising how they are affected by the freedoms of _other_ people, so they persist in thinking I must mean something to do with the price tag. Alas!)
> Even if you were right, I honestly don't see, with all my good will, a > successful ending to your quest. Do you?
What is the rush to end the quest?
Richard's campaign is about political awareness, and it seems to be working. If the campaign stopped today, that awareness might die down.
Hopefully, the day will come when that is ok -- not because there are lots of people saying the same thing, but because terms like GNU and Free Software will be redundant.
Hopefully, one day freely sharing ideas will the norm, as cultures develop which encourage sharing without hunger, and fighting over who owns (and so is the sole profiter of) an idea will seem weird.
_Then_ this particular quest is ready to end. It may be a long time yet, perhaps longer than Richard or I will live. But hopefully not.
On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 04:59:37AM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
> We all agree that the proper name for the kernel is "Linux." > The disagreement is about the name for the complete system > that people use on desktops and servers.
This being the _kernel_ list, can you now take your rants someplace else where it might actually be relevant ? If your beef is with the distros, I'm sure you can do the groundwork to figure out who to whine at.
On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 04:59:37AM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > What is discussed here is the operating system (narrow sense, i.e., > kernel only) called Linux, on which you have no claim whatsoever. > We all agree that the proper name for the kernel is "Linux." > The disagreement is about the name for the complete system > that people use on desktops and servers.
Good. So go fight with RedHat, Debian, and all the other distros to ensure that they give you whatever credit you want.
mark
P.S. Please honour my request for you to include the names of the people you are quoting in emails. It is a disrespectful act to purposefully remove credit for quotes. For somebody arguing about credit, it seems a little contradictory...
On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Richard Stallman wrote: > > The meaning attached to this symbol is one we disagree with (see > > http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html), so we will not accept > > it as the symbol of our work.
> But you don't attach strings about naming in GPL, so you are SOL respect > FSF owned software.
> What is discussed here is the operating system (narrow sense, i.e., kernel > only) called Linux, on which you have no claim whatsoever.
> We all agree that the proper name for the kernel is "Linux." > The disagreement is about the name for the complete system > that people use on desktops and servers.
98% of end users and server users get their software from a major distributor like RedHat or Suse. It seems to be you would get much bigger effect by prosletyzing to those companies. Are you doing that preaching as well as in this small section of the electronic world?
> On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Richard Stallman wrote: > > > The meaning attached to this symbol is one we disagree with (see > > > http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html), so we will not accept > > > it as the symbol of our work.
> > But you don't attach strings about naming in GPL, so you are SOL > > respect FSF owned software.
> > What is discussed here is the operating system (narrow sense, i.e., > > kernel only) called Linux, on which you have no claim whatsoever.
> > We all agree that the proper name for the kernel is "Linux." > > The disagreement is about the name for the complete system > > that people use on desktops and servers.
> 98% of end users and server users get their software from a major > distributor like RedHat or Suse. It seems to be you would get much bigger > effect by prosletyzing to those companies. Are you doing that preaching as > well as in this small section of the electronic world?
> john
If you followed the link in the post you replied to, you'd see he did contact several distro vendors, and Mandrake has started to switch to calling it GNU/Linux.
I really hate myself for responding to people like you, but I feel compelled.
On Thu, Jan 23, 2003 at 06:37:42AM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote: > Good. So go fight with RedHat, Debian, and all the other distros to ensure > that they give you whatever credit you want.
[mailto:linux-kernel-ow...@vger.kernel.org]On Behalf Of Richard Stallman Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 5:38 AM To: Mark Mielke Cc: br...@jupiter.cs.uni-dortmund.de; st...@tuxsoft.com; linux-ker...@vger.kernel.org; br...@eeyore.valparaiso.cl Subject: Re: [OFFTOPIC] RMS and reactions to him
Good. So go fight with RedHat, Debian, and all the other distros to ensure that they give you whatever credit you want.
/* How many pages do we try to swap or page in/out together? */ int page_cluster; - -pager_daemon_t pager_daemon = { - 512, /* base number for calculating the number of tries */ - SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX, /* minimum number of tries */ - 8, /* do swap I/O in clusters of this size */ -};
/* * Move an inactive page to the active list. diff -urN linux-2.4.20/mm/swap_state.c linux-2.4.20-modified/mm/swap_state.c --- linux-2.4.20/mm/swap_state.c Thu Nov 28 15:53:15 2002 +++ linux-2.4.20-modified/mm/swap_state.c Thu Jan 23 15:57:32 2003 @@ -10,7 +10,6 @@ #include <linux/mm.h> #include <linux/kernel_stat.h> #include <linux/swap.h> -#include <linux/swapctl.h> #include <linux/init.h> #include <linux/pagemap.h> #include <linux/smp_lock.h> diff -urN linux-2.4.20/mm/swapfile.c linux-2.4.20-modified/mm/swapfile.c --- linux-2.4.20/mm/swapfile.c Fri Aug 2 17:39:46 2002 +++ linux-2.4.20-modified/mm/swapfile.c Thu Jan 23 15:58:32 2003 @@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ #include <linux/smp_lock.h> #include <linux/kernel_stat.h> #include <linux/swap.h> -#include <linux/swapctl.h> #include <linux/blkdev.h> /*
...
> > My intent with using the GNU General License is rather that someone > > does not take my code and profit from it (although I probably have little > > actual recourse if they do). It is free for anyone to use and/or modify to > > suite their needs. > You mean any big corporation can take your code and profit from it
but not other programmers working for themselves. The GPL (and LGPL) are incompatible with an environment where programmers can make a living working for themselves developing and selling components. Even from a political standpoint, not just practical, i'd rather see programmers devote part of their time to develop open source to help each other rather than to help everyone but other programmers. Not to squeeze more money out of end users, but to free the programmers too, not just the end users and big corporations. The GPL even has a clause that exempts operating system vendors (Microsoft!) from the infective clause. If they had kept to their theory and hadn't given in a little there, only Linux users would've been allowed to use it. Now that I work for myself I can even contribute to open source projects without worrying about confidentiality agreements. Thank god for the Sun public license and a few others, or small independents would have no chance against the developers with venture capital who can write everything from scratch and then charge an arm and a leg. Good thing Java isn't GPL'd.
> Really, this isn't directed at you, but to make the point that the
GPL has outlived its usefulness. It has done well jumpstarting the open source idea, but these days open source has much greater value than just that it's easy to acquire (free). Any good open source project is immediately a standard, and it's pretty much guaranteed to be kept up to date by some programmer somewhere as long as it's useful. There are very few software vendors that can guarantee that their products will be around for the long haul. Programmers everywhere should contribute to open source, but it's no longer necessary to do so at the expense of their own livelihood or freedom from corporate jobs.
> It's not important that software is free. Everyone from
corporations to teenagers buying music expect to give something back for a benefit given to them. $15 for a music CD may not be fair, but $3 probably would be. People do feel stupid paying for something when they don't have to, but not because they're looking for charity; they know that the provider is compensated in some way simply by the fact that they are an equal player in business, not a charitable giver. On this basis, GNU software has been very popular. What's important, though, is that the software is maintained publicly. Then its design arises out of a convergence of pains of its market, which no one can predict ahead of time. Like democracy, the total interaction immersed in its environment defines and redefines the problem and the solution. No single contributor can reach the understanding that the whole can. The other reason is that the longevity of the software shouldn't depend on the existence of one company.
Standards should be distributed freely, but that doesn't mean that the people who write them shouldn't be able to feed themselves, or that participation should be limited to those who can afford to spend the time because of ulterior motives. People should spend most of their unpaid time on their kids or helping people in need of a helping hand at that moment, not writing software. That would actually do something for the human part of society, not the machine part.
Someone could say that people shouldn't make a lot of money simply from the fact that software is easily copied. If you went to an architect and told him your needs, and he pulled out a blue print from a drawer that he designed for someone else for $5000, and charged you the same amount as the first customer, you might be angry. That would be a lot of money to pay for the act of making a copy. However, another architect might be able to predict that he can sell 100 copies of a certain design, so he'll spend a month of his own time and charge the first customer only $50 instead of $5000. Then he'll expect to sell 99 more copies at $50 each. $50 is still a lot of money to pay for the act of making a copy, but that's not what you're paying for this time (and the first customer is happier too).
Software isn't infinitely applicable and its applicability decays fairly rapidly if left alone. The number of copies that can be distributed (even for free) can be calculated. Even at subsistence living for the programmers (and their kids) the cost (in money or societal cost of having that many humans spend that much time in mental intimacy with their computer instead of volunteering somewhere where they're really needed) of building the software can be divided by the expected distribution to arrive at a price that the users would ethically insist to pay otherwise they would consider themselves abusers of someone else's contributions, sacrifices and basic needs.
You can't expect Stallman to change his spiel now when GNU is so popular, but some of the newer generations should find a way out of the views that were necessary to jumpstart the open source concept, but which are now redundant because open source is a success, on its own merits.
Open software is essential. Free software is unnecessary. Non-charitable unpaid work is immoral.
cat wrote:<obviious commercial propoganda sniped> > Open software is essential.
Yip
> Free software is unnecessary.
Crap.
> Non-charitable unpaid work is immoral.
You mean like church volenteers?
Isn't it up to the individual conserned to decide if his/her/it software should be free? Yor last statement about free software being unneccessary is total crap. How else can young folk learn to hown there skills and feel like they a re contributing to the OSS community.
-- Mark p
Support MS in the battle against software piracy-use alternative software! (PS I'm not a wintroll or a linonut. Just trying to get the most out o my humble beast)
In article <d371b963.0301312201.2849d...@posting.google.com>, cat wrote: >> > My intent with using the GNU General License is rather that someone >> > does not take my code and profit from it (although I probably have little >> > actual recourse if they do). It is free for anyone to use and/or modify to >> > suite their needs.
>> You mean any big corporation can take your code and profit from it > but not other programmers working for themselves. The GPL (and LGPL) > are incompatible with an environment where programmers can make a > living working for themselves developing and selling components. Even > from a political standpoint, not just practical, i'd rather see > programmers devote part of their time to develop open source to help > each other rather than to help everyone but other programmers. Not to > squeeze more money out of end users, but to free the programmers too, > not just the end users and big corporations. The GPL even has a > clause that exempts operating system vendors (Microsoft!) from the > infective clause. If they had kept to their theory and hadn't given in > a little there, only Linux users would've been allowed to use it. Now > that I work for myself I can even contribute to open source projects > without worrying about confidentiality agreements. Thank god for the > Sun public license and a few others, or small independents would have > no chance against the developers with venture capital who can write > everything from scratch and then charge an arm and a leg. Good thing > Java isn't GPL'd.
>> Really, this isn't directed at you, but to make the point that the > GPL has outlived its usefulness. It has done well jumpstarting the > open source idea, but these days open source has much greater value > than just that it's easy to acquire (free). Any good open source > project is immediately a standard, and it's pretty much guaranteed to > be kept up to date by some programmer somewhere as long as it's > useful. There are very few software vendors that can guarantee that > their products will be around for the long haul. Programmers > everywhere should contribute to open source, but it's no longer > necessary to do so at the expense of their own livelihood or freedom > from corporate jobs.
>> It's not important that software is free. Everyone from > corporations to teenagers buying music expect to give something back > for a benefit given to them. $15 for a music CD may not be fair, but > $3 probably would be. People do feel stupid paying for something when > they don't have to, but not because they're looking for charity; they > know that the provider is compensated in some way simply by the fact > that they are an equal player in business, not a charitable giver. On > this basis, GNU software has been very popular. What's important, > though, is that the software is maintained publicly. Then its design > arises out of a convergence of pains of its market, which no one can > predict ahead of time. Like democracy, the total interaction immersed > in its environment defines and redefines the problem and the solution. > No single contributor can reach the understanding that the whole can. > The other reason is that the longevity of the software shouldn't > depend on the existence of one company.
> Standards should be distributed freely, but that doesn't mean that the > people who write them shouldn't be able to feed themselves, or that > participation should be limited to those who can afford to spend the > time because of ulterior motives. People should spend most of their > unpaid time on their kids or helping people in need of a helping hand > at that moment, not writing software. That would actually do > something for the human part of society, not the machine part.
> Someone could say that people shouldn't make a lot of money simply > from the fact that software is easily copied. If you went to an > architect and told him your needs, and he pulled out a blue print from > a drawer that he designed for someone else for $5000, and charged you > the same amount as the first customer, you might be angry. That would > be a lot of money to pay for the act of making a copy. However, > another architect might be able to predict that he can sell 100 copies > of a certain design, so he'll spend a month of his own time and charge > the first customer only $50 instead of $5000. Then he'll expect to > sell 99 more copies at $50 each. $50 is still a lot of money to pay > for the act of making a copy, but that's not what you're paying for > this time (and the first customer is happier too).
> Software isn't infinitely applicable and its applicability decays > fairly rapidly if left alone. The number of copies that can be > distributed (even for free) can be calculated. Even at subsistence > living for the programmers (and their kids) the cost (in money or > societal cost of having that many humans spend that much time in > mental intimacy with their computer instead of volunteering somewhere > where they're really needed) of building the software can be divided > by the expected distribution to arrive at a price that the users would > ethically insist to pay otherwise they would consider themselves > abusers of someone else's contributions, sacrifices and basic needs.
> You can't expect Stallman to change his spiel now when GNU is so > popular, but some of the newer generations should find a way out of > the views that were necessary to jumpstart the open source concept, > but which are now redundant because open source is a success, on its > own merits.
> Open software is essential. Free software is unnecessary. > Non-charitable unpaid work is immoral.
I hear you but I dis-agree.
You can make money from GPL'd software as the software industries are making their money on maintenance and the rest from grants.
Take a look at RedHat. How are they turning a profit here? Let's talk about non-gpl'd code which is given away for free. We can take your example, and that of say AIM or REAL PLAYER.. How about KAZAA! HA...
Whether it's GPL'd or not is immaterial as to how much money you can make off of it. Just look at Lindows for an example...
There are lots of examples...
I gather the sense that your just not a good business man and you want to blame all your problems on the GPL license.
cat wrote: > Non-charitable unpaid work is immoral.
Are you saying all my volunteer work for the national park service, Cleaning, painting, fixing and planting all aimed at restoring historic and natural sites was immoral? What about my volunteering for the Gilroy Garlic festival? Oh, what about my working with the Shakespear in the Park performances? Immoral? I think not. I think you wintrolls are grasping at straws and getting NOTHING.
The fact is, I have the freedom to chose to give my work away for free and it is NOT immoral. Trying to tell me that I can not give my own work away for free, now that is immoral. Forcing me to charge for all my work would be a violation of my basic human rights.
> Are you saying all my volunteer work for the national park service [...] was immoral?
No. It would be immoral to deprive those around you of your humanizing presence and of such work as you mention just because you're busy adding more logic into the big machinery. There is a moral excuse for exchanging human time for machine-stroking time, and that is to earn your living. IOW, the global code base is not a worthwhile charity when there are so many important human aspects around you that need you, like the park service, or kids in your neighborhood, etc.
> The fact is, I have the freedom to chose to give my work away for free [...] > Forcing me to charge for all my work would > be a violation of my basic human rights.
It's not a matter of forcing anyone to do anything, but I'm trying to do my part to put more focus on the non-infective open source licenses. I keep seeing new software being GPL'd simply because new developers are uninformed about the other open source licenses, or because they believe that a license with an ideology behind it is better. "Any totalizing system is hegemonic." The non-infective licenses are simply a way to contribute. The GPL license has ideology attached to it, and is thus oppressive.
Charlie Ebert ("kd5ob."@debianpals.org) wrote
> Whether it's GPL'd or not is immaterial as to how much money > you can make off of it. Just look at Lindows for an example... > There are lots of examples... > I gather the sense that your just not a good business man > and you want to blame all your problems on the GPL license.
Well, that may be, but then so are most people. Are you making your living from providing support for GPL software, or do you work for a multinational corporation during the day (which profits from GPL software with GPL's blessing) so that you can afford to live and to write GPL'd code at night? Wouldn't it be better if you could write open code all day, without having the GPL obligate you to the day job? You might be paid less, but protecting high salaries is probably not one of FSF's goals, anyway. The number of people making their living by providing support to GPL software is orders of magnitude away from the number of people making their living by writing and maintaing code. Let's say that we did achieve the point where all software is given away for free, and the programmers make their living from the proceeds of the support revenue. That's similar to HP selling their inkjet printers cheaply as a way of getting people to buy the expensive ink cartridges. Plus it would create an environment where the revenue, or donations, received by an organization such as FSF would be a function of how much support the software needs.
Mark (bone...@hotmail.com) wrote: > Yor last statement about free software being unneccessary is total > crap. How else can young folk learn to hown there skills and feel like they > are contributing to the OSS community.
That's a non-issue. Of course source code should be open for many important reasons, two of which I mentioned in the original post. My point is about the infective nature of the GPL. It's like Monsanto's sterile grains. It only feeds the end users and the original supplier, Monsanto or FSF's ideology.
On 1 Feb 2003 10:21:21 -0800, cat <ca...@netzero.com> wrote:
> It's not a matter of forcing anyone to do anything, but I'm trying to > do my part to put more focus on the non-infective open source > licenses. I keep seeing new software being GPL'd simply because new > developers are uninformed about the other open source licenses, or > because they believe that a license with an ideology behind it is > better. "Any totalizing system is hegemonic." The non-infective
The old everyone is an idiot except me argument. Thanks for saving us from those windmills.
>> Whether it's GPL'd or not is immaterial as to how much money >> you can make off of it. Just look at Lindows for an example... >> There are lots of examples... >> I gather the sense that your just not a good business man >> and you want to blame all your problems on the GPL license.
> Well, that may be, but then so are most people. Are you making your > living from providing support for GPL software, or do you work for a > multinational corporation during the day (which profits from GPL > software with GPL's blessing) so that you can afford to live and to > write GPL'd code at night?
I don't think Charlie can code at all, to be honest. He's just using GPL'd software -- so as long as it stays free, he's happiest.
As I scouted along this thread, I thought, but it's *out of balance.* Namely, so many people using GPL'd software are upset about letting their code out into the public. Well, where did all that good stuff they are using come from?
I think it's an unexpected curse of today's computer power, science, and networks, that these have given aggressive mba-type suits, ideal tools for raiding the public domain. So rms gave us a device to keep good work *in* the public domain.
For one thing, you can see what the basic idea is. What it means for practical purposes, is not that I have to "give away" my work, but rather that my tools are public; if I devise new tools they go public (and probably get improved); and if I want to make a mint of $$ then I need to do the work in another area. But I can use all those tools for the work.
I don't have a problem with that. In fact, if you look back a few hundred years in history, there were a lot of people with rigid ideas whose propertarian attitude had to be overcome somehow, before today's modern technologies could begin to develop. I think the parallel with today is strong, and it's scary.
So if someone thinks the GPL is a bad idea -- by all means, show me a better one. In the mean time, I think rms's GPL is one of the Great Ideas of our time.
> > It's not a matter of forcing anyone to do anything, but I'm trying to > > do my part to put more focus on the non-infective open source > > licenses. I keep seeing new software being GPL'd simply because new > > developers are uninformed about the other open source licenses, or > > because they believe that a license with an ideology behind it is > > better. "Any totalizing system is hegemonic." The non-infective
> The old everyone is an idiot except me argument. Thanks for saving > us from those windmills.
> As I scouted along this thread, I thought, but it's *out of balance.* > Namely, so many people using GPL'd software are upset about letting > their code out into the public. Well, where did all that good stuff > they are using come from?
> I think it's an unexpected curse of today's computer power, science, > and networks, that these have given aggressive mba-type suits, ideal > tools for raiding the public domain. So rms gave us a device to keep > good work *in* the public domain.
> For one thing, you can see what the basic idea is. What it means for > practical purposes, is not that I have to "give away" my work, but > rather that my tools are public; if I devise new tools they go public > (and probably get improved); and if I want to make a mint of $$ then I > need to do the work in another area. But I can use all those tools > for the work.
> I don't have a problem with that. In fact, if you look back a few > hundred years in history, there were a lot of people with rigid ideas > whose propertarian attitude had to be overcome somehow, before today's > modern technologies could begin to develop. I think the parallel with > today is strong, and it's scary.
> So if someone thinks the GPL is a bad idea -- by all means, show me a > better one. In the mean time, I think rms's GPL is one of the Great > Ideas of our time.
> Cheers -- Martha Adams
Intelligent and well expressed post, Martha, thank you.
The GPL does indeed prevent corporate raiding, which is what is so maddening to unethical developers. It is telling that the BSD TCP stack ended up in windows when Bill Gates decided he wanted to get involved in the internet.
The GPL is the new public domain. Since companies like microsoft found ways to completely destroy the whole concept of public domain and limited term copyright, An armored and padlocked way of reintroducing these concepts were needed. The GPL was the ticket, and it is as elegant in it's simplicity as it is powerful. As you say, the concept is simple; if you wish to use my GPL'ed code in your code, you must make any dirivitive works that are publicly released, also GPL'ed. If you don't wish to have this restriction, reinvent the wheel and write it for yourself. Then do anything you bloody well please with it. Release it under the Gerbil lovers, pocket pool, or hamster and duct tape licenses if you want. It's yours 100%, and not based on anyone elses work.
See, that's the thing. People that criticize the GPL just hate that they can't take advantage of the authors of GPL'ed code. Aint it grand!
In article <30770aa4.0302020037.458b2...@posting.google.com>, TuxTrax wrote: > m...@TheWorld.com (Martha H Adams) wrote in message <news:H9nt7y.KuD@world.std.com>... >> As I scouted along this thread, I thought, but it's *out of balance.* >> Namely, so many people using GPL'd software are upset about letting >> their code out into the public. Well, where did all that good stuff >> they are using come from?
>> I think it's an unexpected curse of today's computer power, science, >> and networks, that these have given aggressive mba-type suits, ideal >> tools for raiding the public domain. So rms gave us a device to keep >> good work *in* the public domain.
>> For one thing, you can see what the basic idea is. What it means for >> practical purposes, is not that I have to "give away" my work, but >> rather that my tools are public; if I devise new tools they go public >> (and probably get improved); and if I want to make a mint of $$ then I >> need to do the work in another area. But I can use all those tools >> for the work.
>> I don't have a problem with that. In fact, if you look back a few >> hundred years in history, there were a lot of people with rigid ideas >> whose propertarian attitude had to be overcome somehow, before today's >> modern technologies could begin to develop. I think the parallel with >> today is strong, and it's scary.
>> So if someone thinks the GPL is a bad idea -- by all means, show me a >> better one. In the mean time, I think rms's GPL is one of the Great >> Ideas of our time.
>> Cheers -- Martha Adams
> Intelligent and well expressed post, Martha, thank you.
> The GPL does indeed prevent corporate raiding, which is what is so > maddening to unethical developers. It is telling that the BSD TCP > stack ended up in windows when Bill Gates decided he wanted to get > involved in the internet.
> The GPL is the new public domain. Since companies like microsoft found > ways to completely destroy the whole concept of public domain and > limited term copyright, An armored and padlocked way of reintroducing > these concepts were needed. The GPL was the ticket, and it is as > elegant in it's simplicity as it is powerful. As you say, the concept > is simple; if you wish to use my GPL'ed code in your code, you must > make any dirivitive works that are publicly released, also GPL'ed. If > you don't wish to have this restriction, reinvent the wheel and write > it for yourself. Then do anything you bloody well please with it. > Release it under the Gerbil lovers, pocket pool, or hamster and duct > tape licenses if you want. It's yours 100%, and not based on anyone > elses work.
> See, that's the thing. People that criticize the GPL just hate that > they can't take advantage of the authors of GPL'ed code. Aint it > grand!
> cheers,
> Mathew
HA! Beautiful man.
Could I borrow that, 'HA'
AH HA
Gerbil lovers, pocket pool or hamster and duct tape licenses.. HA!
Simon Cooke wrote: > I don't think Charlie can code at all, to be honest. He's just using > GPL'd software -- so as long as it stays free, he's happiest.
Um, what does this have to do with the GPL?
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