Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 19:48:44 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: "Opposing" the "competition" (was: FreeBSD spokesman (was: So what happens to FreeBSD now?)) Message-ID: <15173.2796.630368.467005@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <xzp3d8bui25.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010705135915.00bb8a80@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20010705125524.04502690@localhost> <Pine.GSO.4.21.0107031644410.16320-100000@z.glue.umd.edu> <20010703134058.A9446@mooseriver.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20010705171812.04523b00@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20010705162529.04521930@localhost> <15172.52545.788676.736485@guru.mired.org> <xzp3d8bui25.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org> types: > Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> writes: > > Not so. The GPL is inanimate, and can't attempt anyhing. Any author > > who releases something under the GPL does so of their own free will, > > and while they may give away the right to be rewarded for the work in > > question, they do so knowingly. > Actually, I think a lot of them have no idea what the GPL means > (except that it means "free", for some definition of "free"), and use > it only because they don't know any better, and everybody else is > using it anyway so it must good. That still doesn't mean they're > being forced into using the GPL against their will, though - ignorance > is not a valid excuse. If their understanding is no better than it was before the GPL was introduced, that's certainly true. A large percentage of them simply slapped "This code is in the public domain. Not for commercial use." - or words to that effect - on their code. For such people the GPL is an improvement, as it comes much closer to their intent than what they were doing before. Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> types: > At 02:25 PM 7/5/2001, Mike Meyer wrote: > >Any author > >who releases something under the GPL does so of their own free will... > Not true. From the GPL: > >b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in > > whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any > > part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third > > parties under the terms of this License. > As you can see, the GPL coerces authors who use even a single line of Personally, I think this is a misuse of the word "coerce". After all, this does exactly what the authors of other software - and content - do when they coerce users of their product to give up the rewards of that users labor in order to use the product. I'm also surprised to see you claiming that copyright holders shouldn't be allowed to extract payment from people who want to use their works. Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> types: > At 02:25 PM 7/5/2001, Mike Meyer wrote: > >No, I'm stating an opinion. To rephrase, if a highly visible member of > >the FreeBSD development community launched a vendetta against the GPL, > The word "vendetta" is not appropriate. They should, however, > "just say no" to the GPL. The GPL should be expelled from the > source trees of FreeBSD and in fact all of the BSDs, because it > is contrary to the BSD philosophy. To keep it in the tree is to > clasp the serpent to our breast. Given the religious nature of your attacks "jihad" might be better, but "vendetta" certainly describes what you just asked for. As for the BSD philosophy - it's working code that can be more freely distributed than what CSRG started with. What's being clasped is that working code, and it's being done in such a way that those who can't use the code can create a distribution that doesn't include it. Of course, they have to use that code to create the distribution - but that's better than not being able to create it at all. > >it would do serious damage to the FreeBSD project. And it would. > I very strongly disagree. It would provide a unifying force and a > unifying principle -- something which BSD lacks now. Losing the effort required to replace the GPL'ed code with something else - over a philosophical difference - would clearly damage the project. If you think the effort isn't damaging, you're free to release a BSDlessGPL distribution. Or submit a pr with patches that replace the GPL'ed code with other code with the same functionality. > >The reason Stallman introduced the GPL is irrelevant to the question > >of what the free software culture was like before he did so. > In your previous message you claimed that developers' motivations > were relevant. Now you're saying that they aren't. I didn't say any such thing. What I said was that the GPL provided a license that expressed the software developers intent, and does so much better than what they were doing previously. The reason the GPL is used so often is because so many developers want to give away software, but don't want others to make money off of their work by using it commercially. The wide-spread adoption of the GPL simply mirrors the wide-spread usage of ad-hoc licenses in the software community prior to the GPL. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?15173.2796.630368.467005>