Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 21:34:35 +1100 (EST) From: Andy Newman <andy@zeta.org.au> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Andy Newman <atrn@zeta.org.au>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPL issues (Was: More important Windows Refund Day coverage) Message-ID: <199902221034.VAA02279@ska.bsn> In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990221233032.03fffba0@mail.lariat.org>
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(Having re-read the GPL and thinking more I probably agree with everything Brett and John say however I must defend my earlier POV :) On 21 Feb, Brett Glass wrote: > Not so. Copyleft PRETENDS to rely upon the notion of intellectual > property but actually twists it so that everyone who subscribes > to the notion of IP is shafted. This includes the developer who > thinks that, under the GPL, he retains some control of his code. I definitely agree with the point about IP. The GPL destroys the idea of intellectual property by a) forcing publication with no real right of monetary gain and consequently destroying the ability to use trade secrets to protect that IP, and, (b) explicitly disallows patent protection of the IP. However there are (at least) two objects involved, the IP itself and the actual expression of that IP. The expression has a simple amount of copyright in that the author(s) still "own" the expression - not that they have much control over it thanks to the other factors of the GPL as you correctly point out. > Not so. The purpose of the GPL is to destroy businesses, markets, > and livelihoods, while duping developers into believing that it > somehow protects their interests. It destroys the IP business at least. You can derive some value though. The support business of course (as the GPL fans like to stress) - they'll be in a mess if someone can argue that knowledge of the structure of, say, gcc is derived from gcc and covered by the GPL. [GPL & communism] > Actually, the similarity is very great. Definitely closer than I first thought with the "effectively worthless" ownership. There are other ways though... > Nope, because the "ownership" is token and valueless. Pretty much. There is the ability, a la Alladin, to work with the GPL and still derive benefits of ownership (and yes I know about the version differences). It may not be a good model but is certainly exists. And some one is making money out of it. > Under the GPL, copyright doesn't protect you either. In fact, it works > against you; hence "Copyleft." Yes. On closer inspection it does. I don't have a huge problem with it though. As long as I don't want to use the code in ways that forces the GPL on things I don't want it to. It's happened at times, and will probably happen again. I work for a company that pushes IP (Canon) and we often have to avoid GPL'd things in our work. But we have also used and modified GPL'd things and had to make code available, quite happily BTW. You just need to be extremely careful what you do with the GPL'd code. Yes it does suck as a license if you want to freely use the code. You can't. Most people don't comprehend it - I'd never thought about it much, basically ignored it (and avoided using GPL code in work). To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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