Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 18:44:09 -0600 From: Laurence Berland <stuyman@confusion.net> To: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> Cc: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman stalls again Message-ID: <3A985559.6E0F6265@confusion.net> References: <200102202203.PAA28567@usr05.primenet.com> <3A92F1EE.C31EB50@acuson.com>
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David Johnson wrote: > Bingo! The premise of the GPL is that the user is prone to immorality > and unreason. The premise of the BSDL is that the user is competent, > rational and moral. And this attitude isn't lost on the user. Case in > point: Steve Jobs only released the NeXT Objective C front end under the > GPL because he was threatened by legal action, but he released Darwin > under the APSL and donated lots back to FreeBSD > _without_even_being_asked_to! > To clarify, I think it's less that the BSDL assumes all users are competent, rational, and moral, than it assumes that people taken as a whole do, such that a small portion lacking in these traits can't manage to do serious harm, and that it's worth the small setbacks they'll create in order to realize the larger benefits that essentially unlimited pooling of human thought vis a vis the collaborative process will bring. GPL just ties people up in red tape, and doesn't give them a choice. People always get angry when they don't have a choice, and usually will choose the opposing view (this is perfectly rational, it makes it easier to demonstrate that you don't agree with what's being forced on you, and it makes a clear protest). Given the choice to do whatever they want, most people (and hence society at large) will do the right thing. > David > > Laurence Berland Intern, Flooz.com Northwestern '04 stuyman@confusion.net http://www.isp.northwestern.edu/~laurence "The world has turned and left me here" To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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