Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 17:05:50 -0500 (CDT) From: Jonathan Fosburgh <wotan@fosburgh.dyndns.org> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Cc: Laurence Berland <stuyman@confusion.net>, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl>, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG, Kris Kennaway <kkennawa@physics.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Some thoughts on advocacy (was: Slashdot ftp.cdrom.com upgra Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9905021638490.97829-100000@fosburgh.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9905030221220.7672-100000@theory1.physics.iisc.ernet.in>
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On Mon, 3 May 1999, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > I just saw an article on licenses in Daemon News > http://www.daemonnews.org/199905/gpl.html > (which was incidentally linked on linuxtoday so a lot of linux > users will read it.) The writer is of course critical but sounds > like he's trying hard to say a few nice things. However, my > favourite quote is this. > > "But the fact that the GPL can infect code derived from other > GPL'ed programs, as well as the fact that the output of some > GPL'ed programs must also be GPL'ed, is unacceptable. In fact, it > should be contested over its shaky sense of legality in these > matters. I'm not aware of any court cases involving the GPL so > far, so we have yet to see what will happen when such an issue > arises. I can only hope that the courts will decide against the > GPL's habit of infecting other code." > > This is old hat, as is the claim that the GPL "does not respect > intellectual property". Let me make a case that it does respect > intellectual property. > > (1) I write some code. This is my work and my intellectual property. > (2) Therefore I am not obliged to let you use it at all. > (3) However, I want people to use it and improve it; I just don't > want them to hoard it and restrict it. > (4) Therefore I license this source code, my intellectual > property, under the terms of the GPL. That means you can use > it and redistribute it but only under the GPL. > (5) If you don't like that, of course you're free not to use the > code at all. > > I really see absolutely nothing wrong with this position. Yes, > you're free to make changes, but it was I who gave you that > freedom, under a specific licence. If I hadn't let you see the > source code, there wouldn't have been any changes to make. > Therefore, if you distribute your add-ons, you must do that under > my terms -- because they are add-ons, not a new and completely > original work. Of course, you don't have to distribute your > changes at all. But once you distribute them under the GPL, that > is your decision, and the licence equally applies to the next > > It would be equally wrong to take a BSDL'd work, develop it > further, and then GPL it. Legally it may be ok, but I think it's > ethically wrong, and probably RMS would agree. The original > licence should be respected. > > Remember that when the GPL was created, and almost equally today, > the norm is not to allow re-use of source code at all. So a > licence like the GPL which allows you to re-use source code under > certain conditions, was and still is extraordinarily permissive. > To me the extremists (socialists, communists, your choice of > epithet normally thrown at RMS) seem to be not the FSF but the > BSD crowd, who apparently think you should be free to do > absolutely *anything* with someone else's source code except > claim it as your own or sue the author... > > Which licence is better for businesses is a question I don't want > to get into. > Actually, no, and I am a laissez-faire capitalist. If you go to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html and read what is on the page it says quite clearly (at least to me) that the FSF does not believe in the concept of software as intellectual property nor does it believe in the ownership of software. Furthermore, http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html, Stallman (and yes, as near as I can tell all of this is the official policy of FSF) states he believes he has to share his software. He further goes on to state that programmers should be *punished* if they choose not tp make their software free. There is an entire section where he goes on to state that placing controls on your own ideas really controls other people's lives. I wanted to provide just some examples of why the above argument is in error, without going into an involved discussion why the position FSF takes is completely wrong (no, I'm not afraid to say it). I simply do not believe this is the place to write an essay on philosophy. If you want to know a little better what I think, please feel free to visit http://www.geocities.com/vienna/1498/computer/software/COPYRIGHT.html where I have a preamble explaining why I choose to use a BSD license. As to the argument that BSDers are more likely to be collectivists, well, to my knowledge *BSD has no such statement of philosophy, people may choose to license their software under a BSD license or they may not. FSF, as an official statement of policy, believes everyone *should* release their software under the terms of the GPL. I think I have already gone on long enough with this, so I will cut it off now before it does become a paper. I intend to remain quiet now, unless there is a reponse to this which I think requires me to say something back. Jonathan Fosburgh Geotechnician Snyder Oil Corporation Houston, TX Home Page: http://www.geocities.com/vienna/1498 Manager, FreeBSD Webring: http://www.geocities.com/vienna/1498/computer/freebsdring.html ICQ: 32742908 AIM: Namthorien To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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