Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 23:37:17 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Andy Newman <atrn@zeta.org.au>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: GPL issues (Was: More important Windows Refund Day coverage) Message-ID: <4.1.19990221233032.03fffba0@mail.lariat.org> In-Reply-To: <19990222082525.A1429@ska.bsn> References: <199902211924.OAA02025@y.dyson.net> <19990221180845.J93492@lemis.com> <199902211924.OAA02025@y.dyson.net>
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At 08:25 AM 2/22/99 +1100, Andy Newman wrote: >I think both are capitalist, or at least both methods rely upon >the idea of ownership of something (I just posted about this so >I'm all revved up about it....excuse me :). 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. He doesn't, though, because while he can relicense his own version he doesn't have access to any of the modifications made by others. He thus has only the oldest, cruftiest, least debugged version to license. What's more, anyone who would PAY to license code that's available to users for free is a sucker; he cannot make money from that functionality, and so is paying -- perhaps dearly -- for nothing. >Both the BSD license >and GPL allow owners of something to control how it may be used. Nope. See above. >Both allow individual to own things and even to profit and make >private capital from them. 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. >There's no similarity to (the theoretically >perfect) communism where the state owns everything and people worked >for the public good etc... Actually, the similarity is very great. >The two licenses are just methods of distributing something you own. Nope, because the "ownership" is token and valueless. >Well it (GPL) forces the public exposure and lack of ownership of >intellectual property. This contradicts what you said earlier. However, it's closer to reality. >So trade secrets go >to hell with the GPL. As do patents. Leaving you only with copyright >to protect the ownership of your work Under the GPL, copyright doesn't protect you either. In fact, it works against you; hence "Copyleft." --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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