Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 14:05:49 -0600 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: trevor@jpj.net (Trevor Johnson), freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stallman now claims authorship of Linux Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20010419140150.045176b0@localhost> In-Reply-To: <15071.14666.204581.853258@guru.mired.org> References: <200104191845.LAA17455@usr09.primenet.com> <15070.54826.847491.916792@guru.mired.org> <200104191845.LAA17455@usr09.primenet.com>
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At 01:15 PM 4/19/2001, Mike Meyer wrote: >> D) Being a paid support flunky for the software. >> >> E) Being a wage-slave for improvements to the software. >> >> F) Being paid a small amount for the initial developement >> as a work for hire for the benefit of the GPL, such >> that your wages need to be arbitrarily low, since your >> wages can not be amortized. >> >> The GPL thus promotes amateurs in place of trained engineers, >> unless you are willing to work until you die, and never be >> able to retire as a result of rewards for your efforts. > >First, this means the GPL has the same effect as commercial software. Not true. Commercial software does not destroy markets or reduce programmers to the status of wage slave. >Second, the working conditions you described apply to the vast >majority of people in the US. Since many of them do manage to retire >as a result of the rewards of their efforts, I'd say your final >conclusion is false. That is because, in other fields of endeavor, they can build capital. One of the purposes of the GPL is to prevent the creation of intellectual property as capital -- at least by programmers. (The FSF, on the other hand, hoards intellectual property; that's why it requires that all contributors to sign their code over, lock, stock, and barrel. Not a bad arrangement: the FSF gets richer and the programmers get poorer.) --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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