On Sunday 21 October 2007 18:07:24 Mike Miller wrote: > > > It's interesting that for ~15 years the FSF has been telling me > > what 'Free' is, and their definition has essentially been GPL > > compatable. Specifically the GPLv2...many licenses have come and > > gone in those years, only those which have been GPLv2 compatable > > have been declared free by the FSF....until now. The FSF has > > recently released the GPLv3 which is *not* GPLv2 compatable, but > > somehow it is the new definition of free....it also carries with > > it more restrictions, which melts my brain. I am more free > > because of more restrictions. > > I think the new changes are about software patents, aren't they? > And software patents seem to be a recent legal innovation and a > serious threat. As to their definition of free software, it is > here: > > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html > > Regarding compatibility of GPLv3 with GPLv2, see here: > > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#v2v3Compatibility > > The reasons for changes were explained by Stallman here: > > http://gplv3.fsf.org/rms_gplv3_launch_transcript > You ignore my point, that the FSF wishes to position itself as the sole determinant of freedom. > > The FSF would also have you believe that commercial software is > > bad or wrong somehow....another position I really have a hard > > time with. > > You can now have an easy time again because you were wrong all > along. Their opposition is to proprietary licenses not to > commercial applications. > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.htm If your read something like that, you don't get the impression he's talking about licenses at all, mainly because he only uses the word license once, in an analogy...but he touts the downfalls and evils of commercial software quite a bit... > > I am all about choice. To me freedom is best given to me when I > > have freedom to choose. Give me the freedom to choose between an > > open source and a closed source solution, or a solution that I > > can have and use for free versus one that I have to pay for. The > > FSF (and their virus they call a license) attempts to limit my > > freedom to choose, and if they had their way they'd take away my > > freedom to choose commercial software completely. > > Do you mean your freedom as a developer to make a non-free > proprietary program using formerly free code? I agree with > Stallman and others that it is not desirable for me as a developer > of free code to provide you with that option. I want my free code > to stay free after it has been modified for other uses. > > Analogy: If I lend someone my car, I might allow him to drive it > to wherever he pleases, but I wouldn't grant him the permission to > run me over! Distributing software under the BSD license is like > saying "go ahead, run me over." > > > I've been using open source solutions both professionally and > > recreationally for well over 15 years now. 99.9% of the > > commercial code I write at work goes out the door with a BSD > > license on it, and the people buying it gladly pay 6 figures for > > our product. (In case you are wondering the remaining .1% goes > > out GPL'd because of virus infestations, but we're working on > > eliminating that little pest) > > I don't know what you mean by "virus infestations" unless you mean > that you were incorporating GPL code into your code. It is > unfortunate that you are using the BSD license. Do your employers > know that any competitor can take your code, improve it and use it > in a competing product and they don't have to share their code with > you? But if your employer were using GPL instead, the competitor > would have to share back with your company. So why is BSD better > for you than GPL? Seems like BSD was a bad choice. > Not at all, competitors are about 2 years behind us right now. Our code is for all practical purposes worthless to them. You can download everything we do from publically available svn, even though thanks to the BSDL we are under no compulsion to provide that, and build our product on your own, get it running, and save yourself the $500,000 site installation fee that we charge. But to date, in over 4 years of operation, no one has done so. One of Stallman's points against commercial software is that it forces programmers to reinvent the wheel, but the GPL is really no different in that regard. I have been forced time and time again to reimpliment GPL'd software simply because it's license is not usable to me in the commercial environment that I am in. I don't have that problem with BSDL'd software. It's not about whether I open source what I'm doing or not, right now today what I'm working on gets open sourced, but I have the option to close the source if I need to. The GPL, and software based upon it takes away that choice. I really do think you've missed out on how badly Stallman wants commercial software in any form to go away, and for a return to the heady days of his youth when business didn't care about software and it was all just fun and games. His license reflects that attitude perfectly. -- Thanks, Josh Paetzel -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. Url : http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20071021/dbd168ce/attachment-0001.pgp