Re: new webpage: rikai.com

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Cozens <simon@example.com> writes:

    Simon> I would argue that if you're doing legal dances to make the
    Simon> GPL do exactly what you'd like it to do, you probably
    Simon> should consider very strongly why you're using the GPL in
    Simon> the first place.

Come now, Simon, rms may look like a bear, but surely he did some very
fancy dancing to come up with the GPL in the first place.  If he
really wanted freedom, he would have invented the BSD "license".
(Maybe he was just jealous and full of NIH syndrome?  Nah.)

Licenses are about giving people exactly the rights you want to give
them, in order to get something back.  Stallman's GNU GPL is a truly
altruistically motivated document, but Mephistopheles would have
understood it nonetheless.

It happens that a lot of us here in Linuxland strongly approve of the
social goals behind the GNU GPL.  Part of Stallman's genius was coming
up with a license that resonated strongly with the hacker ethos.  That
doesn't mean it's unalterable Holy Writ.

Even less does it mean that the GNU GPL is the best routes to those
goals.  Note that, unlike Todd, the thrust of my post has been to
point out that there are lots of arguably not-in-the-spirit-of-GNU
uses to which (possibly modified) GPLed software can be put.  ASPs are
one; firmware implementations (the original motivation for the AFPL
was to prevent printer manufacturers from putting Ghostscript in ROM)
are another.

Please note, Stallman himself is not pleased with the current
state of the GNU GPL.  He has deprecated the LGPL, and has considered
making the license more invasive to stop ASPs from making big
improvements to GPL software without making them public.

I don't deny that there are big gains to compatible licensing, so that
if GNU GPL is close to what you want, you should swallow hard and use
it.

    Simon> The GPL won't let you get control over competition;

Of course it does, as long as you're not selling the program itself.
It makes it much, much harder for competitors to leapfrog you by
supplying a better program in spite of worse service.  Surely that's a
degree of control: forcing them to play on your pitch.  So control is
a matter of degree and your goals.  (Even with a patent, somebody can
invent a different technique, so control is limited.)

It is possible, thanks to gnu.org, the DFSG, and opensource.org, to
define "pure" free software.  But you have to remember that
"proprietary" is not, and cannot (you are always permitted to make
backup copies, and move to another machine), be "pure."  It's always a
matter of degree.

So of course Todd is "going proprietary."  The AFPL is a proprietary
licence.  As is NPL and I believe the Sun Community Licence, and the
old Apple and IBM licenses.  Lots of flavors....

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