[tlug] Yes! Another argument about the GPL! You knew you wanted it....

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

Curt Sampson writes:

 > Hm. I'd call the BSD TCP/IP stack a piece of software which is "highly
 > specialized and the algorithms used in it are the actual research."
 > Would you rather we experience more network congestion because we force
 > all those corporations building network devices to try and hack their
 > own stack rather than use one that has the best available algorithms
 > for avoiding network congestion and promoting fairness between nodes
 > generating traffic?

Um, Curt, take a look at that hole beside your foot!  Specifically,
using the best available code did not prevent Microsoft from
publishing several versions of rather buggy TCP/IP stacks, no?  The
point being that secrecy is bad.  This isn't Lars's point (at least
not one he's advocated explicitly), but it does work in favor of a
policy of discouraging proprietary extensions, to some extent.

 > The GPL, come to think of it, has a particularly American point of
 > view, concentrating on punishing bad behaviour over giving the
 > opportunity for good behaviour to happen.

Extreme liberalism ("libertarianism", to the unwashed) is just as
characteristically American as sodomy laws and "3 strikes" penalism
are.  Walt Whitman put it best: "Do I contradict myself?  Very well, I
contradict myself.  I am large, I contain multitudes."  FWIW, IMHO the
GPL is not a great fit to either American extreme, and the GPL is way
more in tune with Japanese mores than American.