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

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

Curt Sampson writes:

 > This is Stephen's point, I think; when it wasn't clear to most of the
 > world that making software freely available could be economically
 > profitable, the GPL helped a bit. At this point, everybody who's going
 > to be convinced is already convinced, the GPL will not change the
 > holdouts, and we're at the stage where consumer suffering due to the GPL
 > is substantially larger than the benefits they're deriving.

That's a very accurate statement, except that I wouldn't describe it
in terms of individuals, but rather in terms of decisions (see my
NetApp example in a parallel post).  The point is that the same
entity, even the same person, may make different decisions about
different projects.

 > That may not be what you had in mind, but what's what you're doing,
 > regardless. Basically, you're looking at good effects that might come
 > out of using the GPL on a piece of software, and ignoring the bad
 > effects that may also happen.

That seems to be the case for Lars, but note that it is *not* the case
for RMS and the more senior of his fellow-travelers.  They are well-
aware of those bad effects and simply don't care, because their goal
is free access to every line of code ever written, not the benefits
that accrue to people from software.  I call this "hacker privilege
protectionism", as only hackers really care about this aspect.

This is why RMS and Jeremy Allison et al write so bitterly about true
libertarians like ESR and Russ Nelson.  Sure, they're kooky, but they
deeply love freedom.  Whatever it is that causes them to reject
hacker protectionism, it sure as shootin' isn't naive GNP-ism.