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Re: [tlug] Bill Gates and the GPL , let the flames begin




On Tue, 29 Apr 2008, Daniel A. Ramaley wrote:

On Monday 28 April 2008 20:52, Curt Sampson wrote:
If I happen to have spent a lot of time and effort writing, say, an
office suite, and I link the few-thousand-line readline library with
my millions of lines of code...

If i write a 10 line program and link it to the few-thousand readline
library, i have to release my program as open source, right? ... If you don't like the licensing terms on the readline library, find a different library to use. Or just write a library yourself.

Exactly... The difference, of course, is that it probably took a lot more time to write the million-line office suite than the 10-line application. And therein lies the rub. The source code itself is not the thing that has value -- that's just bits on a wire or a magnetic patter. What has value is the time that went into creating it. If I spent three weeks writing a million-line program (I work really fast ;-) and I decide to share my work with others, I don't see any problem with requiring whomever uses my work to share whatever they were able to produce with the three weeks they saved not having to re-implement my functions. There may be an infinite amount of sand (to borrow someone else's analogy) but... if it's *my* sand and you bring along a bucket and shovel, hoping to play, is there anything morally or ethically wrong with my asking you to share your bucket and shovel as a condition for playing in my sandbox? Isn't that what the GPL is basically about: enforced sharing?


It would be nice if somehow the efforts of all coders was automatically laid bare for all to see and use. But as long as there is someone out there who sees nothing wrong with absorbing, enhancing, and selling *my* work without giving anything back, I (as a programmer) don't see anything wrong with my adding an "enforced sharing" condition to your use of my efforts. If someone objects, they're certainly free to spend their *own* three weeks re-implementing those million lines, thank you very much ;-).

---
Joseph L (Joe) Larabell            Never fight with a dragon
http://larabell.org/                    for thou art crunchy
http://thelemicleague.org/        and goest well with cheese.


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