Alan Cox wrote:
Its really very simple. The GPL requires you provide any contributions
under a licence that makes them free.
You mean restricted, don't you?
If you are at the point where you conclude that people type the reverse
of the word they mean you have serious problems.
I'm not the one who reversed the meaning of free to mean restricted. And
the GPL is simply restrictions.
something better? Any why assume that it would necessarily be charged
for? There are plenty of examples of non-GPL'd code that is freely
available and no evidence that it can't stay that way.
There are also very large numbers of examples where key parts did so,
particularly with modular code such as an OS.
And the problem? The unrestricted form is still available and everyone
has a choice of which to use. Freedom should be about increasing your
choices not restricting them. And any code that exists on a network can
affect all of us, so we are better off with common, well-tested
components instead of forcing new breakage to be invented.
It is not illegal, but it takes code that permits future innovation and
turns it into something that restricts it, harming everyone in the
process.
And the GPL exists to stop someone taking code and turning it into
something that restricts further, that is the heart of what it does,
which makes your delusions even stranger.
It exists to keep potentially better variations from competing against
the original, which makes sense in the cases where the author is selling
his own better version or support for the specific problems it embeds.
It's no delusion that better things could exist if the GPL did not
prohibit them, perhaps even things that would compete successfully with
The Monopoly.
What? Competition is a good thing, and necessary for freedom and
innovation. Preventing it is an act of restriction, not freedom.
A competing book is not the another authors book reprinted and the money
pocketed. An innovative painting is not a copy of an existing work.
Those aren't exactly analogous. It would be more like a book/painting
available freely to everyone prohibiting it's inclusion in a compilation
of works - or keeping themselves from being improved in other ways. The
FSF even claims that it is illegal to distribute components separately
that may be combined with GPL'd parts unless you apply the same
restrictions. That's like saying I can't give someone a cover for their
copyrighted book or a frame for their painting.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
