Re: 'GPL encumbrance problems'

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lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Thu, 2006-01-19 at 12:47, David G. Miller (aka DaveAtFraud)
It really does come down to a socialism vs. capitalism argument in the end. The pro [L]GPL crowd points to a claimed beneficial leveling affect by everyone having access to everything and the pro closed source crowd points out that they won't work unless they see a profit from their labor.

Yet, there are plenty of projects that are freely available and
open source without the GPL restrictions.  Where do the *bsd, X,
apache, perl, mozilla, etc. licenses fall in your claimed dichotomy?
It is possible to share things without everyone following the
same manifesto.

-- Les Mikesell

Just as there are many points between capitalism and socialism. Likewise, just because someone donates to the poor hardly turns them into a socialist. For the purposes of this discussion (assuming it still has a purpose), the differences are clearest arguing at the endpoints.

I really do see a need for a GPL-like restriction on creating true derivative works based on free software created by others. I think the success of GPLed software in attracting developers shows that people are more willing to donate their time and effort if they know that someone else can't simply pick up whatever they have created, re-package it somehow and sell it. That being said, I see a whole world of difference between modifying someone else's work and writing a program that runs "on top of" a base created by others. Perhaps that's because I've been doing that for quite a few years and I haven't had a single OS vendor (IBM, CDC, DEC, HP, SUN, or Microsoft) come back and demand I change how I license the code I created simply because it runs on their platform.

mike.mccarty@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

I don't "hope to extract money" from people, and object to the use
of the term wrt me.

Mike, I'm an unabashed capitalist. I look at it as businesses extract money from customers in exchange for alleviating a perceived need of the customer. The important part is not the word describing the direction the money moves but that the exchange be one of freely agreed to value for value. This covers the people who sell snake oil as well as folks like your father who understood that making the customer happy is what brought back both the customer and his friends, family, etc. Funny thing is that people who use expressions like "...hope to extract money..." pejoratively seem to focus strictly on the movement of the money and not on the goods or services that the customer gets in return.

Cheers,
Dave


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