On 2006.2.15, at 10:01 PM, Mike McCarty wrote:
Joel Rees wrote:
Would you please quit changing to that giant font?
Plain text? Sorry, but that's just something your MUA does with
Japanese text. Unless you want me to remote login and play around with
your MUA configurations for you? ;-*
2006-02-15 (水) の 00:25 -0600 に Les Mikesell さんは書きました:
On Tue, 2006-02-14 at 23:50, Joel Rees wrote:
The only problem with the GPL is the misinterpretations that
circulate.
Whether the interpretations are correct or incorrect,
the GPL causes companies not to create software.
Do you disagree with that?
No, company managers who refuse to trust things that are not controlled
by money cause themselves to not use GPLed software in their creations.
The software was not available until it was written and published.
You're faulting the author for publishing it under the GPL when he or
she could well have published it under a license that would require the
sacrifice of your first-born child to merely sniff the source.
If so, then arguments about
what the GPL actually says are irrelevant, since it
is the interpretation, right or wrong, which guides
companies' efforts.
False interpretations are not the fault of the people being interpreted.
[snip]
The FSF has taken the position that if
a GPL'd library is unique, then anything that uses that
library is a derived work and thus subject to the GPL
restrictions even if it is distributed separately from
the library.
I think you are overstating the case.
How about not stating opinion like this, and
actually discussing the text of the LGPL?
If you want to discuss the text of the LGPL, go ahead:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html
see sections 5 and 6.
In the past, an author that wanted to
give a work away freely without the GPL restrictions was
forced by the FSF to rewrite a library (badly, it was
never really used) with all the corresponding functions
instead of just permitting users to link their own
GPL'ed library obtained separately.
Are you speaking of an actual case, or an actual FAQ, or are you
speaking of somebody's panicked interpretation after having used GPLed
source without having read the license?
ISTR that there was actual pursuit by FSF at one time.
But that's been a while, so it's not really evidenc of
anything.
Pursuit of what?
Breaking a license will often cause authors of GPL-ed code to seek
legal remedy. That is true of any license, free, open, or otherwise. If
the copyright has been turned over to the FSF, the FSF will seek legal
remedy.
Anything which does not incorporate is not derived. Static linking
actually brings in the library code, so it is derived.
Actually, courts have ruled that "incorporation" does not
imply "derivation", the LGPL notwithstanding.
CFR?
But the
corporations are not willing to face the prospect of
going to court over this, they just don't produce the
software for a minor segment of the market.
Well, since they don't produce for the BSD segment either, I'm going to
think the license itself is just an excuse. They don't want to go after
small markets, period, or they are intimidated by the 800 pound gorilla
who hints at dropping their license to the source of the OS that holds
the bulk of the market, or whatever.
Stallman describes his take on dynamic linking, it's there on either
fsf.org or gnu.org for anyone to read. Publicly stated. Anyone worried
about it can read that and see what they think for themselves.
I went and did a search, and can't find what you allude to.
Why not give us a link yourself?
gnu.org ?
Okay, if it's not in
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
then try some of the other pages linked from
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
I found this
http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonmatusow/archive/2005/11/13/492285.aspx
Let me get this straight. I'm going to give me cred to the
interpretations of intent on some blog on blogs.msdn.com than to the
declarations of intent on the site run by the guys who gave us the
license?
I don't think so.
The word is "primary source carries more weight".
with this in it:
[QUOTE MODE ON]
I don't know Ian, but he strikes me as an extremely bright guy and has
also pretty clearly shown he has chops in the Free Software development
space. So what is the rub here? The fact is, if you ask the Free
Software Foundation GC Eben Moglin about his opinion regarding static
vs. dynamic linking (which I have), he asserts a rather startling
thing.
His interpretation is that BOTH a static and dynamic link represent
aggregation and the terms of the GPL (if you distribute) apply. When I
have asked this same question of the commercial OSS players
(particularly the Linux vendors) they will adamantly state that it is
only static linking that would do it.
[QUOTE MODE OFF]
I don't see any links to actual words from Moglen in your quote, in the
link you reference, nor in the article that link references. I did not
a response to Ian's post -- that the package that combined GPLed
libraries with CDDL (or whatever that license from Sun was) source is a
shining example of how _not_ to use other people's source code. (GCC is
quite commonly used on Solaris, for what it's worth.)
Until there are court cases, of course, it's just like any other
license
-- we don't know what a court might decide, and we put ourselves
somewhat at the mercy of the license holders when we use their
property.
So what? (I personally prefer to depend on the mercy of someone who
publishes under GPL more than of someone who publishes under
Microsoft's
EULA, for example.)
The so what is: Corporations don't want to go to court,
they want to sell software.
Some people don't like bicycling against the wind.
If they face the remote
possibility of going to court in order to produce a driver
for a minute piece of the market, then they aren't going to
produce the software.
And that gets my sympathy how?
If they aren't willing to play by the rules I set for my software, I
don't want them building and publishing stuff derived from my software.
Even though the rules I set are actually fairly liberal. Period. End of
discussion.
[snip]
You are always free to ignore the GPLed software, which was the way it
was before the software was published under the GPL.
I think you completely missed Les' point.
--
If God had meant for us to not tweak our source code,
He'd've given us Microsoft.
