On Thu, 2006-06-15 at 10:02 -0400, Sean wrote: > > So we finally agree on something. Now, having said that, > > doesn't it seem that you should be able to use as little > > of the proprietary parts as possible? The GPL, by excluding > > them at the component level forces all 'works as a whole' > > to be proprietary or at least all non-GPL if any part of > > Naw, i'm quite happy to follow the wishes of the authors. They > created the programs i'm using, it seems only fair that I keep > my end of the agreement (1). There's no reason to assume that more than one of the authors of a GPL'd work actually wished to use the GPL, as others who want to share the work of fixing any broken parts have no choice about the license they can use for their own work. > > its functionality is covered by a patent. I still don't > > understand why you think it is a good thing that GPL > > components can't be used at all in these situations. > > For pretty much the same reason you said you wished that the > workarounds had never existed in the first place. It creates > the wrong impression and removes incentives for alternatives. The point of patents is that there can't be any alternatives until the patent expires. The part that people need to understand is that this combination is impossible and any work on a GPL'd program that assumes otherwise is a dead end. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
