On Sat, 2006-06-17 at 14:43, Sean wrote: > > And if you would actually read any posting you would see > > that's exactly what I said above. > > No, you continue to insist that GPL forces people to share. I've never said that. Ever. > > Yes, it doesn't even encourage sharing compared to less restrictive > > licenses - instead it prevents it in many cases. > > All it prevents is people distributing the GPL software in a way > that the original author doesn't sanction. Yes, and it even makes sense in the situation where the main author also sells a commercial version and uses the GPL to prevent others from developing competing commercial versions without releasing their improvements. It doesn't make sense for anyone who actually wants their code to be used freely. > > Yet the 'work as a whole' clause involves others who have > > no relationship to this agreement. > > Bullshit. If you have a dependency on GPL software, you have a > relationship with it. There are many components needed for modern systems. Why should the license on only one of them be able to affect to restrict the 'work as a whole'? > It removes choice from people who don't want to agree. The same > way someone who doesn't want to pay Microsoft has their "choice" > removed. If you don't want to pay Microsoft you don't have the > choice of using their software. Big deal. Yet even Microsoft does not claim to contol 3rd party components that interact with their software. And they wouldn't get away with it if they tried. Personally I don't think this aspect of the GPL would survive a court challenge but I also don't expect anyone to spend the money to test it. > You seem to be a communist. You think you deserve to use GPL > software. You think you should have access to it because it's > "community owned" property. You don't own the software. The > original author does. Stop your communist ways please. You are confused. I'm just pointing out the paradox of allowing end users to obtain components under the pretense that they are free, yet restricting distribution of any additions that also work with other components. That is, I do deserve to use GPL software because the license explicitly gives me the right to obtain it and does not claim any contol over use. My complaint is that it claims (though perhaps not legally so) to prohibit me from also obtaining software that would combine its functions with alternately-licensed software. > You want the choice to steal the work > of the original author. The work that goes to extreme lengths to describe itself as free... How could I possibly steal that? Remember, I'm not interested in distributing software. My complaint is about the things I can't obtain because of its restrictions. > > Examples of the Window competition based on GPL code, please... > > People using Linux who aren't using Windows. That removes a > customer from Microsoft and is real competition. Count me out from that example. I use Linux yet it hasn't replaced Windows completely and isn't going to. > > Perhaps you don't understand why the *bsd's are still around. Or > > why the project exists in the first place. It does happen and for > > good reasons that the GPL projects can't share. > > Perhaps you don't understand why Windows is still around even with the > BSD's in existence. The BSDs were involved in a legal battle at the time Windows became a monopoly and much of the free software effort shifted to Linux - unfortunately, in my opinion. OSX at least has a shot at competing with Windows on most fronts. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
