Re: license questions.
On Mon, 2002-10-07 at 14:07, Fredrik Persson wrote:
> Personally I see nothing wrong with the RedHat/KDE incident. I mean;
> freedom is not just for individuals, but also for corporations. In my
> opinion, the KDE developers are NOT unaware of the inner workings of
> the GPL.
well it was just an example from me. same situation happened earlier on
other products. iirc that i read someone's reply on /. describing that
there was an equal situation after someone started to fork emacs.
> This is really the problem, isn't it? Not to be mean or anything, but
> I actually think you'll be better off simply going traditional. Don't
> opensource at all.
well i don't have any problems releasing the sourcecode. thats not what
i am concerned of. i only search for a suitable license NOW to protect
myself for the future. it's better to search NOW for a correct solution
than having to deal with the consequencies afterwards.
> You seem to like the idea that people can help you debug by sharing
> the source, but you don't want those people to have the basic freedoms
> advocated by the FSF (among others). I'm afraid that you can't have both,
> really. If you try to get the benefints from freeing your sources (bugfixes
> and so on) without actually allowing people to fork your work, you'll just
> end up with "bad press" really. Sort of like the Microsoft "Shared
> Source" stuff.
why not ? i mean i don't like GNU/GPL much because it is too free.
allowing everyone to do whatever they like. why should i follow it
because someone told me to do so? http://opensource.org is full of
different OSI aproved licenses. not necessarily GNU/GPL. at the very
final end its the users problem if he/she wants to use the software or
not. i only want to make sure he/she is able to get the source and
compile it.
> > it would drive me nuts and at the final end it will result in a
> > never ending flame and offending of the person who forked my work.
> This happens. It's natural. In the end, I think it's a good thing. Heated
> flamewars stirs up things and the software can benefit from it.
> The bottom line is really that if you want to be in the free software world,
> you'll have to learn to live with this. Linus Torvalds certainly did, and
> he did pretty good, don't you think?
yeah but i am not linus torvalds. personally i see the kernel situation
losing it's focus and bounds. everyone is forking its own kernel now and
at the very end we deal with 10 derivates of it which none of them is
really perfect.
but that's in no way related to my own described situation or problem.
> > for sure this may not happen but it could happen one day. i also
> > don't like the idea of companies making the big money with my work.
> Why not? If they do, they're likely to hire you at a good salary.
yeah like redhat hired all main developers of gtk and gnome and made a
pile of well... MACOS clone out of it. losing the focus of what it was
meant to be 4-5 years ago. to say it with other words: 'if we cant own
or direct the software for our own profit, then we can hire their
developers and force those to make it the way we want.' many people
think this sentence sounds insane and trollish but looking behind the
border this sounds really true.
but that's in no way related to my own described situation or problem.
> > "there are a lot of stupid people outside, that work for free. we let
> > them work and sell their stuff. we get the big cash."
> Hehe, so be it. I don't mind. As long as they play by the rules that is.
> A real problem is when free software is used in proprietary products.
> That's license violations and should be dealt with appropriately.
do you belive this ? i don't exactly know how FSF is funding themselves
but if you violate GPL then i doubt that anything big will happen on the
long term. if 10 different companies are going to violate the license
then FSF will become really poor in a short time because of paying their
lawyers...
but that's in no way related to my own described situation or problem.
> > i want to avoid this situation. i don't like the idea to work for free
> > knowing in the back that some companies can take the stuff and sell it
> > for their own profit.
>
> Generally they can't, you know. Since the software is also available for free.
> What they can do is package it nicely and print some manuals, and then sell it.
> But hey, packaging and printing is also a legitimite business and everyone's
> happy.
thank you for the fast reply. hope i didnt sound trollish or offensive
with my reply but since you replied to my previous mail you deserve an
openhearted reply from me.
--
Name....: Ali Akcaagac
Status..: Student Of Computer & Economic Science
E-Mail..: mailto:ali.akcaagac@stud.fh-wilhelmshaven.de
WWW.....: http://www.fh-wilhelmshaven.de/~akcaagaa
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