Re: The Show So Far
Glenn Maynard <g_deb@zewt.org> writes:
> On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 09:10:28PM -0500, David Turner wrote:
>> Someone already answered the google question for you -- it saves
>> you the 20k on a Google Search Appliance for your intranet.
>
> That's akin to someone releasing the source of a neat,
> self-contained algorithm from an application. I can use it in my
> own programs, and improve other, unrelated things with it, or learn
> from it, or critique it.
So it's a bit like releasing a GPL library.
> But it doesn't let me improve the application that it's from at all,
> since I don't have its source. Likewise, Google releasing source
> might have lots of other benefits, but it doesn't let me improve
> Google in any way, and I believe those "other benefits" are
> peripheral.
I don't think they're peripheral at all. Being able to use code for
uses other than the primarily intended one is a central part of Free
Software.
> Now, we seem to have two related but distinct cases: Google and
> BarInterface.
I agree that there are two cases under discussion, but I think both
are important and both are loopholes.
--
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
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