|| On Mon, 14 Apr 2003 10:18:10 -0500 || Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net> wrote: sl> The perceived goal of the GPL is to establish a creative commons sl> for the mutual benefit of all in the community. I would agree to the sentiment, but I must say that I have some issues using the commons example and terminology as commons are traditionally established by sharing limited resources. Software -- and anything else that can be digitally copied -- is not per se a limited resource, although some people try to create artificial sparsity. In software this is traditionally done through proprietary software with the well-known negative implications. That is what the GPL was crafted to prevent and countermand for the sake of society. sl> This is not a goal that's inherently bound to the nature of sl> software; one can derive many of the same benefits from a sl> creative commons built around prose. True. But unlike prose, most software derives its justification to exist From its function, not its aesthetics. The very same people who have been lumping together totally different areas of law such as copyright, patents and trademarks under the "intellectual property rights" terminology are still careful enough to differentiate between software and what they call "content." That is because there is a significant difference between software and music, documents, prose or other things usually referred to as content by these people: If I have a single word processor that I like, I usually have all the word processors that I need, only very few people will use more than one. If I have one piece of prose that I like, I usually do not have all the prose I need/want. The same goes for documentation or music. In fact hearing some piece of music usually motivates me to get more. So the patterns of distribution of software are mutually exclusive, whereas the distribution patterns of works of art are mutually supportive. And unlike most works of art -- for which aesthetics or philosophical advancement is the use -- software derives its usefulness almost exclusively from its function. sl> However, the FDL (when invariant sections are invoked) has sl> something quite different from a commons as its aim. That is your personal interpretation of it, which you are of course entitled to. From knowing the people who worked on it, I know that creating such a "commons" -- I will use your word despite its shortcomings I explained above -- is exactly what they had and still have in mind. I will gladly grant you that the GFDL is imperfect -- but in a real-world situation it is one of the most advanced licenses for documentation to create such a shared knowledge base that I know of. Regards, Georg Greve -- Georg C. F. Greve <greve@gnu.org> Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Brave GNU World (http://brave-gnu-world.org)
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