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Re: GPL, yet again. (The kernel is a lot like a shared library)



On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 01:14:21AM +0200, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> Hint: 
> 
> http://europa.eu.int/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=21197
> ("... Besides, too overbroad a viral effect ...")

This document is a report from two french bureaucrats and one employee
of Unisys corp, recommending methods of licensing which are in line
with the aims of the EU. Can't see the relevence. These are people
working for the EU deciding what to do with software they write. They
are not people deciding what laws to make.

This sentence continues:

"[...]  Each author is the sole person entitled to decide upon the
ways of exploiting his/her work."

As an anarchist I wholeheartedly support this principle, it being the
core of anarchist philosophy. Unfortunately it is not the case that
the law reflects it, nor does market practice. Authors very rarely
have sole entitlement to decide what may be done with their work. Only
in the realm of GPLed software do they often have any say in the
decision at all. With MIT-style licensing they abandon any such
control; with commercial licensing they yield it all to the control of
their employer.

> Those commission folks don't quite see the light regarding static 
> linking yet... but that's correctable.

I support any efforts to defang copyright and remove such wanton
disrespect for individual liberty from the law. However, the simple
fact remains that no such efforts have, to date, been effective. We
have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
 `. `'                          |
   `-             -><-          |

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