On Wednesday 20 April 2005 08:39, Marty wrote:
> Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 12:21:38AM -0400, Marty wrote:
> >> By protecting the authors' rights, same as the GPL. You must have
> >> missed by main point.
> >
> > You seem to be confused. The GPL is not primarily designed to protect
> > the author's rights. It's designed to protect *user's* rights, which
> > always come first.
>
> Look at the word "copyright." Notice the last 5 letters. Now, who
> holds it, with respect to GPL'ed software? Who gets to pick that
> license in the first place? Who can change it? Who's entitled to
> enforce it in court? I see the GPL as protecting the author's right to
> protect his offering to the community.
> But I see your point, I guess, if you define freedom as "what's in it
> for me." I doubt it's the FSF's philosphy, although unlike you I can't
> presume to speak for them.
You are aware that the GPL (and like licenses) are generally refererred to
as being copyleft?
As that name implies the GPL takes copyright and completely subverts it
intention in using it to garuantee extra rights for users instead of l(as a
normal copyright licence) restricting the user's rights. It's a marvolous
hack, but it's still a hack.
=> the GPL's entire reason for being is to guarantee the 4 basic freedoms
for users (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html), and it always
has been, this is not a matter of conjecture, this is the publicly stated
goal/definition of Free Software (and has been since RMS started the Free
Software Movement).
> A complete prohibition of modification does not
> > protect user's rights; on the contrary, it abolishes them.
>
> That's fine with me, because I don't think I have the right to change
> somebody else's speech anyway, much less the need,
ah, there's you're problem, by releasing something under a Free Software
Licence you're explicitly stating your intention for that piece of software
(or documentation, or ...) to be part of a commons, i.e. a 'property' of
the _community_.
-> if the licence prohibits the community from adapting the software/docu to
their (changing) needs, then it's _not_ free
If the licence has restrictions on how you _use_ the software, then it comes
with strings attached, the community is not free to use and adapt it in the
best way, hence it is not free.
> just so I can call it
> my own. (I tried it once in a high school term paper and got busted.)
er, contribution is normally given in the FOSS world (and when it isn't a
firestorm is usually raised)
=> Free software is not about stealing or plagiarizing others peoples work,
it's about "standing on the shoulder of giants". Acknowledging who
created/is the giants is bot polite and expected, and enforced (via flames,
damage to the offenders reputation, ...)
--
Cheers, cobaco (aka Bart Cornelis)
1. Encrypted mail preferred (GPG KeyID: 0x86624ABB)
2. Plain-text mail recommended since I move html and double
format mails to a low priority folder (they're mainly spam)
Attachment:
pgpexKKe8Tn7P.pgp
Description: PGP signature