Re: Social Contract
Mumia W wrote:
Mike McCarty wrote:
[...] I do not and have not claimed ever that Linux+GNU hamper
anyone's freedom. How can an OS hamper anyone's freedom? It seems an
impossibility to me.
Mike
There you go again--bearing false witness--this time to your own words:
Look, if I make a mistake in wording or something, or if I
have inconsistent beliefs and you point them out, fine.
But calling me a liar is not going to cut any ice. It's offensive.
I'm not calling you nasty names.
Point out my inconsistency, and if I can recognize it, I'll
acknowlege it. Making blanket statements calling me a liar is
just rude.
In Message-ID: <[🔎] 4451206A.8080905@sbcglobal.net> Mike McCarty wrote:
Michael Marsh wrote:
[...] At its heart, the GPL merely says that the software is being
given away freely, and you can do anything you like with it except
rescind that freedom.
This is emphatically not what the GPL and similar licenses say. If,
for example, you incorporate a library built under GPL by linking
with it, then the license forces you to release *your own* code under
GPL or compatible license. This is not freedom as I define it.
Perhaps this is what you meant. As I have pointed out, Linux+GNU is
not the GPL. An OS is a piece of software, and it cannot hamper
anyone's freedom. The GPL *does* hamper freedom.
If Debian really wanted all their stuff to be truly free, then they
would have to prohibit all the GPL stuff from being in it. But
promoting and incorporating GPL stuff means that they also support
that social agenda. The one cannot be separated from the other, as
the social agenda is what the GPL is about. [...]
Evidently, your opposition to the GPL is based on the fact that it
eliminates people's "freedom" to enslave one another using information.
Not at all. Why are you putting words into my mouth?
From the Emancipation Proclamation:
all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a
State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the
United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.
Public domain software, in practice, is not really free for most people.
I don't accept that premise. And I wish to point out that the
fact that I don't accept your logic does not mean that I have
evil motives, hoping to enslave people.
Typically, someone will take the PD software, improve it and release it
as proprietary. Human nature dictates that many developers will do this.
So what? In what manner does that cause slavery?
I quote from Funk & Wagnalls New Comprehensive International Dictionary
of the English Language:
slave n. 1 One whose person is held as property; a person in
slavery; a bondsman; serf. 2 /Law/ A person over whose life,
liberty, and property someone has absolute control. 3 A person
in mental or moral subjection to a habit, vice, or influence:
a /slave/ of tobacco. 4 One who labors like a slave, a drudge.
5 A person of slavish disposition; an abject creature.
I omit the verb.
slavery n. 1 Involuntary servitude; specifically the legalized
social institution in which humans are held as property or
chattels; complete subjection of one person to another.
2 Mental, moral, or spiritual bondage. 3 Slavish toil; drudgery.
See synonyms under BONDAGE.
The majority of users of the software will be using the improved, but
proprietary, versions. The freeness of PD software lasts only for a
Well, that's their choice, isn't it? Who puts a gun to their heads?
And who prevents someone else from taking the Public Domain stuff
and doing an even better improvement than the Proprietary and releasing
that Public Domain? Isn't that one of the claims of most people
who support the use of the GPL? That, since everyone just labors
on it for love, or whatever, and that the source is available, then
the quality will be better?
Everything which can be done by people who wish to donate their
work can be done with Public Domain just as well as with GPL,
and without restricting what the receivers of that software
can do, like make a special modification for a friend and
giving it to him.
short duration, and only for people who want to use the original (buggy,
old) version.The GPL improves significantly upon PD in supporting
software freedom.
Like all decisions, the decision to use or not to use GPL or LGPL
has some advantages and some disadvantages.
The GPL is a kind of Emancipation Proclamation of software usage. If you
condense the GPL tightly enough to squeeze out the legalese, it says
this: This software is free, and it's users and developers are free.
They are free and shall be, thenceforward, forever free.
No, that is not what it says, and that list is not all the implications.
Here is my view of the GPL, if it were placed into a more normal
context. It's analogous to having a rule that all electronic equipment
must come with a complete technical manual describing signal
paths, voltages, all the inner workings of the equipment, along
with all information needed to do repairs on it, and that, after
purchasing the set, any owner who modifies the set must also
provide full details of the modifications, or forever be barred
from selling or even giving away his electronic equipment.
This documentation must be provided free (except for reasonable
reproduction fees, say $40 for a 100 page manual, sth like that).
So, the GPL tells me what I can do with something I purchased.
It tells me how I can dispose of it, and under what conditions.
And discourages me from making modifications to it, because then
I've got to release that, too.
Oh, and I've got to assign the rights to the Free Software
Foundation. That's a primary point in the GPL. Because otherwise
the FSF and you and whoever cannot get standing. You might
investigate that part of it.
"Forever free" is what the GPL offers us. What's so bad about that?
Nothing is bad about that. But that isn't what GPL offers, IMO.
The GPL in and of itself is neither good nor bad nor anything. It's just
a license which one may or may not choose to use when releasing the
results of his own labors. If one choses to use it, then one has
whatever motives, and the results fits those motives more or less well.
If the fit is good, then fine. For me, the fit is not good, so I don't
use it. For people who try to make a living writing software, who are
not members of the idle rich, and who cannot afford to donate a
significant portion of their lives to giving away software it generally
is not a good fit. One part which makes this a bad fit is that
anything which the GPL touches it invades.
Now, having a project which insists that all parts of it be GPL or
equivalent license has consequences. Depending on the goals of the
people who make that decision, the consequences are more or less
good or bad. One consequence of rejecting all non-GPL is that new
hardware with trade secrets in the design won't get drivers written
for them which can be used with the project.
I see on various of the Linux type mail echoes people lamenting
the fact that the latest video board or some other peripheral
does not have support, and expressing anger at the developers
of the new hardware for not releasing their proprietary interfaces
to the "open software community". Unfortunately, those companies
spend enormous amounts of money developing new ideas and bringing
them to the point where they are physically realized as new
hardware, and they like to eat, too. If they release a driver
with GPL or similar license, then the trade secrets of their new
card *also* get revealed, allowing others to take their ideas
and efforts and make money from them.
So, in order to protect their ideas, any drivers they write
must be transferred without source, or with source and NDA,
in order to protect their investment in developing hardware.
As a consequence, projects like Debian will always be behind,
in some cases far behind, other projects or companies like
MicroSoft who are willing to agree not to disclose source.
It's a price one pays for making that choice.
So, GPL in and of itself is no big deal, though I really doubt
that I'll ever use it. Requiring it is a deterrent to companies
making drivers for Linux for new hardware.
Mike
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