Re: Debian i386 freeze

[Raul Miller <rdm@test.legislate.com>]

Alex Yukhimets <aqy6633@acf5.nyu.edu> wrote:
> > Actually, the problem with is with copyright law. Or aren't you
> > familiar with what happened to the early freely made contributions
> > to Unix?

> What? They've been used in commercial software? Wow, that's a horror story:)

The problem was that the authors of such code weren't allowed to
distribute their own code, because of the at&t license agreement.

I remember, back in the '80s, being interested in getting free
software, only to find out that to even look at a copy I had
be licensed by at&t.  Mind you, this was for applications that
ran under unix.

> > Maybe you don't know why we're using Linux here, instead of Unix?

> Is this supposed to be an offense? (And btw, I prefer to think of
> Linux as a Unix flavor)

Unix is not so constrained, now that Linux exists.  I suppose it's a
case of what's the point?  [And, if they didn't relax the rules 
somewhat, maybe fewer copies of unix would be in use.]

> > But the meaning of the GPL is very clear: this software is free software,
> > and it's going to stay that way.
> > 
> > And I think that answers that question, that you would say [rather
> > than ask].

> Raul, free software is much broader category then GPL'd software. And
> what you meant to say is probably "this software is GPL'd software and
> it is going to stay that way".

Most other free software licenses are of the form "This software is
free software, but it doesn't have to stay that way."  This doesn't
contradict what I said.

So, no, what you said here is not what I meant to say.

> So, the world with only GPL'd software present is a world where
> everybody's happy. (Do I smell a Communism here? Yeah, I do, I can
> recognize this smell so easily, I have been living for 23 years in
> this smell.)

I don't know why you're smelling "everybody's happy".  That just 
seems completely bogus.

We're not even *talking* about government stuff here.  [Except
copyright law, and contract law.]

> To the RMS regret, world is not that simple, and even free software
> can choose different kinds of licenses, even worse, more and more
> different licenses appear - take NPL as an example. And in this world,
> where it should already be obvious that it is impossible to put
> everything under GPL, the GPL itself becomes a hindrence rather then
> engine of the free software movement (as it used to be).

There have always been other licenses, and there always will be.  The GNU
GPL doesn't change that.  There are even significant exammples where
the GPL is supplemented with a license that allows non-free code to be
generated (Perl's Artistic License comes to mind).  And then there's
the GNU LGPL.

So, no, it's not obvious to me at all that the GPL is becoming a
hinderance to anything, except to being incorporated into non-free code.

And it's always been a hinderance to that.

-- 
Raul


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