Re: Recently released QPL
Darren Benham <gecko@debian.org> writes:
> > The GPL does not restrict my rights. It protects my rights, and the
> > rights of everyone else, by preventing people from being able to steal
> > the code and release it in binary-only form. This is an excellent
> > thing, and highlights one serious flaw in the BSD license, for
> > instance.
> That is your opinion (and the opinion of most of us) but it's still not the
> "fact" you make it out to be. GPL *does* restrict your rights. If you
> found a kewl foobar program but wanted to put the xforms front end to it,
> you can't. Well, you can, but then you can't distribute it to anyone,
This is the fault of the xforms people for not making it truly Free;
don't try to pin that on the GPL. BTW, we do have GPL code that is
linked to xforms in Debian: LyX.
> anywhere. Your right to use the xforms library is restricted. That's part
The xforms people make that restriction.
> of the mess with KDE. Many people objected to KDE because the chose a
> non-free library to work with but what got it pulled was the linking of
> those GPL'd programs to this non-free library even though THEIR source was
> or would have been free.
This is Qt's fault for not making a free library. Surely we should
not blame GPL for somebody else's licensing mistakes?
> Sure, the GPL restricts somebody's freedom to use any part of that code in
> their proprietary software and that's what you want... And you accept the
This is not a restriction, it's a benefit. You are forgetting that
proprietary software robs us of freedom. The GPL is ensuring that the
greedy people out there can't rob us of our freedoms.
> X's license is more free but has the undesirable affect of allowing it to
> let people use Free code, improve free code and not be forced to return it
> to the community...
Which means that in the end, it's a lot less free, doesn't it.
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