Re: Question
On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 04:43:28PM +0800, Katipo wrote:
> Maybe it'd be an idea to put in a bug report to the crew drawing up the
> new GPL agreement, and request that in the growing incidence of this
> sort of arrangement happening, that an itemised invoice is issued in
> order to ensure ethical trading.
Ugh. I believe if they do make the GPL too nitpicky and legalistic, it will
badly hurt the free software movement, certainly more than a few people taking
advantage of "loopholes". And I say this as a Free Software Foundation member
and someone about to release a large amount of code under the GPL. I'm still
debating whether to do like Linus, and say *only* GPL v2, or the default GPL,
which is to allow any future revision. I'm wary of that, because I don't
really trust that 50 years from now the GPL is still going to reflect my
values. I think I can count on the GPL being backwards-compatible, certainly
if it's not that will also help to make it irrelevant. Because it will be
backwards compatible, I don't see any major problems with saying "only version
2".
> I have noobjection to anybody charging for hardware, labour time, or
> anything else that they may have bought and are in the process of onselling.
> It is this factor that predetermines possession, and the ethical
> transactional status. But I would object to anybody appropriating Debian as
> *their* possession, putting on what would have to be an exorbitant markup,
> and in this way, 'profiting' by it. This is misappropriation, pure and
> simple. Anything else is intellectual ninjutsu, which can be somewhat
> mentally damaging.
I don't see what the problem with this is. If people are stupid enough to pay
a billion trillion dollars for the simulation code I've written, well they're
stupid and that's fine. As long as the seller follows the rules of the
license I use, good for them for making money off of gullible idiots.
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