Re: [LI] Message from RMS.

[Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

        Arun made his plea for the *Bsd licence. Unfortunately, he
 characterized the GPL in a fashion I find offensive. No matter, he
 probably shall find this article mildly offensive too. 

        Before you pull out your flame throwers, please understand
 this is not meant personally; this is an exression of my opinion on
 the subject.

>>"Arun" == Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

 Arun> RMS and the GNU project have a very explicit agenda to be
 Arun> uncooperative with closed source commercial entities with the
 Arun> goal of completely replacing them with GPL'ed software (Note:
 Arun> this is not the same as free software).

        Is that now what Linux is too? A librè replacement for
 proprietary operating systems? 

        Debian certainly follows the 100% Free OS formula.

 Arun> Open source is not a panacea. There are situations where it
 Arun> works better than closed source. Hard economic realities
 Arun> dictate that a large amount of commercial work will continue to
 Arun> be closed source. Further, open source should be by choice -
 Arun> not by coercion as the GNU project seeks to achieve it.

        Where does the coercion come in? Where is the threat making
 you choose to use free software? Where is the gun to your head?
 Imprecision in choosing ones words makes one wonder about the
 precision of the ideology behind it. 

        All the GPL states is: here is some work I have put in, and it
 is meant for the commmunity of people who come and share around. No
 one is forcing you to use my work. But if you do, please realize that
 you are expected to contribute, or at least not take the sources away
 and restrict the freedom of others to enjoy the fruits of my labour. 

        This is how communities are built.

 Arun> The GNU project claims that a commercial entity "takes away"
 Arun> your freedom if they take your open source work, add some value
 Arun> and sell it as closed source for money. The reality however is
 Arun> that your freedom is perfectly intact. All the source that you
 Arun> wrote is still out there for everyone to use. No one has taken
 Arun> your freedom away as RMS repeatedly insists.

        That is a matter of interpretation. The synergy that comes
 when people contribute back, when the software goes from strength to
 strength, when each contributor is springing off the work of other
 people -- that synergy, that freedom of software, is what is lodt. 

 Arun> On the other hand, GPL restricts certain freedoms. It is not as
 Arun> 'free as in speech'

        All freedome are realized by restricting some one elses
 rights. Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. And in most
 countries, your right to free speech ends when you atart to libel. Or
 steal copyrighted works. Or even, in areas where children can access
 them, pornography is restricted too.

        Yes, the GPL restricts your right to harm other people by
 robbing them of the synergy and sense of community that librated
 software brings. 

 Arun> as public domain software or BSD licensed software.
 Arun> Specifically, it restricts your freedom to make commercial
 Arun> software out of it.

        Quite right. The GPL is about building a community. Why do you
 think you enjoy software that has had the blood and seat and tears of
 people poured into it? I have spent 25 hours in a week where my day
 job took 50 working for Debian. Why do you think peoplr can just take
 that work and enjoy it? Cause I am contributing to a community that I
 belong to, and I am going to take steps to protect that community.

        As I said, if you don't like that, no one is forcing you.


 Arun> GPL is also a viral license. If you have a piece of software
 Arun> that has both GPL'ed code and code with licence <foo>, the end
 Arun> result *has* to be GPL'ed, because GPL is the most restrictive
 Arun> of them all.

        I like that. It strengthens my community. No one can take
 GPL'd software away like X/Open tried to take X11 away from us, and
 only XFree's threat of forking made them desist.


 Arun> Get rid of the GPL virus. Make your software BSD licensed**.

        The BSDs were around long before Linux started. Whydo you
 think they failed to provide the world with useful software? Cause
 they do not care about community. The BSD licence is a reflection of
 the elitist, iconoclastic creators of *BSDs. 

        You licence your code under the BSD licence, you are weakening
 the community that brought you gcc, Emacs, and Linux. And the one
 bringing you a lot of KDE, GNOME, and Berlin.

 Arun> Do you want a tomorrow where all software is GPL'ed or a

        Absolutely.

 Arun> tomorrow where there is a lot of open source software that
 Arun> peacefully coexists with commercial software and offers enough
 Arun> incentive to entrepreneurs to base their next innovation (Mr
 Arun> Gates has polluted this word - but I'll use it anyway) on open
 Arun> source software ?

        Your naivete is refreshing. But remember, GPL'd software
 coexists with proprietary software too (where do you think gcc and
 Emacs were developed?) All the GPL does is prevent some one from
 leeching off your labour and not giving anything in return. 

 Arun> Even though you contribute code to GPL'ed projects like Linux,
 Arun> your code doesn't have to be GPL'ed.

        Oh, great. Just rip off the people whose work you are using.

 Arun> The resulting work will be GPL'ed, but your code will remain
 Arun> `free' to be used in other open source, non-GPL'ed projects -
 Arun> Apache, X, FreeBSD, Perl, Python to name a few. Right now,
 Arun> people who disagree with the GNU concepts are forced to rewrite
 Arun> code in order to stay away from the virus. However, GPL'ed
 Arun> projects are free to absorb code from other non-GPL'ed projects
 Arun> - just as Linux has absorbed code from BSD.

        I like this part. It may not be fair, but sure is competetive ;-)
 BTW, Perl is distributed under the GPL, if oe chooses so. And Perl
 can indeed incorporate GPL'd code, while retainig the same licence. 

 Arun> The choice is yours.

        Yup.

 Arun> If you're confused and need more information on the topic, feel
 Arun> free to email me and I'll be happy to point you to more
 Arun> resources (both pro and anti GPL).

 Arun> 	-Arun

 Arun> * It is often said that if the GNU project didn't exist, Linux
 Arun>   wouldn't have existed. I think otherwise - Linux would've
 Arun>   used the fine BSD "operating system" (this is using RMS
 Arun>   terminology, which excludes the kernel). gcc is an exception
 Arun>   to this. BSD used a commercial compiler, before switching to
 Arun>   gcc.

        So how come the *BSD's have failed miserably to matvh the
 popularity of Linux despite a head start?

        manoj
-- 
 Nothing that's forced can ever be right, If it doesn't come
 naturally, leave it. That's what she said as she turned out the
 light, And we bent our backs as slaves of the night, Then she lowered
 her guard and showed me the scars She got from trying to fight
 Saying, oh, you'd better believe it. [...] Well nothing that's real
 is ever for free And you just have to pay for it sometime. She said
 it before, she said it to me, I suppose she believed there was
 nothing to see, But the same old four imaginary walls She'd built for
 livin' inside I said oh, you just can't mean it. [...] Well nothing
 that's forced can ever be right, If it doesn't come naturally, leave
 it. That's what she said as she turned out the light, And she may
 have been wrong, and she may have been right, But I woke with the
 frost, and noticed she'd lost The veil that covered her eyes, I said
 oh, you can leave it. Al Stewart, "If It Doesn't Come Naturally,
 Leave It"
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@xxxxxxxxxx>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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