Re: Brave GNU world about the word "virus"

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Dec 17, 1999 at 09:22:29AM +0530, Raj Mathur wrote:
> I think I need once again to go into the difference between having a
> bank account and software (stop groaning, you out there!)

Hmm, last time around your definition included only those things 
which don't cost anything to copy. This time it included Atta,
which comes very close to money.

> I fail to understand why people insist on equating free software and
> the GPL with their right to make money.

Because GPL tries to tell me how not to make money. It therefore
interferes with my right to make money as I please. Note that I am
not be free to make money by killing others. This is enforced by law.

If it is bad, it should be illegal. Again, making closed source software
illegal brings us back to communism.

> Software is software.  Money
> is money.  If you share the one, it increases.  If you share the
> other, it decreases, or at best remains the same.

Atta doesn't fit the model.

> Keeping atta for
> your lean periods is not called hoarding.  Keeping atta which is meant 
> to be distributed in a godown and waiting for the price to rise is
> called hoarding.

Who decides what is hoarding and what is not ? RMS ? GNU project ?
Or me ?

> As far as the enforceability of free software is concerned, you don't
> need any support except copyright from the state, whether it be
> Capitalism, Communism, whatever-ism -- as far as I know the GPL works
> the same in all countries with any pretence to a legal infrastructure.

I'm not talking about the GPL license here. It's the GNU philosophy 
and the goal of making all software free. If RMS becomes the president
of USA and tries to enforce his views, USA will be called a communist
country.

Communist governments can exist in a democracy. But democracy can't
exist in communist countries. BSD licensed code can exist in a GPL
kernel, but not the other way round.

> You might just be pleasantly surprised if you go beyond labels
> (Communism, freedom, etc) and look at ideas on their individual merit.
> The habit of classifying and dismissing (Oh, it's just another
> rapidly-approaching meteorite on an earth-intercept orbit, now that we
> know what it is let's ignore it) can be very dangerous!

Agree. I like ideas like co-operative credit unions as opposed to
banks. I like non-profit health insurance, automobile insurance
associations as opposed to their ultra commercial counterparts, whose
presence in the food chain doesn't do anyone any good (except for
the skyscrapers in major downtowns).

	-Arun