RE: Signatories to the Declaration of Software Freedom

["Suresh Ramasubramanian" <mallet@xxxxxxx>]

Atul Chitnis [Saturday, March 03, 2001 4:53 PM]

> Check out why someone like Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys make
> gazillions, while genuinely good, deserving and original artistes languish
> in the wild, never to see the light of publishing or success.

We did see a lot of this - with people like sting and such blasting british
recording companies for backing "boy bands" and "bubble gum bands" just for
looks, while ignoring musical talent.  You do have a point there ...

> shoes, desperately trying to get their work published. These are
> musicians, not lawyers. They expect to get treated failry, and they never
> are.

Especially if young and inexperienced, like most startup bands are.  The
situation is not all too different elsewhere, in Bringing this back a little
on topic, this is what new startups often face with venture capitalists and
bankers, or authors with huge publishers.  That does not rule out the
existence of musicians (or entrepreneurs) who are not dependant on, and
prefer not to depend on, agents (or VCs).

I was reading "The New New Thing" - Jim Clark's biography.  If you'll
recall, Clark was squeezed out of SGI (which he founded) by the bankers, and
replaced by a guy called Ed McCracken (who promptly ran SGI to the ground).
Clark _still_ refers to him as "F***ing Ed McCracken", by the way.

> So if it is OK with you, let's not argue about something like this on this
> list. This is *not* the place or time for a discussion about the music
> industry.  We were discussing licenses and their application.

You are right, of course.  This was a nice, interesting and off topic
sub-thread :)   Back on topic - imho at least, licensing (however  unsavory
the license may be - and ranging throughout the spectrum from closed source
to $open_source) must be respected.  If someone wants to use GPL'd software
and violate the GPL at the same time (by closed-sourcing it, say) then he
can't have the cake and eat it too.

The thing to do would be to shop around for similar software released under
some other license that fits the bill instead of using GPL'd software.
Bashing the GPL is pointless, as is bashing any other license.  It's there,
and it's not likely to change for all the electrons expended in this thread
(or all the license wars of the past, the present and the future).

Anyway, most of the license wars (between the various "free" licenses) hinge
on how each license defines the word "free".  Real life wars have been
fought on the basis of this definition, so yeah, I expect these licensing
wars will continue as well, and generate a new look at the same old points
raised each time.

Oh by the way, has there been any attempt to create a "middle of the road"
license, which is a common subset of all the major free licenses?

	-s