GPL good or bad ? (Was Re: [LI] Programming help [Humorous])

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Nov 04, 1999 at 10:50:40AM +0530, Raj Mathur wrote:
> Sure, count me in the second category.  I can live without Oracle,
> Netscape, DB2 and Netscape Messaging Server until free equivalents
> come out (if they're not already there).  Down with software hoarding!

The following Linuxworld article and Richard Stallman's response pretty
much summarize the debate in the free software world.

Reverse-engineering the GNU Public Virus 
http://linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-09/lw-09-gnu-2.html

Richard Stallman on freedom and the GNU GPL 
http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-11/lw-11-rms.html

Both of the articles above are heavy on idealism and philosophy.

My primary intention is that everyone on the list who's writing code is
aware of all the issues surrounding GPL, instead of choosing it because
Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman chose the same license. And I make
no attempts to hide my personal preferences :)

To some extent, the debate deals with the same core issues as Capitalism
Vs Communism and Open source Vs free software, MBA Vs PhD etc.

	-Arun
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