From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1030237AbWAXAfD (ORCPT ); Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:35:03 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1030238AbWAXAfD (ORCPT ); Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:35:03 -0500 Received: from relay01.pair.com ([209.68.5.15]:37391 "HELO relay01.pair.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1030237AbWAXAfB (ORCPT ); Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:35:01 -0500 X-pair-Authenticated: 67.163.102.102 From: Chase Venters Organization: Clientec, Inc. To: "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" Subject: Re: GPL V3 and Linux Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:34:34 -0600 User-Agent: KMail/1.9 Cc: "Horst von Brand" , "Alexander Shishckin" , "Jeff V. Merkey" , "Linux Kernel Mailing List" References: <200601212043.k0LKhG4w003290@laptop11.inf.utfsm.cl> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200601231834.56517.chase.venters@clientec.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Monday 23 January 2006 16:10, linux-os (Dick Johnson) wrote: > The problem is that every rule and every law takes > away rights. Laws do not give rights. Rules do not > give rights. Amendments to existing laws sometimes > prevent the restriction of rights (like the first 10 > amendments of the US Constitution), however there > are no rules or laws that ever, anywhere, provided > any rights whatsoever. Rules, regulations, and laws > are all about restricting rights. > > Sometimes the restrictions are necessary. For instance, > except in very special circumstances, governments usually > take away the inherent rights to kill, etc. > > The initial writer was correct. The GPL was supposed > to be all about freedom. Then, there are hundreds of > words that have nothing to do with freedom. They > establish rules. The crybaby says; "You will play > by my rules or..." Rules restrict freedom. There's nothing crybaby about it! Copyleft is, as Stallman puts it, to flip copyright on its head. If there was no such thing as copyright or other forms of laws / restrictions on sharing ideas and intangible implementations, there would be zero reason for the GPL because all the GPL aims to do is to preserve the freedom to share. So in that sense the GPL is about *enforcing* freedom. I must admit that I'm terribly confused - I thought all of this was well understood and accepted. Why must everyone attempt to spin the GPL into something it is not? The only way the terms of this license would be in any way restrictive on anyone is if they decided to *exploit* a given GPL work in order to *restrict* the rights of future users of the work. In that case, the GPL would intervene and say 'No'. > Perhaps these rules are necessary. However, for 20 > years before the Internet even existed, people were > sharing source-code without rules. This was the > principle behind the PROGRAM EXCHANGE and other > obsolete BBS systems. At that time the ground- > work of most all the file-compression routines, > file-transmission routines, file-types, flight- > simulators, etc., the stuff now claimed by others, > was freely given away. Some expected their names > to remain in the source, but eventually their > names were changed to "Microsoft" or GPL. For > example, Phil Katz. He invented "zip" and gunzip > and all that stuff. He's now dead. His lifetime > of work has been stolen by others and claimed > as their own. The GPL isn't about anyone's "work" or "credit". The licenses that ARE concerned with "credit" are licenses like the original BSD license with its attribution clause - you must stamp your product and documentation with notices that say your stuff was done by the University of Berkeley. > The Internet gets established and somebody who's > claim-to-fame was the development of the world's > most complicated word-processor, establishes some > legalese and a lot of well intentioned persons > fall into his trap as he claims that he developed > GNU/Linux as well. Wake up. > Are you suggesting that Stallman claims he developed GNU/Linux? Perhaps I'm just really misunderstanding what you just said, but if you really did mean it that way, perhaps you ought to point out where. If you're referring to the fact that Stallman doesn't like people calling the combination of the kernel and GNU tools "Linux", then it's only crybaby if you refuse to believe his published intentions (that "we" care more about open source than free software, and he's only trying to make sure that "free software" isn't forgotten). That last part I don't agree with (I think plenty of kernel people care greatly about free software), but I don't think it's silly to call the full OS GNU/Linux either. In any case, I don't think Stallman is concerned about fame so much as he is concerned with his movement. If it were most other people, I'd say it's all about fame, but Stallman has at least in my eyes proven himself to consistently concern himself only with his philosophy. I don't really blame Stallman for anything he's said that you might take as an attempt to take credit. I get the impression from seeing the interplay between "open source" and "free software", ESR and RMS, that ESR would be happy to write free software and Richard Stallman right out of history. And since I value "free software" just as much as I value "open source", I don't want to see that happen. The bottom line of all my rambling here is that these licenses aren't about maintaining credit at all, which I think you were implying in your message. Sans these "You will play by my rules or..." clauses, there would be no huge open source community because the proprietary software vendors would vacuum up anything of value and use it as leverage to lock people in. (And as for your comment about BBSes and the days without licenses, a zillion dollar proprietary software business had not yet been invented). If you want open source licenses with no restrictions at all, that's "public domain". And "public domain" won't ever be what it could be until you abolish copyright. Cheers, Chase