'GPL encumbrance problems'

[David G. Miller (aka DaveAtFraud)]

lesmikesell at gmail.com wrote:

>On Thu, 2006-01-19 at 12:47, David G. Miller (aka DaveAtFraud) 
>
>  
>
>>> It really does come down to a socialism vs. capitalism argument in the 
>>> end.  The pro [L]GPL crowd points to a claimed beneficial leveling 
>>> affect by everyone having access to everything and the pro closed source 
>>> crowd points out that they won't work unless they see a profit from 
>>> their labor.
>>    
>>
>
>Yet, there are plenty of projects that are freely available and
>open source without the GPL restrictions.  Where do the *bsd, X,
>apache, perl, mozilla, etc. licenses fall in your claimed dichotomy?
>It is possible to share things without everyone following the
>same manifesto.
>
> -- Les Mikesell
>
Just as there are many points between capitalism and socialism.  
Likewise, just because someone donates to the poor hardly turns them 
into a socialist.  For the purposes of this discussion (assuming it 
still has a purpose), the differences are clearest arguing at the endpoints.

I really do see a need for a GPL-like restriction on creating true 
derivative works based on free software created by others.  I think the 
success of GPLed software in attracting developers shows that people are 
more willing to donate their time and effort if they know that someone 
else can't simply pick up whatever they have created, re-package it 
somehow and sell it.  That being said, I see a whole world of difference 
between modifying someone else's work and writing a program that runs 
"on top of" a base created by others.  Perhaps that's because I've been 
doing that for quite a few years and I haven't had a single OS vendor 
(IBM, CDC, DEC, HP, SUN, or Microsoft) come back and demand I change how 
I license the code I created simply because it runs on their platform.

mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net wrote:

> I don't "hope to extract money" from people, and object to the use
> of the term wrt me. 

Mike, I'm an unabashed capitalist.  I look at it as businesses extract 
money from customers in exchange for alleviating a perceived need of the 
customer.  The important part is not the word describing the direction 
the money moves but that the exchange be one of freely agreed to value 
for value.  This covers the people who sell snake oil as well as folks 
like your father who understood that making the customer happy is what 
brought back both the customer and his friends, family, etc.  Funny 
thing is that people who use expressions like "...hope to extract 
money..." pejoratively seem to focus strictly on the movement of the 
money and not on the goods or services that the customer gets in return.

Cheers,
Dave