OFF LIST:Re: 'GPL encumbrance problems'

[Mike McCarty]

jdow wrote:
> From: "Rickey Moore" <wayward4now at yahoo.com>
> 
>>
>> Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org> wrote:
>> It's like seeing some whiz-bang control you might like to use if you're
>> a Visual Basic programmer, except that the license for the control costs
>> $1,000. If you don't want to pay the $1,000, you don't use the control.
>> What's the difference?
>> Good example, Paul. There >IS< a 'Gift Debt'  that comes from using 
>> opensource, which according to my perspectives is the imperative to 
>> 'pass it forward'.  You cannot directly repay those whose shoulders 
>> you stand on, but you can  'pass forward'  their gift to the next guy.
>>
>> If that concept holds one back, then maybe a serious life self 
>> examination is in order. Linux is free, but not as in Free Beer. 
>> Karma, to me, is a very real thing. One pays for one's decisions , and 
>> the actions from them. Make a few bad decisions and see what happens. 
>> Recieving a gift on one hand and wanting pay for some augmentation of 
>> the gifts on the other just goes against the spirit of the Linux 
>> Movement. That concept of 'paying forward' is worthy and just, 
>> according to all of the Prophets as well. (waxing spiritually here.) 
>> The Age of Aquarius arrives, steadily although slowly,  through 
>> movements such as this.
>>
>> You can make money from your labor, offering support, release copies 
>> of CD's, shipping & handling. My own project has 6.7 million potential 
>> clients, so I figure a buck or so average will enable me some of 
>> life's basics and some extra to spread around. Sure, I'll give away 
>> the software! That's a no brainer, I don't need to absorb all the 
>> money there is in circulation, unlike someone I could name. Just some 
>> of it.
> 
> 
> THAT is a fatuous comment. If I have to spend all my time offering support
> then I have no time to develop new stuff. I eventually starve. Basically
> that statement says I must have another source of income than writing
> software if I am to be a sole proprietor consultant designing software.

Thanks, Joanne. I had (as perhaps you may have read in other mails
I have sent) e-mail contact with Richard Stallman several years ago.
He has a social agenda that many people are just not aware of, and
they are likewise not aware of the perhaps less obvious consequences
of GPL (and LGPL). Most people are not aware that RS considers
capitalism to be evil (at least in regards to creation of software).
He has a social agenda of stamping out rewarding creative people
for doing creative work. Put plainly, he does not believe in
licensing software. He thinks it is morally reprehensible to do
so. He believes that one should only sell copies, not license
use.

> I made the comment as a throwaway not intended as a troll. Rightly or
> wrongly I perceive two things, it is impossible for me to write code for
> a GPLed system in such a way as to protect my own work from the accidental
> side effects of the GPLed system's licenses. I'd need a corps of lawyers

These "side effects" are not accidental, and they are not side effects.
RS wants to stamp out capitalism in software development. The GPL was
created for the express purpose of killing UNIX and promoting GNU.
If it manages to kill all other commercial software along the way,
he'd be even happier.

> to review everything. I cannot afford that. Nor am I allowed by some
> persons' ethics (particularly RS) to earn money from my work directly.
> If I write it I "must" release source code or be "unethical". But if
> I release source code for a purely software project and do not have time
> to "make my money from support" then some company like RedHat will make
> the money instead of me. My stomache does not agree with that concept.
> It insists on periodic infusions of food, the acquisition of which costs
> the money RS declares I am unethical enough to demand. Scroom, the bastard.

Well said, agreed to, and seconded. Amen.

> That's enough statement for my purposes. It's off topic here. This
> discussion should stop now. It's not going to change MY opinion. Nor is
> it likely to change the opinion of other people who must work for their
> food and do not want to be tied down to an employer who might manage
> to RedHat their way through the world.

Nor is it likely to change the minds of college kids who live off their
parents, and think [L]GPL is a Good Thing(tm).


Mike
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