nvidia

Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Wed Oct 31 17:56:40 UTC 2007


Les wrote:

>>>>> Les' mission is to save us from the evils of GPL license.

> There are several "les"s on this list.  I would like to be referred to
> as Lesh to help all of 

Yes, I was going to point out that I haven't been in the Navy and was 
probably confused with one of the others in that respect.

Regarding the GPL, though, it is all a matter of religion.  Mine is that 
making something deliberately not interoperate with something else, 
whether by refusing to publish an interface spec, refusing to use 
standard protocols, or licensing in such a way that interoperation (or 
distributing working components together)is prohibited will harm random 
people and is thus pure evil.

Licensing in ways that have a cost per instance or per user may be 
moderately evil but that still lets people make their own choices based 
on individual merits. Taking that choice away is pure evil.

For standalone programs the GPL doesn't necessarily have these evil 
effects.  For things that should be usable in cooperative efforts but 
can't because of license restrictions, it does.  There's no accounting 
for religions, though, and no doubt others believe the harm is justified 
by something or other.

   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com




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