Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?

[Les Mikesell]

Gordon Messmer wrote:
> 
>>> I quit reading that the first time after the second paragraph. 
>>> "Perceptive" is not what I thought of the author.  The entire article 
>>> is a pompous straw-man argument.  Find one place in that article 
>>> where the author cites any person who actually evinces the attitudes 
>>> that he attributes to the group he describes.
>>
>> That's the point - the people who argue the point don't understand it 
>> this way.
> 
> The author was clearly presenting his own views of GPL developers, and 
> nothing else.

And equally, developers who prefer not to apply the GPL restrictions, 
either explicitly for the benefit of everyone or simply not caring how 
their code is reused because they know it can't affect the availability 
of their own work.

> Close your eyes for a moment and picture a big red tag that reads:
> 
>     $ COOPERATION
> 
> That's the GPL.

You seem to be implying that the GPL is necessary for cooperation.  That 
is just not true.  The GPL is simply a restriction on the ways that 
people can cooperate.

>> The price isn't the point at all, it is the restriction on reuse and 
>> improvement in a large number of ways.  And the real cost to society 
>> is the lack of the things the restrictions prevent - at no gain to 
>> anyone.
> 
> The "restriction on reuse" IS the price.  In return for the privilege of 
> building your products on the work that has been done by the community 
> of GPL developers, you must also license your derived works under a 
> compatible license which does not restrict the rights of the users to 
> whom you sell or distribute your software.

Again, the fact that under certain restricted conditions it may be 
possible to reuse the code does not eliminate the damage caused by the 
restrictions that prevent many other uses.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com