Licensing question

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Huaiyu" == Huaiyu Zhu <huaiyu at gauss.almadan.ibm.com> writes:

    Huaiyu> I'm still wondering why someone would marvel at MS's
    Huaiyu> "Amarican Success Story" while paying for their stuff, yet
    Huaiyu> at the same time complaining about Stallman not being
    Huaiyu> generous enough when you can get his stuff for free (in
    Huaiyu> both senses).  Human nature, I suppose.

Oh, I think it's quite simple.  Free the software certainly is, but
Richard Stallman isn't giving anything away; it's all GPL, and thus
(1) comes with terms and conditions that restrict what I can do with
the software that (2) are in the service of implementing _his_ social
program, not _my_ work.  In particular, they restrict my freedom to
make advantageous trades of my "right to compete commercially against
the vendor" for lower price or less personal effort.  Bill Gates also
wants to restrict my access to resources that never were mine---until
I pay for them.  So both insist on terms and conditions that restrict
what I can do with the software, and when.

The emotional difference is that Richard Stallman tells me that
dealing with Bill Gates is equivalent to selling myself into slavery,
and that Stallman is imposing the restrictions for my own good, and/or
the moral good.  No doubt I personally consider the GPL deal far more
advantageous---but please leave that judgement up to me!  There are
exceptions, and they are important to me.

It certainly is human nature to resent being told what's good for one,
especially if one disagrees strongly about parts of the issue.

Of course most developers who get upset are really thinking "if this
were PSF license, not GPL, I could sell proprietary enhancements to
these willing customers."  That looks like the developers are trying
to get something for nothing, and I suppose they are.  But there is a
grain of justice to what they're thinking, and that is the
customer-side argument I present above.  And that's probably enough to
get the resentment thing going.  (Doesn't take much, does it.)

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN