Picking a license

Patrick Maupin pmaupin at gmail.com
Sat May 15 14:46:57 EDT 2010


On May 15, 12:49 pm, Albert van der Horst <alb... at spenarnc.xs4all.nl>
wrote:
> In article <7bdce8a7-bf7d-4f1f-bc9d-1eca26974... at d27g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
> Patrick Maupin  <pmau... at gmail.com> wrote:
> <SNIP>
>
> >That is correct.  All "privileges" as you put it are merely things
> >that a user can do with the code without fear of a lawsuit by the
> >author, and when an author uses a permissive license, he indicates
> >that the things that he could possibly find egregious enough to sue
> >over are very few.  For example, if you give an Ubuntu CD to your
> >friend without giving source code or a written offer of source code,
> >you have violated the license on quite a few of the programs on the
> >CD, but not, for example, on Python or Apache, because these licenses
> >do not attempt to forbid you from doing this.
>
> Bit this is stupid! The GPL is to accomplish a political goal,
> an operating system with tools available to all, that can be
> modified by anybody capable of doing so.

Sure.

> Enforcements not amenable to that goal will not happen.

Absolutely agreed.  I have no real problem with that.  I *do* have a
problem with some of the faithful acting like I'm completely wrong and
trying to actively mislead about how the license works, but then I
guess that's par for the course for politics.

> It might surprise even RMS himself but ...
> The political goal has been large and by accomplished at the expense
> of great legal effort and great efforts of Linus Torvalds.

Agreed.

> c.s. Without
> the GPL Linux would not exist -- except in the form of an academic
> exercise

Not sure that's true.  Linus would have picked *some* license.
Possibly something like the BSD.  He started development using Minix,
which certainly wasn't licensed freely, and which was first released 2
years before the GPL, so the GPL was not instrumental in providing his
first development environment.  He might have had to choose a
different compiler if GCC weren't available, but there was a compiler
with Unix.  I can believe that the GPL helped Linux gain some momentum
it wouldn't have had otherwise, but I reject your absolute assertion.

> -- and neither would gcc,

Well, not gcc itself, but there were compilers around...

> so neither would Python.

That I *completely* disagree with.  Python was written for the amoeba
O/S, which was in existence and had compilers a good 3 or 4 years
before the first release of gcc.

> By proxy I estimate that none of the software with a permissive
> license you mention would not be available.

I disagree.  If Linux weren't around, MS would not be the sole
winner.  Free development would have coalesced around one of the BSDs
(which in absolute numbers are still pretty big projects right now, in
any case, just lacking the mindshare of Linux).  As apache and other
projects have shown, the propensity of the few to try to lock things
up can easily be overcome with sheer numbers and willpower -- no
reciprocal license required.

> You seem to imply that RMS is a nasty guy.

I think we both agree that people who make history are often
unreasonable.  I really don't have a problem with that, but I do have
a problem with apologists claiming it isn't so in his case.

> Yes, RMS is a nasty guy. All warriors are! Get in his
> way and you're blasted.

So maybe you're not one of the ones I have a problem with.

> But some warriors fight for a right
> cause ... This really has nothing to do with anything.
> The meek will inherit the world, yes, but only after
> the second coming.

If you read all the posts carefully, you will see that people arguing
that sometimes permissive licenses are the right ones also allow a
place for the GPL.  It is only some of the GPL adherents who accuse
some of the "non-believers" of acting duplicitously, with malice, of
being against "freedom".  I reject that characterization of myself,
and when people accuse me of this, I mentally place them in the
category of "religious nutter".  Once I have placed someone in that
category, it is sometimes hard for me to respond civilly to them,
especially when they write something stupid.  I have not yet placed
you in that category, but I do categorically reject your
interpretation of some of the relevant historical events.

Regards,
Pat



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