On 01/07/2013 02:19 PM, Derek Martin wrote:
On Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 10:36:36AM -0500, Mark Woodward wrote:
On 01/07/2013 10:15 AM, Edward Ned Harvey (blu) wrote:
Let's get this clear, it is not "less restrictive" in the long term
view.
Yes it is, but it depends on your perspective, i.e. whose rights
you're worried about being limited.
If it is merely your rights, then the GPL does not get in your way. The
GPL protects the rights of people that you would otherwise deny the
rights by which you originally acquired the software.
Think of it in terms of a chain. From originator to You, you
receive the software. Under GPL you can do anything you like with
that software. ANYTHING. Seriously. Anything.
Not anything. In particular, what you do with it after you've
modified it is very tightly controlled.
Not true, you can do what ever you want to do with the software. The
issue is if you want to *distribute* the software. You can't make it
less free than you got it. Under most western civilizations,
redistribution is not a right, it is a privilege granted by the
copyright holder.
However, the restriction is about how you are to treat the software,
which you received with complete freedom, as you pass it on to the
next person in the chain.
Licences other than the GPL in no way restrict the user receiving your
software from fetching the original software on which your software is
based. Using the GPL only restricts you from being able to deny that
right to others for your derived work.
That's sort of the issue of freedom. What ever you did based on GPL
software was a product of your freedom to use the GPL software. The
original package is directly responsible. If it were otherwise, there
would be no issue. Is a feedom to deny freedom really a freedom? You are
free to do what ever you want with *your* code, but if you augment
someone else's code, you can't supplant their judgment with yours. You
got the code for free.
Do you feel that you have the right to deny freedom to a subsequent
user? Is the freedom to deny freedom really a freedom?
Absolutely. To both questions. Copyright law grants you that right,
It does not. "Copyright" allows you to control your work, not the work
of others.
and while I think it is generally abused by greedy corporations, I do
still think that it provides benefit to both the copyright holder and,
yes, even their customers, under the right circumstances. Even the
FSF recognizes that this is a right, and one that's often useful.
Hence was the LGPL created.
The LGPL has its own issues and that's another debate.
The BSD license is truly more free than the GPL; it has far fewer
restrictions. I'm not saying one is better than the other... Both
have their own--different--goals, which I think is fine.
I don't believe that the MIT or BSD license is more "free." When the
"free" we are discussing is "freedom" and not price. The GPL and strong
licenses like it, protect software freedom by preventing code from being
modified and disappearing. The prime example of this is Microsoft's
actions with kerberos. GPL would have protected it. Instead, it was used
as a tool to exclude security vendors. The MIT license, according to
you, is more free, but that very same license was used to make something
very un-free.
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