Dr. Seuss, licensing, and WINE
[Note: This is a slightly revised version of some material which I've posted to Slashdot. Copy replies to me, as I am not on the wine-devel list (though I have been an active advocate of WINE and will continue to be so long as it is not licensed under a viral license such as the LGPL). -BG] This entire issue is reminiscent of the well known Dr. Seuss story "Horton Hatches the Egg." In the story, a bird lays an egg and then convinces a kindly elephant named Horton to sit on it. Horton braves all manner of hardships -- heat, cold, even the indignity of being captured and displayed as a freak in a circus -- to remain with his charge until it hatches. Whereupon, the bird immediately demands that Horton return the fruits of his labor to her. (Were she a modern Richard Stallman, she might have declared that it was a GPLed egg.) Writing a program -- like laying an egg -- isn't necessarily an easy task. However, bringing it to the marketplace and successfully selling it as a product -- especially in the presence of a free alternative -- is a much more difficult and dangerous one. The company that hopes to sell a product that's an improved derivative of one that's available for free is taking a big risk and must make a truly Hortonian (if I may coin the phrase) effort to be successful. What Mr. Stallman and the (L)GPL would demand is that the person who manages to do this -- competing against all odds with a no-cost version and potentially infinite numbers of competitors publishing and bundling it -- get nothing. Those who wish WINE to be published under a license which is not truly free, as the current license is, appear to believe that the emergence of products such as Lindows is a threat to WINE and/or to businesses such as CodeWeavers. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the creators of derivative works act in their own best interests, they will return all but the most strategically important code from their implementations to the WINE project, reserving for themselves only what is necessary to differentiate their product from what another vendor (e.g. Red Hat) might produce. This minimizes their maintenance costs, and may -- there's no sure thing here -- provide them with sufficient value added to survive in the presence of a free alternative. (If they don't do this, there is an automatic penalty: they'll have to re-integrate changes into each new version.) To (L)GPL WINE, on the other hand, prevents such worthy products from ever seeing the light of day. It is, in essence, snatching back the egg from poor Horton after all of his hard work. And it won't benefit WINE, WINE users, or CodeWeavers. Many companies' potential contributions will be lost, and CodeWeavers and WINE will gain themselves a reputation for being hostile to business. This will cause the consulting business from which CodeWeavers hopes to make money to dry up. In short, the move is shortsighted and bad for all concerned. CodeWeavers, and other companies that hope to profit from their work on WINE via paid consulting, should look instead to the model of Wasabi Systems (http://www.wasabisystems.com/ [wasabisystems.com]), which just received a round of venture capital funding worth more than $1M to port, publish, promote, and consult on NetBSD. NetBSD is truly free; it's published not under the restrictive GPL or LGPL but under the BSD License. And Wasabi is going strong; they just published a desktop package (consisting of NetBSD plus GUIs and applications) that is competitive with the best of the Linux distributions. The WINE project, for its part, should resist falling prey to the spite and resentment that the Fascist^H^H^H^H^H^Hree Software Foundation encourages (and has made part of its licenses). If the project makes the mistake of adopting an FSF license, commercial programmers such as myself will no longer be able to so much as look at the code -- much less fix bugs or contribute. This license change would, effectively, close WINE to me and any other developer who writes commercial software... forever. Here's why. As most people already know, the GPL and LGPL require developers who create "derivative works" to give their work away for free. But what most people do not understand is that if a programmer so much as looks at GPLed or LGPLed code, and later writes some code that performs the same function, he or she is open to accusations that the code produced later is a derivative work. (The late ex-Beatle George Harrison fell into a similar trap when he heard a song and, years later, wrote one with a similar melody. A court convicted him of "unconscious" copyright infringement because he'd heard the original song.) For this reason, commercial programmers simply cannot look at source code that's published under one of the FSF's licenses without taking a tremendous risk which could destroy their careers as programmers. This may be fine with Richard Stallman -- who in the GNU Manifesto stated that programmers should code for love rather than money and that good salaries for programmers should be "banned" -- but for those of us who need to put food on the table it is simply a risk we cannot take. Thus, if WINE is (L)GPLed, I can no longer look at the code, fix bugs when something breaks, or contribute to the project. Nor can I peruse the code in order to learn from it. It will, effectively, be as closed as a closed source product to me and to any other commercial programmer. WINE will be un-free and would not be open source (since it would be licensed under a license that discriminates against a group of people and a field of endeavor). Only a truly free fork (which I sincerely hope will occur if the license is changed) will be accessible to those of us who code for a living. It would be a sad day for those of us who would LIKE to continue to recommend WINE to users who wish to free themselves from Windows, as I would immediately have to stop installing and advocating the use of WINE. --Brett Glass (Who hasn't happened to contribute to WINE yet, but may do so if it remains open source)
On Thu, Feb 07, 2002 at 08:31:20PM -0700, Brett Glass wrote:
[Note: This is a slightly revised version of some material which I've posted to Slashdot. Copy replies to me, as I am not on the wine-devel list (though I have been an active advocate of WINE and will continue to be so long as it is not licensed under a viral license such as the LGPL). -BG]
The worms come out of the woodwork. *sigh* :( Ciao, Marcus
On Fri, 2002-02-08 at 06:03, Marcus Meissner wrote:
On Thu, Feb 07, 2002 at 08:31:20PM -0700, Brett Glass wrote:
[Note: This is a slightly revised version of some material which I've posted to Slashdot. Copy replies to me, as I am not on the wine-devel list (though I have been an active advocate of WINE and will continue to be so long as it is not licensed under a viral license such as the LGPL). -BG]
The worms come out of the woodwork. *sigh* :(
Ciao, Marcus
I'm sorry, but I'm offended by this comment. Sure I havn't contributed a damn thing to WINE, but that doesn't mean opinions regarding it's future are restricted to the people on wine-devel. What is being proposed will affect ALL users of WINE, not just those who contribute. Immediately dismissing someone because they havn't contributed to WINE is short-sighted at best. As long as I'm sending this, I might as well make a comment on the license. We all know money makes the world go round. If the current license makes WINE more enticing to businesses, it should stay with that model. If the LGPL encourages investment (time or money), then WINE should move that way. IMHO, it appears the current license is best in the long run. The biggest issue I've seen so far is people ego's going out of control when they've shared their work with the public, and someone else hasn't returned their share (and possibly making money off of it). If WINE moves forward %20 more because of the current license, but %5 of good code is locked up (eg. in Lindows.com's tree), I'd say WINE is ahead in the long run. Keep an open mind. Look at the big picture. You are forging a path for all current and future users of this software. -- Rick Romero IT Manager ph: 262.685.4841 Valeo, Inc. fax: 262.695.4850 rick(a)valeoinc.com
On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Rick Romero wrote:
What is being proposed will affect ALL users of WINE, not just those who contribute. Immediately dismissing someone because they havn't contributed to WINE is short-sighted at best.
What are you taking about? There are many users of xGPL software -- they will not care a bit about the license. All we should be concerned in the present discussion is what license is most beneficial to Wine. Period. -- Dimi.
On Fri, 2002-02-08 at 13:41, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Rick Romero wrote:
What is being proposed will affect ALL users of WINE, not just those who contribute. Immediately dismissing someone because they havn't contributed to WINE is short-sighted at best.
What are you taking about? There are many users of xGPL software -- they will not care a bit about the license. All we should be concerned in the present discussion is what license is most beneficial to Wine. Period.
Exactly. The users don't care what license Wine is using, they care about what works on their PC's. Look at the companies who are poviding Wine services: CodeWeavers: Easy Wine Installation, custom code, Win Browser plugin Lindows.com: Easy to use, Windows compatible Linux distro Transgaming: Windows Game support within Linux These companies are beneficial to Wine. USERS are the target of these companies. These companies need to make money. It was said in another post that Wine has zero value without value added options. That's just one perspective. If wine works for you now, it has value. If it only works for you when it's from one of these companies, it doesn't have value until something has been added to it. Value is a perceived quantity. You may think it has value simply because you've put time into it. Now we could go on and on about value-added services. Probably the biggest thing these guys offer is convienance. Most of us on this list could duplicate some of what they've done, thereby removing their value (in our perception). The real question is, what license doesn't discourage (yes, double negative, quality buniess term :) companies from throwing resources at Wine? I assume that a license change (at least from current to LGPL) would only affect businesses. In that case, as much as you guys would hate to hear it, maybe you should ask BUSINESSES, who aren't already prominent, what they would prefer to work under, and why. Don't guess, go to the source. I DON'T KNOW which license is "better", but I believe if you ignore what the users want, or deter someone else from bringing what the users want, your product will lose out in the end.
-- Dimi.
-- Rick Romero IT Manager ph: 262.685.4841 Valeo, Inc. fax: 262.695.4850 rick(a)valeoinc.com
On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Brett Glass wrote:
--Brett Glass (Who hasn't happened to contribute to WINE yet, but may do so if it remains open source)
Could you have finished wiht a more dumb line? LGPL _is_ open source my friend, go read about it first. I don't know about other people, but I'm so tired of these arguments where LGPL is 'fascist', 'proprietary', 'not open source', etc. Once again, we don't discuss what is important, but we keep arguing about mostly irrelevant things, just like last time... :( -- Dimi.
On Fri, 8 Feb 2002 09:34, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Brett Glass wrote:
--Brett Glass (Who hasn't happened to contribute to WINE yet, but may do so if it remains open source)
Could you have finished wiht a more dumb line? LGPL _is_ open source my friend, go read about it first.
I don't know about other people, but I'm so tired of these arguments where LGPL is 'fascist', 'proprietary', 'not open source', etc. Once again, we don't discuss what is important, but we keep arguing about mostly irrelevant things, just like last time... :(
I think xGPL is open source. I do not think it is Free. Personally, I dislike anything that is misleading. Low fat candy is a good example. 0g of fat with 1000 calories will not stay "low fat". I see freedom as allowing others to "speak" (code) as they see fit without requirements to give me their code. I do not see any GNU license allowing this. As Mr. Glass pointed out, Stallman said coders should code out of love and not money. If I want their code or money, I would put my code under the xGPL. If I do it out of love, I put it under a less-restricted license (BSD or X11). Dimitrie, remember that Mr. Glass is just as far on one side of the issue as Mr. Stallman. Maybe, Mr. Glass disgusts you. That would mean that the opposite, Mr. Stallman and his arguments, disgusts someone else. Just relax and take deep breaths. :) As should we all. Sean -------------- scf(a)farley.org
Hi, I stayed out of the previous licensing discussion, mainly coz I was mulling over all the interesting comments. I'd like to make an observation about GPL/BSD licensing issues (hopefully adding to the signal rather than the noise side of the ratio :) then present an idea. I should preface this by saying IANAL and may have things screwed up (but I guess that goes without saying;) There is a fundamental question that splits GPL-style licensing and BSD-style licensing, specifically "can I remove some third party's right to see and use the source code?": the freedom to remove someone else's freedom. The BSD-style licenses say "yes". The GPL licenses say "no". You can't necessarily say which license is "more free" as it depends on what whether you see "the freedom to remove someone else's freedom" as paramount or not. You end up chasing your own tail! My opinion (yes you get that for free) is that wine does want some protection (if that's not a too emotive term), i.e. we do want to limit the ability for someone to develop a tweaked version of wine but making their alterations unavailable for inclusion in wine-cvs. IMHO, LGPL is too draconian for wine. How able something like LGPL, but with some extra clauses. So you have a LGPL license, but with the following (rough) clauses: 1. "Fair use" You are allowed to use any "small" part of the code under a BSD-style license agreement. 2. "Embargo" You are allowed to refrain from making the source-code (of your modified wine source) available for a "fixed period", after which the licensed code must be made available. Obviously there would have to come to some agreement on how big a "small part" (a function, a file, a directory, a "module"/logical unit) and how long the "fixed period" (a month, a year, ten years) should be. Item 1 allows you to use a bit of wine without having to reveal your source code. Morally, how much of the code are people allowed to use without giving anything back? None, some or all of it. BTW, I don't believe the unconscious copyright infringement case applies to source code, at least not under English & Scottish law. Would item 2 keep Transgaming people happy? Say the fixed period was a year, then wine would lag Transgaming DirectX implementation by a year. People who found wine unacceptable could use the Transgaming tree as per their business model, but its guaranteed that Transgaming code would be eventually make available for the wine tree. What d'ya rekon? Paul.
On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Paul Millar wrote:
IMHO, LGPL is too draconian for wine. How able something like LGPL, but with some extra clauses. So you have a LGPL license, but with the following (rough) clauses: 1. "Fair use" You are allowed to use any "small" part of the code under a BSD-style license agreement.
The purpose of this point is really dubious. No amount of "small" code in wine can warrant the modification of a standard license like the LGPL. There is already a large body of Wine code licensed under BSD, it's good enough.
2. "Embargo" You are allowed to refrain from making the source-code (of your modified wine source) available for a "fixed period", after which the licensed code must be made available.
This is a possibility -- it is significant enough to warrant the amendment of the LGPL. Whether it's a good amendment, I can't say now. -- Dimi.
On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Sean Farley wrote:
Just relax and take deep breaths. :) As should we all.
It's difficult, because I see, once again, how the discussion deviates to mostly irrelevant topics. Quite frankly, I am very dissapointed with the current debate: -- I provide arguments which details the feedback mechanism generated by each license. What do I get back: "nobody stops companies from contributing back under BSD" or "it is possible that companies will still contribute back under BSD", and crap like that. If people don't udnerstand that a system survives not on political will but on feedback loops built-in the system, they don't understand how the world works, and we're just wasting time. -- instead of focusing the discussion on what's important for Wine, we get incredible FUD as "people will be afraid to link against the LGPL". -- we get arguments of the form: "it is possible that..." But of course is "possible", for crying out loud!!! Everything is possible, but we should be concerned with what's _probable_! I'll stop here, because I'm too upset to continue, to be honest... -- Dimi.
On 2002.02.08 14:48 Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Sean Farley wrote:
Just relax and take deep breaths. :) As should we all.
It's difficult, because I see, once again, how the discussion deviates to mostly irrelevant topics. Quite frankly, I am very dissapointed with the current debate:
-- I provide arguments which details the feedback mechanism generated by each license. What do I get back: "nobody stops companies from contributing back under BSD" or "it is possible that companies will still contribute back under BSD", and crap like that. If people don't udnerstand that a system survives not on political will but on feedback loops built-in the system, they don't understand how the world works, and we're just wasting time.
Small correction: If people don't understand that some people are decent and contribute back regardless of whether they are forced to or not, but others are not and require a feedback loop to force this behavior, then they don't understand how the world works and we're just wasting time.
-- instead of focusing the discussion on what's important for Wine, we get incredible FUD as "people will be afraid to link against the LGPL".
-- we get arguments of the form: "it is possible that..." But of course is "possible", for crying out loud!!! Everything is possible, but we should be concerned with what's _probable_!
I'll stop here, because I'm too upset to continue, to be honest...
I think it's more of an issue of people thinking too much in black/white terms and people that lean strong towards one side or the other. Look no further than the US political system for a good example. You have the Republicans and the Democrats. Generally they take every issue to opposite ends of the extreme such that 99% of congress is at one extreme or the other, but 99% of the population wants neither extreme. Essentially we could go on forver about X11/BSD vs. GPL. It's been discussed to death already folks. What we need are reasonable compromises. Of course you need to have people willing to compromise to do that. I suspect most developers are with the exception of the view vocal BSD people and the few vocal LGPL all the way people. I myself am certainly not at either extreme. -Dave
At 07:34 AM 2/8/2002, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
Could you have finished wiht a more dumb line? LGPL _is_ open source my friend,
This is not what Richard Stallman and Bradley Kuhn of the FSF say. They say, most emphatically, that it is NOT Open Source. And they are, in this case, correct. The GPL and LGPL violate the Open Source Definition, because they discriminate against a field of endeavor (the production of commercial software) and against a group of people (programmers who produce commercial software). Anyone can use (L)GPLed code in the way that benefits him or her the most... EXCEPT the commercial programmer, who cannot use the code in his or her work, study it to learn from it, fix a bug in it, or even look at it without risking his or her livelihood (for the reasons described in my earlier message). This is not irrelevant -- it's vitally important. Many of the people who use and contribute to WINE would be hurt by the (L)GPL's "poison pill," while the project would not benefit from it. --Brett Glass
On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Brett Glass wrote:
At 07:34 AM 2/8/2002, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
Could you have finished wiht a more dumb line? LGPL _is_ open source my friend,
This is not what Richard Stallman and Bradley Kuhn of the FSF say. They say, most emphatically, that it is NOT Open Source.
This is BS. Go read http://www.opensource.org/, in particular: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html You obviously don't understand the issues at hand, and you don't seem to make an effort to do so. What RMS claims is that the xGPL is not only "Open Source", but a Free Software lincense. Anyway, I really don't want to get into this debate. It really is irrelevant for the present discussion. -- Dimi.
At 10:22 AM 2/8/2002, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
This is not what Richard Stallman and Bradley Kuhn of the FSF say. They say, most emphatically, that it is NOT Open Source.
This is BS. Go read http://www.opensource.org/, in particular: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html
The fact that a few members of the Board of the Open Source Initiative have, for purely political and economic reasons, tried to ignore the plain language of their own definition does not change that definition. --Brett Glass
On Fri, 08 Feb 2002 10:11:51 -0700, Brett Glass <brett(a)lariat.org> wrote:
At 07:34 AM 2/8/2002, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
Could you have finished wiht a more dumb line? LGPL _is_ open source my friend,
This is not what Richard Stallman and Bradley Kuhn of the FSF say. They say, most emphatically, that it is NOT Open Source.
And they are, in this case, correct. The GPL and LGPL violate the Open Source Definition, because they discriminate against a field of endeavor (the production of commercial software) and against a group of people (programmers who produce commercial software).
Anyone can use (L)GPLed code in the way that benefits him or her the most... EXCEPT the commercial programmer, who cannot use the code in his or her work, study it to learn from it, fix a bug in it, or even look at it without risking his or her livelihood (for the reasons described in my earlier message).
This is not irrelevant -- it's vitally important. Many of the people who use and contribute to WINE would be hurt by the (L)GPL's "poison pill," while the project would not benefit from it.
--Brett Glass
Seems to me that contributers should have most of the say.... john alvord
At 12:28 PM 2/8/2002, John Alvord wrote:
Seems to me that contributers should have most of the say....
I'm not only a user but a potential contributor, as I frequently fix bugs in the open source code I use and maintain for others. I also recommend products to end users and install them on end users' systems. I will not be able to contribute to, fix bugs in, or recommend WINE if it is under an FSF license. The impact of a license change will reach far beyond the contributors. I have been very thankful for WINE, because it has in some cases allowed me to escape the grip of the megalomaniacal Microsoft. But if WINE is (L)GPLed, all users, contributors, and software vendors who might like to promote it will be in the grip of the equally megalomaniacal FSF. A fork is the only thing that can prevent this, and again, I would strongly encourage one if it appears that the FSF is about to commandeer the project by persuading a subset of the contributors to impose its license upon everyone else. Another thing that worries greatly is Jeremy's message stating that he has been consulting with Eben Moglen, of the FSF, about licensing. Asking the FSF's advice about licensing is akin to asking the IRS to prepare one's taxes: It will act in its own interest, not yours. The FSF's sole goal is to destroy commercial software developers, and so it will naturally do anything it can to accomplish this aim, even if the results are also devastating to the WINE project. It does not appear that CodeWeavers has consulted with anyone who does consulting and writes code under truly free license. I've already recommended, in a previous message, that they consult Perry Metzger of Wasabi Systems, who can demonstrate to them that a truly free license is greatly beneficial. (The fact that NetBSD is truly free is, in fact, one of Wasabi's strongest selling points for its software and services.) It is also of great concern that CodeWeavers has stated that it will begin to add code to the source tree under LGPL. By thus "contaminating" the tree, it will force its decision upon the other developers. The company's code should not be committed if it does not contribute it under the MIT/WINE license. --Brett Glass
On 2002.02.08 15:03 Brett Glass wrote:
At 12:28 PM 2/8/2002, John Alvord wrote:
Seems to me that contributers should have most of the say....
I'm not only a user but a potential contributor, as I frequently fix bugs in the open source code I use and maintain for others. I also recommend products to end users and install them on end users' systems. I will not be able to contribute to, fix bugs in, or recommend WINE if it is under an FSF license. The impact of a license change will reach far beyond the contributors.
Yeah, so? Who owns the copyright on the code.. oh yeah THE CONTRIBUTORS. Most of the contributors have been with Wine for some time now and originally put their code under the original Wine license which was very restrictive and poorly written. The decision to go to X11 was in fact made in part because it meant we had no restrictions whatsoever but could add them to new code at any point. Specifically discussed way back when was moving to LGPL at a later point.
I have been very thankful for WINE, because it has in some cases allowed me to escape the grip of the megalomaniacal Microsoft. But if WINE is (L)GPLed, all users, contributors, and software vendors who might like to promote it will be in the grip of the equally megalomaniacal FSF. A fork is the only thing that can prevent this, and again, I would strongly encourage one if it appears that the FSF is about to commandeer the project by persuading a subset of the contributors to impose its license upon everyone else.
Sounds to me like you've been thankful for Wine not because it is free software, but because you are getting a free lunch. "the megalomaniacal Microsoft"??? Please. And then this bullshit (call it like I see it) about the FSF commandeering the project? The FSF has not been bugging us to change to LGPL. The last time we were involved with the FSF (actually, specifically Stallman) we went with the X11 license which meant that we were compatible with the (L)GPL. While Stallman stated his opinion at the time that he thought an FSF license would be a better choice because it would offer us more protection he also conceeded that X11 was a good choice given the circumstances. And why wouldn't he? Why in the hell does the FSF care if we are X11 or LGPL. Either way all of their projects can use our code!
Another thing that worries greatly is Jeremy's message stating that he has been consulting with Eben Moglen, of the FSF, about licensing. Asking the FSF's advice about licensing is akin to asking the IRS to prepare one's taxes: It will act in its own interest, not yours. The FSF's sole goal is to destroy commercial software developers, and so it will naturally do anything it can to accomplish this aim, even if the results are also devastating to the WINE project. It does not appear that CodeWeavers has consulted with anyone who does consulting and writes code under truly free license. I've already recommended, in a previous message, that they consult Perry Metzger of Wasabi Systems, who can demonstrate to them that a truly free license is greatly beneficial. (The fact that NetBSD is truly free is, in fact, one of Wasabi's strongest selling points for its software and services.)
Give me a break dude. Yes, the FSF wants all software to be free and wants to rid the world of commercial software altogether. Why is this such a new idea to you? Did you think that this was some kind of secret agenda? Quit with the conspiracy theories. Everybody already knows what the FSFs purpose is. As for your advice to Jeremy on how to run his business, I'm sure he'd love to say this to you but wouldn't: stick it where the sun doesn't shine. While most people like you have all these wonderful business plans with no real thought whatsoever put into them, Jeremy is out there actually doing what you don't have the nuts to do. How would you feel if I told you how to run YOUR business? The argument that NetBSD is truly free is good. You're right.. it's like getting a free lunch.
It is also of great concern that CodeWeavers has stated that it will begin to add code to the source tree under LGPL. By thus "contaminating" the tree, it will force its decision upon the other developers. The company's code should not be committed if it does not contribute it under the MIT/WINE license.
Umm, no. Alexandre maintains the official tree and has stated on many occasions that only X11 licensed code will be accepted. This has not changed and will not change unless the majority of developers agree that a license change is a good thing. Going back to your mail which started this thread you make some comments about how you cannot even look at (L)GPL code if you are a commercial developer. This is even more bullshit. Do you really think the wine developers were born yesterday? That same comment (and in fact almost all of your comments) have been posted on slashdot for years now. Why not try using your brain as a CPU instead of a hard-drive for a change? Believe me, you can be reasonably sure that most of the wine developers have read the comments on slashdot and have already heard it, so why are you wasting our time repeating the same old shit? As long as you're not copying the code directly out of the source file I don't see the issue. Does the fact that I've seen an implementation of a linked list in a GPL program mean that I can no longer safely write a linked list in a commercial program without fear of being sued by the FSF? Fuck no it doesn't. Assuming Wine is LGPL does the fact that I've seen how it manages to keep track of HWNDs and the structures that go with them mean that I couldn't write a similar facility in my program? Absolutely not. Besides.. who the hell would sue you if we wanted to? The FSF doesn't own the copyrights, the developers do. Only if the developer who's code you were infringing upon wanted to sue you could you be sued. Now they could get help from the FSF.. but the FSF could not bring the suit. Anyway, I decided to do a quick search just to find out who the hell you are posting to this list after finding out about the issue in a slashdot story. Normally I would attribute that behavior to some l33t h4x0r troll dude on slashdot. Apparently you've been in the commercial software industry for so long that the prospect of more and more code being and staying free to modify but not free to steal scares the shit out of you. By the way, regarding your comment on writing the initial design for the website and setting up the webserver in one evening. Well, it sure as hell looks like you spent about 0 time designing your website so I don't find that too hard to believe. In any case I do want to apologize for being so harsh but only on the condition that any future mailings from you be actually well thought out ideas that are yours and not a recap of what happens on slashdot once a week. Score -1e99 Troll GO BACK TO /. -Dave
On Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:50:09AM -0500, David Elliott wrote:
On 2002.02.08 15:03 Brett Glass wrote:
[...]
taxes: It will act in its own interest, not yours. The FSF's sole goal is to destroy commercial software developers, and [...] Give me a break dude. Yes, the FSF wants all software to be free and wants to rid the world of commercial software altogether. [...]
I think it is worth pointing out the the Free Software Foundation does *not* want to rid the world of commercial software. Stallman has, however, stated that he would like to rid the world of *proprietary* software. There is an incredibly important difference. Please do not use the terms interchangably. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Commercial http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-libre-commercial-viability.html for more information. Plato
participants (9)
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Brett Glass -
David Elliott -
Dimitrie O. Paun -
John Alvord -
Marcus Meissner -
Paul Millar -
Plato -
Rick Romero -
Sean Farley