Patrik Stridvall ps@leissner.se wrote:
WINE should rise above this agenda and not become an agent of it.
What agenda?
The GPL/LGPL works in ways that are almost the dual to fair use. Very simplified: It uses copyright to extend fair use.
No. If anything, it seems to be using licencing rules to negate copyrights. It really wants to make a copyright into "a right to copy it". Even taking what you say, if you extend what is "fair" use, you obviously must be making it less fair somewhere else....
As I said, very simplified.
What I meant is that the mechanism that forces release of the extension of the LGPL (read: copyleft) is similar to the case where fair use is extended so I take legally take the work instead.
Of course fair use requires the use of "pull" which my be of less use if the work is compiled into a binary.
The copyleft mechanism forces "push" of the source code which is better in the case of software.
I observed that there are some theoretical similarites between fair use and copyleft. So seeing copyleft as some sort of contracted or licensed fair use makes sense.
This suggest that a too broad fair use have similar problem that a too broad application of copyleft.
And indeed both have the freeloader problem for example.
I by this wanted to illustrate that copyleft is not something inherantly "evil" as Brett Glass are apparently crusading against.
Like the case for fair use a little copyleft is good as long as you don't get to much.
Patrik Stridvall wrote:
No. If anything, it seems to be using licencing rules to negate copyrights. It really wants to make a copyright into "a right to copy it". Even taking what you say, if you extend what is "fair" use, you obviously must be making it less fair somewhere else....
As I said, very simplified.
What I meant is that the mechanism that forces release of the extension of the LGPL (read: copyleft) is similar to the case where fair use is extended so I take legally take the work instead.
while this is one *small* aspect of copyleft, the *GPL extends well beyond that. "fair use" does not allow you to redistribute work, nor does it force you to give up your copyright (effectively).
The copyleft mechanism forces "push" of the source code which is better in the case of software.
I by this wanted to illustrate that copyleft is not something inherantly "evil" as Brett Glass are apparently crusading against.
I'll let Brett speak for himself (not like I can stop him :) ), but I didn't see an argument that 'copyleft' was bad. It was the *GPL is bad. Just as rms think propriatary programs are evil, Brett and others think that the loss of copyright protections are just as bad or worse. I'm not quite as concerned as Brett, as I think the viral nature of the *GPL will eventually be thrown out in US court.
-r
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Patrik Stridvall -
Roger Fujii