Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> There are few who do that, and none of those seems to have manifested
> himself here. At least I didn't read anything in this thread that was
> about "some greater good" -- so far. The first one to bring up this
> concept were in fact you (ironically).

I wasn't talking about anyone here specifically, but certainly there is a
lot of retoric out there about how open source is good for the world, blah,
blah, blah, and how wonderful the people are that make their source
available.  I think that's a bit hypocritical when they slap the GPL on it.

> That depends on what "greater good" someone would be after, doesn't it?
> If the believed "greater good" is "all open source software" (whether
> or not we agree with that), a less restrictive license wouldn't make
> sense.

Yes, that kind of goal is what I call a social agenda: all software should
be open, so I'll do what I can to make others open theirs too.  This is
different from a more laudible goal of getting more and better software out
there accessible to the most people.  Someone willing to give up potential
pay for their work to further that goal does deserve extra recognition in my
opinion, whereast the first goal does not.

> (I also don't see any infectious qualities in GPL. You can have GPL
> software and TCL ("Traditional Commercial License") software on the same
> computer all day long, and the GPL licensing terms won't "infect" your
> TCL software.

By infectious I mean that the GPL license propagates itself to derivative
works.

> Again you're talking about those high values (like the "greater good"
> earlier); nobody here (besides you) seems to think that publishing
> software has anything to do with being or not a philantropist or hero,
> or with some greater good. At least nobody wrote anything to this
> effect (besides you).

A lot of the retoric I saw from Stallman and the Open Software Foundation
(or whatever it's called) was heavy on how wonderful this all was and how
great they were all being for doing this, and there was sortof a cult
following.  Maybe they have toned that down in recent years, I don't know.
While this was all an important part of software history and definitely had
an effect on the world, it's hardly the "free" software you might think it
is just from the propaganda.

I guess what really bothers me is the whole attitude of someone using free
software to make money as being somehow evil or dishonest.  If your aim is
to see more and better software accessible to more people, then this is
exactly what you *want* to have happen.  Even here on this thread people
were calling this "stealing" and said the GPL was in response to getting
"ripped off".  If you put software out there and allow anyone to use it for
free, and someone does, that can't possibly be stealing since you allowed
it.

> I'm not sure why you think that people writing GPL software don't want
> to make a profit from it. The GPL was in part designed to enable people
> to publish source code and still be able to make a profit from it.

Exactly.  And I have no problem with that except the mystique of generosity
and greater good that some proponents of the GPL seem to want you to believe
in.

> It seems to me that you have at least as much a "social agenda", trying
> to work against a perfectly legitimate and legal form of software
> licensing

No, you have completely misunderstood me.  I'm not working against the GPL
at all.  I completely support the right of people to put whatever
restrictions they want on their own personal work product.  My issue is with
the sentiment surrounding these actions, and pointing out that software
released under the GPL is very different from "free".


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