On 5/14/08, sergio masci wrote: > All this GPL stuff is so much BS. This is a bit too harsh. > Copyright works because governments recognise it, in fact one of the > things the UN was set up to supervise was... yes you've guessed it > copyright. > > Some a*hole can't just invent copyleft and expect it to have the same > legal weight as copyright. Oh yes I forgot they've thrown up a smoke > screen by devising the GPL, which in my mind holds even less water. You can have your opionion. I think GPL makes a lot of sense for a lot of software packages. > Firstly, here in the UK, you cannot supply goods or services and then > apply restrictions after the fact. Providing all the source code and then > saying "actually you can now only use it the way I say you can" is a BIG > no no. I believe GPL is also quite popular in UK. So a lawyer may have better authority to say whether it is a big no-no or not. > Secondly, if anyone were mad enough to try to enforce GPL through > litigation, the most they could hope to win are damages. Can someone > please explain to me how the original authors of the software have > incurred a financial loss because an individual did not respect GPL. I > mean the original authors are getting zero finiancial compensation for the > code they have made public so exactly how much are they loesing if someone > else derives a work from theirs and will not share his source, let me see > 0 times 1,000,000 - yep still ZERO!!! The main object for the GPL related litigation to to force the vendor to withdraw the product or release the code under GPL, not to seek damages. > And what REALLY gets up my nose is the argument that having access to the > source means the user can fix it. Please, give me a break. Having access > to the source actually means that you have a garantee that you can't be > charged for minor fixes made by someone else. Who in their right mind is > going to spend weeks trying to understand how GCC works in order to fix a > bug in their own program. What they will actually do is try to figure a > work-around > There are many people working on GCC, either paid by the companies (eg: companies like ARM are paying developers for gcc, companies like Suse/Redhat have in-house compiler engineers, companies like Microchip pays engineers to port gcc to PIC24/dsPIC and PIC32). There are also lots of people send patches to GCC (and other open source packages) without any intention to get paid. Even a non-programmer like I have just sent two patches to the Linux kernel for USB PIC related things. Having access to the code gives you one more option. And take note I am not a Linux fan boy. I am not a GPL fanatic since I think other open source licenses have some better aspects. But in general, I do think open source movement is a good thing since it offers the end user more choices. I can understand that a lot of small software developers may be afraid of open source alternatives since they have to adapt to survive. Still there are success stories of small developers adopting open source models. Xiaofan -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist