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From: newton@monty.apana.org.au (Mark Newton)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Distribution: world
Subject: Re: Summary of Linux vs. 386BSD vs. Commercial Unixes
References: <C63spB.BD@ra.nrl.navy.mil>
Message-ID: <9304299328@monty.apana.org.au>
Organization: APANA South Australia - State mail hub
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 20:47:32 +0930
Lines: 53
eric@tantalus.nrl.navy.mil (Eric Youngdale) writes:
> In article <930425471@monty.apana.org.au> newton@monty.apana.org.au (Mark Newton) writes:
> >bm@shadow.columbia.edu (Blair MacIntyre) writes:
> >> Boy people complain about anything. You charge for software, they say
> >> it's too much. You give it to them free, they complain they can't do
> >> whatever they damn well please with the source.
> >
> >Straw-man attack. People are complaining about not being able to do whatever
> >they damn well please WITH THEIR OWN PROGRAMS.
>
> First of all, I am not aware of any programs that have been GPLed by
> anyone other than the author. Could you provide a real example?? No one is
> forcing anyone to add the GPL to their own program (although some GPL zealots
> have been known to undiplomatically request the GPL be added).
I think you're missing the point.
The BSDites in this thread have been arguing from the standpoint of a
person who doesn't use the GPL for there code at all. Therefore, it
is fallacious to contend that the GPL is forcing them to do anything at
all.
My posting was directed against Blair MacIntyre's comments, in which
he spoke about software that has been /given/ to the complainers. The
complainers haven't been saying anything at all about that; Hence Blair's
posting constituted a straw-man attack, or perhaps a non-sequitur.
To expand further on the point I made in response to Blair: Copylefting
the software that you write involves implicit restrictions upon its
distribution. Notably, its distribution is prohibited unless source
is provided with it. Basically, whoever distributes the software you
write is legally obliged to make it as easy for someone else to obtain
as it was for them to obtain.
I (and other BSDites) have been arguing against the GPL because I don't want
to force those restrictions, or any other restrictions, upon people who
choose to distribute /my/ software. I want to make it completely,
utterly, totally free. It doesn't matter whether IBM chooses to hijack
it, enlarge its size and reduce its speed by factors of twenty and sell
it for half a million dollars - I just don't care.
While people like Blair MacIntyre continue to confuse the issues at hand
by posting irrelevancies, people like you don't have a prayer of
understanding these simple concepts.
Yours in illumination,
- mark
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I tried an internal modem, newton@monty.apana.org.au
but it hurt when I walked. Mark Newton
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