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Sebastian Günther <samson@××××××××××××××××.de> wrote: |
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> > Unfortunately the GPL has not been written in an unambiguous way. This is |
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> > why the OSI rated the GPL as non-free for several years. Some years ago, the |
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> > FSF explained that the GPL needs to be interpreted in a way that makes it |
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> > compliant to the rules at http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd |
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> > |
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> |
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> And that is the bottom of the line in this whole elaborate discussion: |
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> The definition of freedom. |
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> |
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> I *like* the GPL because of that "You have all the freedom, exept to cut |
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> down this freedom"-attitude. It is like: I am a tolerant person, but not |
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> to intolerant people. And as another example: The german constitution |
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> also prohibits the change of the articles that guarantee human rights. |
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You seem to have a major missunderstanding with the background ot the |
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constitution. The constitution has not been written to save the constitution |
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while ignoring possible harm to the people. The constitution does not give |
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asymmetric rights to parts of the whole population only. |
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The GPL however limits the usability of OpenSource as OSS and claims this |
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is in order to save OSS. The GPL allows GPLd software to use any kind of |
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software but disallows other OpenSource Software to use GPLd software. |
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Another big problem with the GPL is that the Free Software Foundation does not |
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care about leality in own projects. There are at least two official FSF |
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projects that did ilegally change the license of the code they use from other |
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projects. libcdio did change code taken from cdrtools from GPLv2-only to |
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GPLv2-or-any-later and vcdimager publishes code under GPL that never has been |
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put under GPL by the author. |
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> And if I wrote software, I would not want people to reuse the codeit in |
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> closed source. So GPL is the right choice for me, because of the viral |
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> and supposed non-free issue. |
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If you like this, you do not need to forbid to use the software for other OSS |
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as done by the GPL. |
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> But remember, if more people contibute to a software project, then the |
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> license is some essential part of the collaboration. Changing it |
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> requires the consensus of *all* people who *ever* contributed to it. |
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You are obviously uninformed about legal facts. In Europe as well as in the |
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USA, "minor contributors" are not given the right to decide on this. |
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> So changing a license is always cumbersome. |
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Then you should be against the GPL as many GPL people take BSD code |
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and illegally add GPL tags. This may be tolerated by the authors but it is |
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still forbidden by law. |
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Jörg |
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-- |
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EMail:joerg@××××××××××××××××××××××××.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin |
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js@××××××××××××.de (uni) |
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schilling@××××××××××××××××.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ |
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URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily |
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-- |
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