Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on July 16, 2006 08:04 PM
First, if you are using someone else's program, and that program is released under the GPL, you are free to not use it.
If you consider your argument to be correct, people in a completely proprietary world are free to not use proprietary software, too. You see, they are free. Then, what do we need the FSF and Richard Stallman for?
Second, if you think economy forces drives people into using proprietary software and thus 'Unfreedom': Be assured this will happen with a GPL software stack, too. Software always has a tendency to create a monopoly. It's due to its cost structure, and to network effects of its usage. Linux in combination with the GNU tools will constitute a monopoly, too, when its competitors are out of business, someday.
Second, the only thing the GPL restricts you from doing is restricting other's rights concerning the same piece of software.
You're wrong -- unfortunately, I must say. It also restricts somebody else who likes to release his own work under a different license, if his software needs GPL'ed software to be installed -- a dependency is no derivation! Yes, there's also the LGPL but that's not what Richard Stallman wants; he just accepts the LGPL because competition drives him to accept it.
You know, it's absolutely OK if there's a tit-for-tat clause in the license to protect the integrity of the product, a copyleft clause somewhere in between the Mozilla license and the LGPL, for example. The GPL, however, does not just do that. By spreading FUD, it makes people use the GPL although it's not absolutely clear whether software using regular library interfaces is legally a derived product.
In combination with the above statement about inherent monopoly power of GPL software, the consequence is that even users are not allowed to accept those proprietary offers. The GPL thus removes certain freedoms of users, namely the freedom of choice.
Now, this would be absolutely OK if the FSF and Richard Stallman would just try to present the idea just like anybody else. Nobody has a problem with another vendor even if he sells his product for a price of zero. However, that's not his claim, you know?
He claims the license creates freedom -- as just explained, it does not. It merely offers a different combination of rights, benefits, and costs.
In fact, if you imaging a world without the FSF, Richard Stallman, or the GPL, no one would be less free! The freedom of speech would still be there to protect all citizens of free nations! In contrast, imaging a Chinese dissident publishing his opinion in a software under the GPL: What do you think? Will the Chinese government feel restricted somehow and stop putting the man in jail for the rest of his life? I don't think so.
Wake up! The recommendations of the FSF are not supporting their claims. Don't get fooled by them.
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Sorry, but that's not true.
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on July 16, 2006 08:04 PMIf you consider your argument to be correct, people in a completely proprietary world are free to not use proprietary software, too. You see, they are free. Then, what do we need the FSF and Richard Stallman for?
Second, if you think economy forces drives people into using proprietary software and thus 'Unfreedom': Be assured this will happen with a GPL software stack, too. Software always has a tendency to create a monopoly. It's due to its cost structure, and to network effects of its usage. Linux in combination with the GNU tools will constitute a monopoly, too, when its competitors are out of business, someday.
You're wrong -- unfortunately, I must say. It also restricts somebody else who likes to release his own work under a different license, if his software needs GPL'ed software to be installed -- a dependency is no derivation! Yes, there's also the LGPL but that's not what Richard Stallman wants; he just accepts the LGPL because competition drives him to accept it.
You know, it's absolutely OK if there's a tit-for-tat clause in the license to protect the integrity of the product, a copyleft clause somewhere in between the Mozilla license and the LGPL, for example. The GPL, however, does not just do that. By spreading FUD, it makes people use the GPL although it's not absolutely clear whether software using regular library interfaces is legally a derived product.
In combination with the above statement about inherent monopoly power of GPL software, the consequence is that even users are not allowed to accept those proprietary offers. The GPL thus removes certain freedoms of users, namely the freedom of choice.
Now, this would be absolutely OK if the FSF and Richard Stallman would just try to present the idea just like anybody else. Nobody has a problem with another vendor even if he sells his product for a price of zero. However, that's not his claim, you know?
He claims the license creates freedom -- as just explained, it does not. It merely offers a different combination of rights, benefits, and costs.
In fact, if you imaging a world without the FSF, Richard Stallman, or the GPL, no one would be less free! The freedom of speech would still be there to protect all citizens of free nations! In contrast, imaging a Chinese dissident publishing his opinion in a software under the GPL: What do you think? Will the Chinese government feel restricted somehow and stop putting the man in jail for the rest of his life? I don't think so.
Wake up! The recommendations of the FSF are not supporting their claims. Don't get fooled by them.
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