Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[Samuel Mize <smize@link.com>]

Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG wrote:
> 
> Samuel Mize <smize@link.com> writes:
> 
> > It's meaningless.  He's doing a specific task assigned by a
> > company.  The task is "build this program, in this language,
> > on this platform."  He can't change the constraints on his own.
> > One of those constraints is to avoid GPL'd code.
> 
> But he chooses to do that task and to accept such assignments.  Nobody
> other than himself is responsible for his being in this situation.

Who said otherwise?  I didn't say he couldn't refuse to do the
task; I said he can't do that particular task with GPL'd code.


> He cannot place his decision about who to work for above all
> criticism, and then place the onus on the FSF for "not helping him".

I don't recall him doing either.  Criticize away.  Nor did he
call FSF anything bad, or claim that they were failing in some
imagined duty.  He just said that he can't use GPL'd code
in building a source-proprietary product, which is true.  It
is intended specifically to be not useful for such a project.

The GPL is not a result of the forces of nature, applied
to code without any choice on the part of the developer.  The
constraint on using the code is due BOTH to his (company's)
choice AND the choice of the GPL'd-code developer.  The
GPL developer *CHOOSES* to not allow him use of that code,
for that purpose.

- - -

By the way, this thread did not start with a complaint about
GPL'd code.  It started when he complained that people say he
misrepresents the GPL when he says: he can't [legally]
use GPL'd code in a source-proprietary product.

But that's exactly the behavior that the GPL is designed to
prevent.  The GPL specifically disallows it.

Sam Mize