Re: GNAT GPL 2005: Too clever by half?

[Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

Chad R. Meiners wrote:

> I've watched Stallman speak.  He is either a liar or delusional about
> the nature of the GPL.  I use to be a strong supporter of the GPL, but
> when I heard Stallman speak, I thought, "This man is nuts!".  He wants
> us to give up the right to decide how we are to be compensated for our
> labor with respect to software.

Did he say so?

> The GMGPL isn't about being greedy.  It is about having the freedom to
> choose your method of compensation as oppose to having Stallman dictate
> your rights to you.


   "This General Public License does not permit incorporating your
program into proprietary programs.  If your program is a subroutine
library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary
applications with the library.  If this is what you want to do, use the
GNU Library General Public License instead of this License."

The viral effect is not created by the GPL. As with every licence,
the viral effect is created by those who place a license on their
software, provided the software is used.
Whether the virus is good or bad is a different question.
In the case of the GPL, those who use it state the rules of giving
and taking. If you don't want to give, then you can't take.


> P.S.  In general, I support free software; however, I disagree with
> trying to force people to release free software.  This in my opinion is
> not "free software".  If we the users are not allow the copyright
> rights over works that we created by using the so called "free
> software" to write and compile, the users aren't really free are they?

What, in your view, is a derived work? And what is it worth?