Re: Fuzzy machine learning framework v1.2

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On 02.06.12 09:02, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:

> The tiny thing which hide the big one (sorry, don't know an English equivalent for the french « l’arbre qui cache la forêt »). I meant in practice and you can't get ride of it with a single quotation. Or else, why complain when the doubt about the GPL is increasing and someone oppose other licenses to it? I also keep in mind, to Stallman, the only legitimate license, is ultimately the GPL, and anything outside the GPL is an anomaly. Someone express it somewhere on the web, noticing how people talk about XYZ GPL library, saying its the library of choice of any XYZ application. Unfortunately, any GPL library is only OK for GPL applications, so that cannot be the library of choice for any XYZ application. This common shortcut shows a tendency to forget their is also a world outside of the GPL, something the GPL preach intently forget. The same about the meaning of “free”. Note that among all of the free licenses this article quote, the GPL is the least compatible with others.

> You may add an XYZ licensed (such as MIT or BSD) component into a GPL application, but not the opposite, as the GPL force everything to be GPL. Is that the GPL way to acknowledge other's legitimacy? (as a side note, funny to note GPL is the most closed of the free licenses the article mentions, due to its viral effect).
>


Valuations of either type of licenses, MIT/BSD or GPL, assume
fraudulent entrepreneurship. There is enough evidence that fraud
in business is a reasonable assumption.

Let product P be a work combined from Foreign_Source and Our_Source.
P is to be conveyed. In what follows, "theft" should also stand for
a violation of terms and conditions.

(1) Type MIT/BSD licenses enable closing the source of P and are used
to prevent theft of privately owned goods, namely theft of Our_Source.

(2) Type GPL licenses require keeping the source of P open and are used
to prevent theft of privately owned goods, namely that of Foreign_Source.

Type MIT/BSD emphasizes technical prevention of theft,
Type GPL emphasizes legal prevention of theft.

The difference is one of perspective (licensor - licensee).


Proof of (2) [GPL prevents theft of Foreign_Source]:

Law abiding entrepreneurs will not choose Type GPL Foreign_Source
(unless they can get special permission) if P should be conveyed
without source. Since they don't use Type GPL software, they don't
steal it.  This shows that the prevention of theft of Foreign_Source
is effective IFF parties are law abiding.

A mere desire to include Foreign_Source under different terms and
conditions is not sufficient to warrant criticizing the licensors
for *their* *choice* just because you don't like it.

In any case, you can always ask the owners of Foreign_Source
for permission. I you just don't want to ask, this is suspiciously
different from what business people do.

Last but not least, I find it telling that the thread has little
to say in favor of licenses that will allow closed source, but that
cost money.