Re: GNAT GPL Edition Maintenance and Upgrades

[Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>]

David Trudgett wrote:
> Free Software is, in fact, antithetical to software copyrights...
 > Thus, the FSF's use of copyright to fight copyright is ironic,
 > if not hypocritical.

Ironic only. The purpose of the FSF is to promote free software.
The means by which it does so is irrelevant to its purpose. It
has simply found something effective to use in a climate where
software copyright exists. The FSF cannot change laws, so it must
work within them.

> In other words, Stallman is advocating that one should use the
> violence of the law against other people in order to stamp on their
> freedom of action

Yes, precisely, because "freedom of action" is not something he or
the FSF values. The "four freedoms" that they do value have been
repeated often. Stallman and the FSF advocate that software should
be licensed (when lack of a license would inhibit the four freedoms)
such that the four freedoms are maintained for everyone. Permitting
someone "freedom of action" would serve to allow him to deny others
the four freedoms, and therefore this is to be discouraged.

> RMS makes a fundamental mistake here. Refusing to use violence is not
> equivalent to letting someone do something. It is simply acknowledging
> that violence is not a legitimate means to stop someone from doing
> something.

Violence is a completely legitimate means to stop someone from doing
something. It is used everywhere for this purpose, and it will continue
to be used evereywhere for this purpose. You must learn to recognize
the difference between "I do not like this" and "This is not legitimate"
or you will simply appear ridiculous. Most people have a large number of
interests that they support through "violence" (laws, courts, police,
aremd forces, personal weapons) and they would laugh at you if you tried
to tell them that these should be abolished because "violence" is wrong.

> The FSF says that proprietary software is wrong because it denies
> freedoms to people, yet it then uses the very same legal tool to deny
> freedoms to people. Is it difficult to see hypocrisy in this?

It's not at all difficult, when the position is explained correctly.
You conflate the freedom that proprietary software denies with the
freedom that the FSF/GPL denies. But those freedoms are not the same,
and the FSF values one while it despises the other. The FSF is not
interested in software developers. It doesn't care to make their lives
easier, it doesn't care to make their jobs easier, and it doesn't care
to make them wealthier. The FSF cares that people should be able to use
programs, read them, change them, and redistribute them. It will use
any available tool to guarantee these freedoms to all users. The fact
that the same law underpins proprietary software and GPLed software is
a small irony, no more than that.

> Richard Stallman says that the only freedom denied by the GPL is the
> freedom to deny other people freedom. This is just not true. For a
> start, it denies the freedom to choose one's own Free Software
> licensing terms, and to incorporate other software licensed under
> different Free terms.

Many software projects which want to be "more free" than the GPL just
allow for dual-licensing. Then people can redistribute their code as
part of GPLed works and as part of works licensed in other ways. For
example, you can find BSD-licensed code mixed into GPLed code. The
only reason not to allow code to be released under the GPL is because
you want to restrict some of the freedoms the GPL demands, and then
RMS will hold no truck with you.

> As we have seen with the GNAT GPL, it can also deny people the right
 > to license their own software any way they wish

It's not entirely their own software. It has other people's software
mixed into it, and the law gives them a say over the entire work. And
yes, those people are willing to use violence to enforce that say.

> True. One does not win friends by bludgeoning them, but by treating
> them with respect.

Why do you think that ACT is trying to win friends? And I think ACT is
perfectly willing to do without "friends" who whine that freely-given
gifts are insufficiently generous.

> Contempt for freedom in the name of freedom is especially obnoxious
 > especially since we know that ACT is not in the business of promoting
 > freedom, but of making a profit.

It is the most hypocritical of all to whine that a company is preventing
you from doing exactly what you would prevent others from doing. It is
hypocritical to seek to profit from the labor of others without paying
them, and to whine that they aren't letting you do that.