From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,2c7b0b777188b7c4 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!cyclone1.gnilink.net!spamkiller2.gnilink.net!gnilink.net!trndny05.POSTED!0e8a908a!not-for-mail From: Hyman Rosen User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL Edition Maintenance and Upgrades References: <1128499462.850353.146890@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <9070id.mp6.ln@hunter.axlog.fr> <1128510619.707554.152420@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <5C51f.213$la.30@trndny05> Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 08:53:21 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 70.107.160.105 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net X-Trace: trndny05 1128588801 70.107.160.105 (Thu, 06 Oct 2005 04:53:21 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 04:53:21 EDT Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5438 Date: 2005-10-06T08:53:21+00:00 List-Id: 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.