Re: ANN: Fuzzy machine learning framework v1.2

[BrianG <me@null.email>]

On 05/28/2012 09:59 PM, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:
> Le Mon, 28 May 2012 19:42:54 +0200, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> a
> écrit:
>
>> Kulin <remailer@reece.net.au> writes:
>>
>>> I thought the GPL was about intellectual rights denial
>>
>> Nonsense.
>
> In one sense, this make sense.
>
> Say you create a fork of some library or application, covered by the
> GPL. You are forced to use the GPL to distribute it, or else, forced to
> not distribute it. That's that kind of denial of intellectual rights
> people complaining about the GPL typically means (I'm just guessing that
> was the same for him). Things are like you are not allowed to be the
> owner of your own work. That's why some people keep GPL far away from
> them (even a single line of GPL inside a million lines application would
> expose the case). Either they work on their own peace of work (even
> recreate what's GPL, if necessary), or on someone else work, only if the
> license does not deny their property and freedom with their *own work*.
>
You can do whatever you want with your *own work*.  You cannot do that 
with the work of **others**.  When someone else gives you certain rights 
to their work, you are bound to the limits of those rights.  If you want 
to mix your work and theirs, you either do so within the rights they 
gave you, or you mix in such a way that preserves their rights (using 
libraries, plug-ins, etc, that properly segregate their work from your, 
according to the rights they gave you).

If you were to (somehow) incorporate some product or element from 
Microsoft (from your local Joe's Software Shack) into your product, 
would you expect the rights to do whatever you wanted with that "your 
own work"?  If you want functionality of Word, you recreate it yourself 
(assuming they let you do that much without objecting); if you take 
their code and incorporate it in your product (outside of the rights 
they gave you), that's called stealing.  There is no difference with 
GPL, or any other license.

The only difference between the GPL and a typical proprietary license is 
the GPL gives you the option to have additional rights and access - 
assuming you agree to the terms delineated.

-- 
---
BrianG
000
@[Google's email domain]
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