Re: what DOES the GPL really say?

[David Kastrup <dak@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>]

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kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:

@> [I've changed the newsgroup from gnu.gcc, which doesn't exist, to 
@> gnu.misc.discuss, which is the proper newsgroup to discuss the GPL.]
@> 
@> In article <33B014E3.3343@no.such.com> Spam Hater <no.such.user@no.such.com> writes:
@> >So, if any part of my program contains any part (or derivation of)
@> >their program, I have two choices:
@> >1. Distribute my program "as a whole" under the terms of the GPL
@> >2. Don't distribute my program.
@> 
@> That's correct and exactly the status of the resulting work.  If you
@> want to continue to view your code as proprietary, then you have two
@> different copyright terms for pieces of the code and the only way to
@> satisfy both is not to distribute the work at all.
@> 
@> >(If you play with my ball, you play by my rules.)
@> >
@> >I am sympathetic to the goals of the Free Software Foundation, but I
@> >think that--by trying too hard to coerce other people to make 
@> >software "free"--the above paragraph is counter-productive to those 
@> >goals.  It forces me to re-invent things just so my employers can 
@> >say they own them.
@> 
@> That may be, but the whole point is that people have spent
@> considerable amount of time, usually without any compensation, to
@> create the GPL'd code in question.  They are doing this because they
@> want to help the public in general and don't want their work to be
@> used to help somebody else do something that is against their
@> philosophy.  This does not seem particularly unreasonable to me.

Much more important:  it avoids that some firm creates an own version
of, say, the GNU C compiler with just a few bugs fixed and sells that
without source.  Another does the same, only fixes other bugs.  There
is no chance to have all bugs fixed, and if you use the free version,
you'll get an inferior version (no bugs fixed) of the same software.

In short, you get the same mess as with commercial software, even
though things started with a GPL program.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut f�r Neuroinformatik, Universit�tsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany