Re: GNAT GPL Edition Maintenance and Upgrades

[David Trudgett <wpower@zeta.org.au.nospamplease>]

"Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> Jean-Pierre Rosen a �crit :
>
>> Ludovic Brenta a �crit :
>> > [1] Quite to the contrary; the more I hear the "selfish argument",
>> > the more I feel inclined to package GNAT GPL Edition, just to teach
>> > selfish people that if they refuse to give, then they cannot take,
>> > as Georg Bauhaus said so nicely.
>> >
>> Not a formal vote, but...
>>
>> I think that this argument goes *against* the spirit of free software.
>> As far as I can understand, the basis of free software is "you can do
>> anything with this software, *except* deny to others the rights you have
>> received". Anything, including proprietary software.

Jean-Pierre is quite correct in this, and in his later (in other post)
analogy with the Gimp. 

Free Software is, in fact, antithetical to software copyrights, point
blank, no qualifications needed, since that is the only thing that
makes "proprietary software" proprietary (internal software, aka trade
secrets, do not enter into this). Thus, the FSF's use of copyright to
fight copyright is ironic, if not hypocritical. (Probably the only
thing saving it from *total* hypocrisy would be apparent if one were
to suppose that the only reason "copyleft" is effective is because
*other* people believe in copyright. However, that supposition would
be ruled out the first time the FSF were to defend the GPL in a court
of -violence- I mean law. I don't personally know if the FSF has ever
prosecuted anyone over the GPL, but the consequences are obvious if
they have.)


>
> Precisely.  With the GMGPL, you receive the right to see and modify the
> source code of the GNAT run-time; but you can also deny others this
> same right.  

This is just ingenuous, Ludovic. That means you are verging on
dishonesty, but perhaps you wrote it at three in the morning. You know
very well that (a) no one can be denied the right to see and modify
the source code of the GNAT run-time, which flatly contradicts what
you said; and (b) if one is going to deny the source of one's whole
program, then denying them also one's (hypothetical) mods to the
run-time is *totally* and *utterly* (did I emphasise that enough?)
irrelevant. You also must further know that very few *if anyone* would
be interested in making significant modifications to the run-time
while *keeping them secret*, because *no benefit* would accrue to the
proprietary software developer, but in fact precisely the opposite,
because those "secret" modificiatons will have to be done over and
over again for each new compiler/run-time[*] release.

    [*] Notice I say compiler/run-time. The distinction between
        compiler and run-time is artificial.

Furthermore, (but the usual IANAL applies) it is far from clear
whether one is even legally *allowed* to make modifications to the
GNAT run-time and then distribute in binary-only form. Whether that is
so or not, it would certainly seem to be against the spirit of the
licence, if not the letter, to produce such binary distributions. The
GMGPL simply "allows" one to link one's proprietary code; it does not
give open slather on the GMGPL'ed code itself (the run-time).

All of this you must know, yet you have apparently either made an
inexplicable [**] mistake, or you chose to misrepresent the case, or
you are not being intellectually honest even with yourself.

    [**] We all make mistakes, but inexplicable ones happen less
         often. Yours seems inexplicable because one supposes that you
         have given the subject serious thought and are not just
         writing the first thing that pops into your mind.


> The GPL is more "free" than the GMGPL, since with it you
> cannot deny others this right anymore.  

As noted above, this is an entirely bogus claim.


> This is the "free" spirit as defined by Stallman and the FSF.  The
> BSD license does allow you to deny rights to others, and has a
> different definition of "free".

You're in error here. Stallman counts the BSD licence as being free,
just not "copyleft":

    Releasing your code under one of the BSD licenses, or some other
    permissive non-copyleft license, is not doing wrong; the program
    is still free software, and still a contribution to our
    community. But it is weak, and in most cases it is not the best
    way to promote users' freedom to share and change software.

        -- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-copyleft.html


But why does RMS think that BSD is weak? Here is the answer:

    Someone who uses your code in a non-free program is trying to deny
    freedom to others, and if you let him do it, you're failing to
    defend their freedom.

        -- ibid.

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, for what other meaning can, "you let him do it,"
and, "failing to defend their freedom," have?

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. Just ask yourself a simple question, "Would Jesus see a
lawyer to have someone thrown into jail for violating his
'copyright'?" All good people who know anything about Jesus know the
answer to that question in their hearts. It's something for anyone
calling himself or herself a Christian to think about. Other people
are free to ignore it, if they wish...

Note that none of this is defending proprietary software distribution
(but I have no problem with internal or "trade secret" software). It
is pointing out that proprietary software (distributed) is wrong for
the same reason that copylefted software (if taken seriously) is
wrong: it employs violence or the threat of violence against people.

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
either hypocrisy or ingenuousness (in the case that copyright law is
being used in bad faith, i.e., while not believing in it).

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. As we have seen with the GNAT GPL, it can also
deny people the right to license their own software any way they wish,
which may even include restrictive, unfree terms. The fact that we may
believe it is wrong [***] to impose such terms, does not make it
legitimate for us to use violence (something which is also wrong) in
order to have our way over the will of another person. It is doubly
wrong in that we are *not* gods who can know all about everyone and
every possible situation and therefore be in a position to sit in
judgement. [****]

    [***] Note that I do not say 'immoral'. Immorality consists not
          only in doing something wrong, but also in knowing that what
          one is doing is wrong.

    [****] It may be of interest to Christians, that Christ, according
           to conventional Christian doctrine, was in precisely this
           position, yet even he refused to judge.


>
>> The GPL edition is a big mistake made by AdaCore, both from a marketing
>> and a popularity point of view. 

True. One does not win friends by bludgeoning them, but by treating
them with respect. 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. That is the
corporate imperative, after all.


David


-- 

David Trudgett
http://www.zeta.org.au/~wpower/

In ancient times tyrants got credit for the crimes they committed, but
in our day the most atrocious infamies, inconceivable under the Neros,
are perpetrated and no one gets blamed for them.

One set of people have suggested, another set have proposed, a third
have reported, a fourth have decided, a fifth have confirmed, a sixth
have given the order, and a seventh set of men have carried it out.
They hang, they flog to death women, old men, and innocent people, as
was done recently among us in Russia at the Yuzovsky factory, and is
always being done everywhere in Europe and America in the struggle
with the anarchists and all other rebels against the existing order;
they shoot and hang men by hundreds and thousands, or massacre
millions in war, or break men's hearts in solitary confinement, and
ruin their souls in the corruption of a soldier's life, and no one is
responsible.

    -- Leo Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God is Within You"