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Date:      Wed, 12 May 1999 23:41:23 -0600
From:      Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
To:        cjclark@home.com, adam@whizkidtech.net (G. Adam Stanislav)
Cc:        kuehl@lgk.de, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Richard Stallman came to town
Message-ID:  <4.2.0.37.19990512233737.0441e410@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <199905130247.WAA11499@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com>
References:  <19990512195044.B217@whizkidtech.net>

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At 10:47 PM 5/12/99 -0400, Crist J. Clark wrote:

 >Hmmm... I do not see how that can be true. The _original_ programmer,
>the orginial copyright holder, cannot use his own code anyway he would
>like? Sure, the copies of the code that are already out there are
>really 'out there' and cannot be retroactively un-GNUed, but I don't
>see how the original author is prevented from licensing a derivative
>work, or even an unmodified version, anyway he sees fit.

He may have the right to, but there's no point; no one will license 
functionality that users now expect to be free.

 >Huh? What's to stop that same kid from writing a copycat program and
>distributing it as Shareware, under other Freeware licensing, or even
>putting it in public domain. 

It's called "getting paid." The GPLed product has poisoned the well;
forget about being able to make money from such a product.

 >I personally don't go to the
>extreme that _all_ software should be GNU, but I do think that the
>existence of GNU or a foundation actively trying to increase the pool
>of GNU software is not evil. 

It's certainly destructive. It poisons markets and deprives programmers
of their livelihoods.

--Brett Glass


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