Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 08:01:29 -0500 From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <pfgiffun@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GPL *again* (was: New CODA release) Message-ID: <36BEE029.94A6D195@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> References: <199902071900.LAA09317@kithrup.com> <36BE1B25.653A5341@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> <19990207162848.L27505@orcrist.mediacity.com> <36BE3DEC.433E8A2E@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> <19990208125530.X86778@freebie.lemis.com>
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Greg Lehey wrote: > > On Sunday, 7 February 1999 at 20:29:16 -0500, Pedro F. Giffuni wrote: > > Gregory Sutter wrote: > >> > >> On Sun, Feb 07, 1999 at 06:00:53PM -0500, Pedro F. Giffuni wrote: > >>> Sean Eric Fagan wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Whiner. You don't like it, go write your own. > >>> > >>> Ohh.. so everyone that doesn't like GPL is a whiner nowadays...The nice > >> > >> No, the guy that was whining was a whiner. The coders of Coda made up > >> their minds to go with the GPL. The whining guy didn't try to > >> influence their decision, didn't present new reasons why Coda shouldn't > >> be GPLed, but was just bitching and moaning about it. That's fine, but > >> then if Sean wants to call him a whiner, he won't be far off. > > > > OK, I didn't bitch and moan so I still don't classify :-)...There was a > > short discussion about it in the coda-announce list, the reason seemed > > pretty stupid to me: > > > > "- Coda is now GPL'd - primarily because we want to indicate that we are > > really an OSS project." > > > > Theo d'Raadt, speaking for OpenBSD _only_ responded: > >> > >> good move -- you've just alienated all the other operating systems and > >> ensured that none of them will ever fully integrate coda into the > >> default install. i bet you'll be seeing freebsd and netbsd deleting > >> coda in the next couple of days, since they have rules against > >> dropping GPL code into their kernel tree. > >> > >> We'll stick with ARLA. It's really _free_ software. > > As you say, Theo was speaking for OpenBSD _only_. He also has a good > understanding of alienating others. > > > Since you wanna hear reasons why it isn't a good idea: > > > > -Commercial distributions don't like to be forced to carry sources for > > parts of their OS. That's of course part of the success of X and many > > BSD tools. I haven't heard of any commercial UNIX bundling gcc yet.. > > It was the standard compiler for OSF/1, so there's a good chance it is > for Digital UNIX as well. And there's nothing in the GPL that says > you must be forced to carry sources, just supply them (for a price > that you can name) if somebody demands them. This means you can say > ``OK, I'll get you the sources for $5000, or you can get them > yourselves for free from ftp.gnu.org''. > Since the redistribution of the source code cannot be limited the only acceptable price is redistribution cost. No one can make money of the development, it's like writing a book so that the published gets rich but you (the author) are left to the good will of the people. BTW, our literature nobel prize is not publishing any of his books in Colombia for this same reason. > > - From an economical point of view, the GPL has a negative effect over > > capitalism, and will eventually have some effect on employment (I'm not > > kidding, I'll have to write a dissertation about this, but I haven't > > found the time). The BSD license doesn't have this effect. > > Why not? In each case, it's free software. And people are making > more money out of GPL software than Berkeley Licence software. > Brett already made a good attempt to explain it. I'll leave this for a paper I'm writing. > Why do so many people blow this GPL issue out of proportion? There's > so much FUD about it that you'd think somebody has a hidden agenda. > It's not evident, that's what makes it so dangerous. Pedro. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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