Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 16:03:11 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@FreeBSD.ORG> To: jef53313@bayou.uh.edu Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: commercial software (definitive) Message-ID: <199805152103.QAA03230@dyson.iquest.net> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.980515103333.wotan@Dorm-35959.RH.UH.EDU> from Jonathan Fosburgh at "May 15, 98 10:33:33 am"
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Jonathan Fosburgh said: -- Start of PGP signed section. > > > If some of you are still questioning yourself, it's good. If not, you > > should take a look, just a little peek, about 3 or 4 minutes read, at this > > URL. it's the GNU home, which have interesting answers about commercial > > software. > > > > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html > > > > Have a nice day. > This has got to be one of the most illogical things I have ever read. To claim > that people can exercise no claim of property on the results of their hard > labour is absurd. If I write a program it exists because *I* had the ability to > write it and *I* saw it's potential usefulness, or because *I* simply wanted to > write it. If I choose to sell it for profit that is my business and I am > entitled to as much money as a free market is willing to pay for it. If I > choose to give it away free, subject to any restrictions I may wish to impose, > then that is also my business. > > -- End of PGP signed section, PGP failed! Your statement is quite sane, and probably reflects the opinions of most people who have to earn a living. It is the ivory-tower academics (only a subset of them) who want to mold the world into the shape that they think is somehow "right." As long as there aren't monopoly influences (or other forms of severe non-linearity), freedom is the best choice. Encumbering the world's software with anti-free licenses (like GPL) does no-one any long-term good. Of course, my idea of freedom is that I can control my inventions with few encumberances that might be imposed by government or previous agreements that I might have entered in to. GPL is such an agreement that entices me to give away one of my very valuable freedoms. Again, working on GPLed code isn't a sin or anything like that, but it is important to understand what the limitations are. -- John | Never try to teach a pig to sing, dyson@freebsd.org | it just makes you look stupid, jdyson@nc.com | and it irritates the pig. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199805152103.QAA03230>