Re: [tlug] Bill Gates and the GPL , let the flames begin

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:

 > Hm? You might argue about how "productive" the effort is, but the entire
 > library is there, and has had hundreds of developer-hours put in to it.

"That was a joke, son." -- Foghorn Leghorn

 > Hm. The implication here seems to be that the drivers would be open
 > source if only x.org used the GPL.

No, the implication is that there would either be open source drivers
or he wouldn't have the closed source drivers available.  Either way
he wouldn't be wasting time on it.  But because x.org is permissive,
randomly broken closed-source drivers that work fine for some people
are available and wasting his time.

An analogous case is why the GPL exists, as I'm sure you know.

 > I think we both know that that's not true. So what am I missing
 > here? That Steve would be using much inferior open-source drivers
 > if even the closed-source ones weren't available for his OS, and
 > thus would be struggling less?

Or he'd tell his boss that the company box is not satisfactory.  I
suspect that in this case that wouldn't help *him*, but in many cases
it would help.

 > I'll buy that for a dollar. Though my blood pressure's just going to
 > get raised again by GPL advocates claiming then that it's not at all
 > proprietary, and is in fact the most free license out there,

So quote Stallman.  I don't have an URL offhand, but Stallman has
admitted any number of times that the GPL is freedom-restricting, as
compared to permissive licenses.

His claim is not that it's the most free, but that (1) "most free" is
nonsense, either it's free or not, and (2) in the sphere of "free" GPL
is the most freedom-promoting.  I'm not really interested in that
notion of freedom-promoting, but I would not be willing to argue that
it is less effective than BSD in creating enclaves of pure free
software.

 > BSD is easier to use for everyone because Ricoh, having "stolen" and
 > "proprietized" a bunch of BSD software without "giving it back to the
 > community", now has copiers that talk to BSD systems easily, out of the
 > box, immediately after plugging them in.

Sure.  There are any number of variations on that theme.

Look, I'm not interested in promoting copyleft.  But I think it's
important to understand what copyleft can do for its users, as well as
what it can't do and what harm it can cause.  One-sided arguments are
the province of the likes of Stallman and Gates, not us, right?