Good ol' BSD vs. GPL

[Cathal Garvey]

 > RMS does not want to allow his enemies to use the tools he
 > creates.

Well, no; he wants them to use it as much as they like, as long as they 
give back to the commons on which they built their foundations. There's 
nothing at all wrong with asking that.

RMS would likely be insulted at the idea that he would forbid essential 
freedoms to *anyone*, including the companies he hates.

There's an undercurrent in some patches of this discussion, if I may, 
that suggests that openness is orthogonal to commercial success; the 
idea being that GPL is "anti-business" and weaker licenses are 
"pro-business". I'll just throw in "citation needed" with the reminder 
that correlation does not imply causation.

Users (more like "Used") buy Windows all the time even though everyone 
knows it can be had for free. Music lovers continue to pay for music 
even though it's common knowledge that it can be had with less malware 
on torrent sites, or simply cribbed from friends. Same for books, same 
for everything.

Artificial scarcity creates artificial demand, but a natural abundance 
does not diminish natural demand. And if you want to sell open code, it 
had better be GPL, or your competitors will steal all your best ideas 
and leave you with an inferior product. With GPL, you *invite* your 
competitors to improve with you, while you both crib one another's work 
and get better and more usefully distinct over time.

On 06/01/15 01:28, Jesse B. Crawford wrote:
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> On 2015-01-05 12:29, odinn wrote:
>> This led me to ask if maybe there was just a way to release it
>> into domain (public domain) without the whole licensing system and
>> multitude of restrictions and competing licensing restrictions
>> (including Unlicense) coming into play, depending on the project /
>> projects being considered.  (Again I think we are twirling in
>> circles here)
>
> This isn't unheard of, the main example would be SQLite which is
> completely public domain to great success. Although it depends on
> jurisdiction, they explain this licensing arrangement as "Anyone is
> free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or distribute the
> original SQLite code, either in source code form or as a compiled
> binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any
> means," which sounds about as free as it can get to me.
>
> I had a discussion with RMS about this not that long ago. In fact, the
> discussion began with the BSD project, which he seems to view
> primarily as an attempt to undermine the work of the FSF (an opinion
> that he expresses in some of his public talks as well). Anyway, I
> think it is apparent from talking to RMS that he feels that it is a
> goal of GPL to prevent "user-subjugating" software vendors ever
> obtaining any commercial advantage from GPL-licensed code. The theory
> of it is a bit like not selling ammunition to KKK members or
> something, RMS does not want to allow his enemies to use the tools he
> creates.
>
> Of course I don't agree with him in this regard, but that's because I
> don't feel that closed-source software is intrinsically evil. From
> RMS's perspective, that closed-source software is fundamentally a
> violation of the rights of the user, it makes a great deal of sense.
>
> I think that even FSF advocates increasingly don't align fully with
> RMS on this issue, but his ideas have certainly influenced the GPL.
>
> jc
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