[CS-FSLUG] GNU believers

[Aaron Patrick Lehmann]

On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 09:41:34PM +0800, Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 13:31, Aaron Patrick Lehmann wrote:
> > Since I don't seek to gain from the
> > software, I don't stand to lose, and I'd rather assume that the
> > fatherless are named "Annie" and not "Dodger."  Just because some men
> > will seek to exploit me, does not mean that I should seek to eploit
> > all men.
> 
> Would that it were so simple. I don't suggest that you exploit all men, 
> or any men, but I do suggest that selecting a BSD licence over GPL 
> *just* because the GPL prevents forks from legitimately closing is more 
> than a little short-sighted.
> 
> Why should you cater for that market segment and open everyone else in 
> the market to a higher risk of the effects of embrace-and-extend?
> 
> Why should you choose to release software in a fashion which tends to 
> favour larger software companies over smaller?
> 
> Not sure how that works? A Inc is a large company. B Inc is a small 
> company. They both decide to enter the market for Widget Organisation 
> Software. They both see that Aaron's Handy Dandy Widget Organiser v0.6 
> does a lot of what they need, so they both take it and start developing 
> from it. Straight away, there is duplication of effort. Then A Inc sees 
> B Inc enter the market, so it adds a proprietary twist to the software 
> that allows it to import data from B Inc's implementation, but not 
> export; then they add a few impressive looking but not very useful 
> bells and whistles and market it for all they're worth. Now customers 
> can migrate from you to A or B, from B to you or A, but not away from A 
> to you or B. They have used the "close-ability" of your release to lock 
> out competition, which after they have wiped out B Inc means that they 
> can jack the prices.

That makes things bad for users of A, I suppose.  However, it wasn't ME that
did it.  I was not the one who closed A's source, and my source and B's are
still open. 

> 
> Now run the same scenario again with the GPL. A Inc may well add 
> frobnules to the software, but they can't be proprietary ones, and they 
> can't use mongolian horde programming technology to bury B, because 
> anything they add, B can also get. B is always around to keep them 
> honest, customers can migrate freely between your package, A and B, 
> much duplication of effort is avoided, your own package is improved so 
> you have something better to give as well. A much better result.

As far as honesty goes, an unethical party can always ignore the GPL.  If they
do a good job of fixing tell-tale bugs, etc. it won't be proveable that they
derived from my code.  The GPL will prevent an ethical person from closing
derivatives, which is fine if you feel that closed source code is inherently
unethical.  As I do not, I can only see that it takes away some rights that
someone should legitematly have over their own work, and discourages ethical
parties who would like to exercise those rights from making use of my code.

> 
> Now ask yourself this question: if I had an opportunity to do good in a 
> way which discouraged exploitation, and turned my back on it, allowing 
> exploitation to proceed as a result of my decision, will I or will I 
> not be held accountable for that?

 I refuse to be held accountable for the actions of others.  If this
 exploitation is wrong (which I'm not sure it is), then I'm not the one who did
 it.  Sure, I made it possible, by choosing to allow derivatives to pick their
 own liscense, but I didn't force it.  Meanwhile, if I had released under a
 more restrictive liscense, then I would have to accept resposibility for the
 liscensing scheme of derivatives, since I was the one that chose it.  It seems
 analogous to free will in general.  God has given us, His derivatives, the
 ability to do good or evil.  Some will do good, and others evil.  Is He
 responsible for the evil-doers' actions?

Aaron Lehmann
-- 
Sometimes you stay the course;
Sometimes the course stays you.