Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)

Arthur J. O'Dwyer wrote
(in article
<Pine.LNX.4.60-041.0508231122470.3795@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):

> On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Joe Butler wrote:
>>
> (In the following response, I'm paraphrasing what I understand to be
> Stallman's position on the matter --- what I write isn't necessarily what
> I personally believe. Personally, I'm ambivalent but leaning toward
> Stallman's view.)

Fair enough, so don't take any of this as aimed at you directly.
:-)

>> So, what's the reasoning behind these licences that don't allow a commercial
>> (closed source) apps from using them?
>
> Software should be free.

No. Free software is fine, fwiw, but I do not see an argument
that all software should be free. There is no moral reason for
it, any more than there is a reason that all Tom Clancy novels
shouuld be free. It is up to the author to decide how they want
to distribute their work product. If they want to charge for
it, that is their business (pardon the pun), regardless of
majority opinion.

> If Microsoft (for example) distributes an
> operating system that the user can't tweak, check for security holes, or
> give to his friends, that's just plain wrong.

No it is not. It might be a bad idea for you to buy it, and if
you do, you get and deserve the results obtained. It is not
'just plain wrong' for Microsoft to sell commercial products.
If there is anything wrong in the software arena today, it is
that so many people are willing to pay good money for bad
products. Now, you could argue that there should be a law
allowing people to sue over damages due to use of faulty
software, but to do so, you'd have to figure out a way to
overhaul the incredibly one-sided "End User License Agreements"
(EULAs) that we are forced to agree to in order to install
software. But, once again, people have a choice, thanks in
large point to open source software, NOT to agree to such
things. Of course, the legal argument might be stronger
/without/ open source alternatives. As it is, it's difficult to
argue that you were /forced/ to agree to get work done, when
alternatives are available.

> This kind of exploitative
> software needs to be stamped out permanently --- one simple way to do that
> is make lots of good /free/ software, which will drive out the bad.

That is the only workable solution. You can not legislate them
out of business under any reasonable laws. Unfortunately (for
Stallman and true-believer open source people) it isn't panning
out quite like they would like. Lots of commercial software
vendors are making money. And that's good, because those
companies are paying the bills for a lot of open source
programmers that moonlight on other 'free' projects. I suspect
that a lot of open source development is actually being done 'on
the clock' by people working for such companies also, but that
is hard to prove.

> And by
> putting everything under the GPL, we ensure that the bad software makers
> will never be able to come back, since they can't pull the same
> "steal the code, tweak it, and release it as closed source" tricks they
> did back in the '80s.

Sorry, but I don't see this. There was very little 'open
source' software to steal from back then. Apart from the TCP
stack, what other examples can you point to?

> So? People shouldn't use closed-source software, because it's wrong.

No, it's not wrong. It may be a choice that you disagree with,
but in the general sense, rather than your personal opinion, it
is not 'wrong'. In fact there are times when you have no
choice. There are a lot of vertical apps for which there are
zero open source alternatives, for example.

> If the GPL makes it harder to develop closed-source software, that is a
> /benefit/, not a drawback.

It doesn't make it harder than it was in the past. It does
preclude (in theory, I am sure a lot of lifting goes on anyway
under the covers) taking shortcuts by lifting code from
elsewhere.

> So it'll take longer for the free world to catch up to the evil
> closed-source guys. So what? You can't wait two extra years for your free
> e-mail client?

In the meantime, you'll be using commercial software. Even the
'best of breed' open source apps have a lot of bizarre little
problems. Yes, commercial apps have problems too, but you don't
have to spend three days tracking through release notes, CVS,
wikis and what not figuring out what a 'valid bug report' looks
like, you can just pick up the phone and ask for help. There is
a difference to end users on the support end with commercial via
open source software. Most end users are not developers, so
arguing that they can look in the source code is BS. Yes, 'free
tech support' often sucks. But, there is a chance that it will
help you. There is often no analogous route with open source
software, unless you have a resident geek on staff to help you
work through it, or for home users, you better have a geek in
the family you can call.

(I spend a lot of time doing tech support for friends and
relatives. *sigh*)

>> A closed source app is not going to open its source just
>> so it can use some GPL. If the source was allowed to be used by all,
>> without the restrictions on commercial apps, that would benefit a lot more
>> people, wouldn't it?
>
> No, because then Microsoft (for example) would take it, improve it, and
> release the improved version as closed-source. Everybody loses.

I think you missed the point. If the lifted code was good, and
Microsoft put it in their products, then all their customers
would benefit. yes, MS would benefit, but so would their
customers. It's anathema to open source developers, but the end
result of having massively peer-reviewed code in more places
would be beneficial overall. In a large degree, the GPL works
to prevent this benefit from taking place, under the guise of
stabbing microsoft and other commercial vendors.

As a pure consumer, would you be better off personally if all of
your commercial software product vendors had access to open
source code to include in their products? Yes. Would it be
worth it to you to pay money for chunks of code from various
places glued together /and supported/ from a single vendor? In
all likelihood, yes.

Would that be fair to open source programmers? No.

> (Tangent: Stallman uses the murder-is-wrong analogy to ridicule those
> programmers who complain that they can't write free software because they
> need a commercial salary. "So it's okay to kill someone and take their
> money, because you need money?" No! A big salary doesn't excuse
> wrongdoing!

Yes, easy for Stallman to say, when he has food on the table.
Telling others that they have no right to work for a living is
such crap. In fact, it is the biggest fault I see with his
arguments. You can't expect others to starve to further your
personal agenda.

> And if you really can't make an honest living in /free/
> software design, you should go do something else for a few years. Build
> houses, or become a policeman, or do something else that's not
> intrinsically immoral.)

Such complete hogwash. If Stallman wants to live in a tent,
mopping floors between coding session, that is his right. To
expect others to do something similar, while calling them
immoral if they don't is /evil/.


--
Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)

.

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