The GNU GPL and the American Way
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft describes the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) as an
| "open source" license, and says it is against the American Way...
|
| [...]
|
| Addendum:
|
| Microsoft says that the GPL is against "intellectual property rights." I
| have no opinion on "intellectual property rights," because the term is
| too broad to have a sensible opinion about. It is a catch-all, covering
| copyrights, patents, trademarks, and other disparate areas of law; areas
| so different, in the laws and in their effects, that any statement about
| all of them at once is surely simplistic. To think intelligently about
| copyrights, patents or trademarks, you must think about them separately.
| The first step is declining to lump them together as "intellectual
| property".
|
| My views about copyright take an hour to expound, but one general
| principle applies: it cannot justify denying the public important
| freedoms. As Abraham Lincoln put it, "Whenever there is a conflict
| between human rights and property rights, human rights must
| prevail." Property rights are meant to advance human well-being,
| not as an excuse to disregard it.
`----
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html
Truer now than every before. With Novell's new FAQ, the arguments in the
opensuse mailing lists are fuelled.
|
|
