Verily I say unto thee, that The Ghost In The Machine spake thusly:
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on Tue, 08 May 2007 13:46:21 +0100
> <3522612.vyOPmkTGms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> Supporting Open Source While Opposing Copyright
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Indeed, the GPL today doesn't really prohibit people from copying,
>> | it merely imposes certain requirements on those who make and
>> | distribute derivative works. If you just want to copy and use a
>> | GPL'd work yourself, or even make a private derivative work from it,
>> | you're free to do so, and many organizations in fact do that. The
>> | GPL's requirement is just that if you want to share, you must enable
>> | others to share likewise.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.questioncopyright.org/copyright_and_open_source
>
> Erm...is copyright a problem here? The only GNU requirement is that
> one properly attribute, as far as I can tell.
If you take something like the BSD, it's basically just a "Do whatever
you like" license, i.e. not really a license at all. The problem with
that, is that's exactly what happens ... and what it is that many
invariably end up "liking" is taking somebody else's work and making it
closed source, proprietary, and commercial; then using it to repress
FOSS by deliberately extending it in non standards compliant ways, and
by using FUD and marketing to compete with it.
IOW the BSD ironically *helps* proprietary vendors to destroy Open
Source, using its own software and (lack of) license.
OTOH, the GPL is about not only *providing* freedom, but *protecting*
that freedom too, so that the kind of nonsense that goes on with BSD
code cannot happen with GPL code.
The GPL is touted as not really being a license either (CopyLeft), but
regardless of what name you give it, it is a vitally essential
protection for FOSS, and very much needed in a world dominated by
predatory opportunists like Microsoft.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| 'Also, no one calls it PCI-X even though that's the "official "
| shortening of the much more commonly used "PCI Express".'
| - Hardon Quirk, COLA's resident "genius".
`----
Fedora Core release 5 (Bordeaux) on sky, running kernel 2.6.20-1.2312.fc5
20:48:21 up 26 days, 18:20, 0 users, load average: 0.08, 0.08, 0.09
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