Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> ____/ [H]omer on Tuesday 22 January 2008 15:13 : \____
>
>> Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
>>
>>> Just before the new year began, I raised the issue of GPLv3 in
>>> WordPress. The lead developers were curious enough and one of them
>>> /did/ say that he met someone who wanted to 'pull a Tivo' on
>>> WordPress. It looks as though WP will go v3 some time in the future,
>>> but I had to argue with Tivo apologists, who in turn seemed like they
>>> simply didn't like the GNU philosophy _in general_, just as Stallman
>>> used to warn.
>>
>> Unfortunately there's a lot of that about. Just look at some of the
>> comments in the Gobuntu mailing list, or even the LKML.
>>
>> Certain people are more than happy to benefit from others' Free
>> Software contributions , but when it comes to defending the Freedom that
>> *enables* them to use that software, they suddenly become pragmatists.
>> Selling oneself out is bad enough, but selling out the Free Software
>> community is unforgivable.
>>
>> It's not a difficult concept. If one *wants* the benefit of Free
>> Software, then one should embrace the Free Software philosophy. If not,
>> then the world is full of proprietary and encumbered software to choose
>> from - they should use it, rather than try to poison the well by
>> changing Free Software into their "pragmatic" vision. IMHO that is not
>> pragmatism ... it's nothing more than sabotage.
>
> I was rather stunned to find that even in a Free software development list
> you'd have people who are merely seeking to exploit. This wasn't the first
> such incident and I've been on that list since the start (2004). Either way,
> Matt Mullenweg was willing to listen, so it was worth bringing up.
>
> It seems like many GPL haters just use v3 as an excuse to attack. I know two
> BSD bloggers who did this.
>
I was genuinely shocked to see some of the people here that I had
considerable respect for suddenly become rabid, irrational beings, when
the possibility of taking free software and proprietarising it might be
taken away, at least for the kernel, through GPLv3.
There are many people who, it seems, are happy to ride on the back of
the efforts of others, withholding key information which ensures that the
GPL's intended "freedoms" cannot be met, whilst claiming to be supportive
of "free software".
It's more plundering than pragmatism.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
| Cola trolls: http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/ |
| My (new) blog: http://www.thereisnomagic.org |
|
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