🚀 go-pugleaf

Craig Burley writes [many things, mostly elided]:

		...  Sure, if the PD source has been distributed even
   once, _theoretically_ anyone can get at it, but that assurance is
   not practical in today's society -- many people _will_ end up with
   the binary and no information on how to get at the source.

Mr. softwarecraftsperson, I don't think you have any idea as to what is
practical today, or what was practical a decade ago.  I spent a great
deal of the last decade of my life obtaining and distributing [as a DECUS
Canada librarian since 83 for VMS and later for UN*X, and as a private
programmer] megabytes of free software of all flavors, and my experience
is that *if* people are sufficiently interested, literate and are able to
communicate, there is hardly any difference between GPL-propped software
and other source-distributed free software in terms of getting to its
various forms, so long as people care enough to want to get it.

   If disassembling large binaries becomes something fairly easy, then
   many advantages of the GPL over PD will be reduced, of course.

Even if one is naive enough to assume that PD is the *only* alternative
to GPL, substantiating those "many advantages of GPL over PD" in any level
of seriousness would take considerably more than the cacophony of the
converted.

   My suggestion to those with preferences for PD over GPL, _please_
   hurry up and write a high-quality PD C compiler and distribute it
   widely with sources.

Maybe it won't be PD, but probably won't have an ideology attachment
either.

... oz
---
Truth doesn't always win friends, but | electric: oz@nexus.yorku.ca
influences people.      -- Batty Koda | pho: [416] 736 2100 x 33976