🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1130@mipos3.intel.com>, nate@hobbes (Nate Hess) writes:
>Also, Sakari's use of the word "can't", above, is a tad strong; it's not
>that they *can't* use it, it's simply that they choose not to.  Their
>choice does not alter my or anyone else's ability to use the software.

That's a very good point.  I've also found from experience that many
people make their `choice' based upon incorrect assumptions and flawed
preconceptions.  For example, immediately after releasing my gperf
perfect hash function program on comp.sources.unix I received a
massive flame from a person who basically said:

  `Shame on you for copylefting your code, since this means that no one
   will ever use it since their source will fall under the copyleft
   too.'

Unfortunately, when shooting from the hip, this person failed to
notice that the *output* from gperf (which is the useful part) is
*not* copylefted.  This means that anyone can use the generated
perfect hash function in a proprietary program, charge $5,000,000
dollars for it, hoard the source (to their program), and there's no
problem, legal, moral, or otherwise.

When I pointed this out to the person he then said:

  `Oh sorry, you're right, but I was confused because GNU puts their
   copyleft in generated FLEX code, so I just assumed... etc.'

Once again, complete nonsense masquerading as gospel (FLEX is actually
copyrighted by The Regents of the University of California, and is
only distributed by FSF, i.e., the FSF does not copyleft either the
source code or the generated scanners).

My point here is that many people are who think they *can't* use various
GNU tools for fear of copyleft infringement are just choosing not to
understand the issues.  

Doug
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The moon, sun, and sea speaks for itself. -- Hiroshi Hamada