🚀 go-pugleaf

With a tag like the last message, I ordinarily wouldn't dignify it with a 
response, but..

In article <MARCUS.95Feb2130336@plato.icc.pdx.edu>,
Marcus Daniels <marcus@ee.pdx.edu> wrote:
>>>>>> "CK" == Christopher Key <skip@fohnix.metronet.com> writes:
>In article <3grbvm$nsv@fohnix.metronet.com> skip@fohnix.metronet.com (Christopher Key) writes:
>
>CK> So your saying that if I release something as a binary and say "I
>CK> don't care what you do with this, use it if you find it useful"
>CK> that it isn't free software?  I'd suggest to you that it is, and
>CK> is free in every necessary way.  You wouldn't be restricted from
>CK> modifying it, I'm just not facilitating that.

>What purpose could giving away software have other than 
>to facilitate the user?

Can you read?  I said I'm not facilitating the modification, not not 
facilitating the use.

>The binary distribution is not free in every necessary way.  The user
>remains dependent on you and perhaps other companies to make the
>software useful.

Those two sentences are both false, and not even related to each other.  
If software is useful, it's useful.  Period.  If I released it and you 
find it useful, then it's useful, and doesn't require _anything_ from me 
other than the initial provision to be so.

>If you really feel the greater good is better served by 
>statically linking against proprietary code, then your solution must
>simply be to rewrite the GNU code.  Why should GNU'ers give
>a damn about your cause?

Two points.  

One, who said _anything_ about GNU code?  The initial 
question was about trying to come up with an appropriate license for a 
binary-only distribution of something, and wondering if the GPL was 
appropriate, which it obviously isn't.

Two.  _I_ _DON'T_ _HAVE_ _A_ _CAUSE_.  I'm simply a software 
professional, who occasionally posts things for other people to use.  I 
monitor this newsgroup because I have occasion to use GNU software from 
time to time, and I sometimes find valuable information.

>The conclusion is simple:  you are giving away software to
>*make* them dependent on you.   You don't have a marketing/sales
>department, so you subvert the goals of something like GNU, using
>a typically pathetic beg-ware ploy.

Guess what?  Wrong on _all_ counts.  The company I work for does have 
professional marketing and sales, I'd never do beg-ware (and never have), 
and if I give something away, there is no goal to make someone dependent 
on me.  There's no _reason_ for me to want someone to be dependent on 
me.  When I give away things it's because I found them useful, and  
though others might.  And when I release code, I put it in the public 
domain.  I explicitly _don't_ want to saddle someone with a license that 
prevents them from using it, and I don't care how they use it.  Even if 
it is a competitor, I'm confident that my skills will win.

>Start an alt.software.licenses.lazy newsgroup or something.

No desire (and need) to do that.  I'm not on a quest or anything.

>Get lost.

Well, as far as you're concerned, I am.  Since you're obviously incapable 
of logical thought and constructive debate, and can't even consider the 
thought that all software shouldn't be under GPL, you have been killfiled.

Have a nice day.

Skip