🚀 go-pugleaf

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Date: 5 Feb 92 03:40:20 GMT
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Organization: Free Software Foundation 545 Tech Square Cambridge, MA 02139
From: Craig Burley <burley@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
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Subject: Re: An attempt (probably in vain)
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In article <1992Feb4.193549.24723@uunet.uu.net> kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes:

    > > If you think people ought to make money from selling software
    > > then buy all the tools you use and stop accepting charity.
    > 
    > So presumably I should only use GNU software if I think people
    > shouldn't be able to make money from selling software?

   No, you should _write_ only GNU software if you believe people
   shouldn't be able to make money from selling software.

That's extreme, IMHO!

I say, make all the money you want selling software.  I sure intend to.

Just that I'll put it under the GPL (or, in trivial cases, PD) to ensure
the maximum benefits and freedoms for my customers and for the long-term
freedom and viability of the code itself, so I don't have to write it again
and again and yet can maintain it wherever it goes.

If I have code I want to put under PD (or some such thing), then even though
it might be nice to include GPL-protected code with it, I won't do it
(obviously) and I won't complain.  If I really decided to ship a PD executable
without sources, so I'd be the only "source" for new versions/ports of the
product (which I doubt I'd ever do), again I'd figure it'd be reasonable to
not use GPL-protected code without complaining.

But given how I view software source code (i.e. not as _expertise_, but as
merely an _instance_ of the _expression_ of that experise to deal with a
particular problem), I really don't see widespread dissemination of source
code as required by the GPL as posing any serious long-term problems, but
rather as solving many current ones and thus letting the industry address
some bigger problems it currently ignores.  (I hope nobody asks me to go into
that, because it's probably even more tedious to explain than whether
"free" means "free" or "free".  :-)
--

James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson    burley@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Member of the League for Programming Freedom (LPF)