🚀 go-pugleaf

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Date: 6 Feb 92 04:43:58 GMT
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From: Bengt Larsson <bengtl@maths.lth.se>
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Subject: Re: Too Good to be True?
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In article <1992Feb4.194002.25273@uunet.uu.net> kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes:
> > Well, at the one end we have  system("/bin/emacs");  which is Allowed.
> > At the other end, we have  link myeditor.o,emacs.o  which is (apparently)
> > Not Allowed.  I'm told that if I want to find out whether my program is
> > Allowed or not, I have to hire expensive lawyers.  That doesn't sound very
> > reasonable or "free" to me.
>
>Sounds reasonable to me.  If you want to hoard software, you have
>to buy into the hoarder philosophy wholesale and hire a mess of
>lawyers.  On the other hand if you`'re willing to turn your
>softweare loose, then you can forget the lawyers and get on with
>writing more software.

Excuse me, but this is idiotic. If I violate the GPL, and I'm sued,
boycotted (or whatever) by GNU as a result of it, this is solely _my_
fault because of my "hoarder philosophy"? It's just as much GNU's
fault for trying to enforce its license. Or for writing their license
in their particular way in the first place. 

(General comment to this debate)

Why do many (most?) GNU proponents insist on only blaming others for
any conflict involving the GPL? It's damned dishonest. 

This recurring "it's someone else's fault" theme really irks me.

If you put some software under the GPL, then *you* put it under the
GPL, noone else, and you are partly responsible for any legal
conflicts that may result because of it. If you don't like lawyers,
boycotts, or other pressure instruments you can make your code really
free (PD), which takes care of that problem. 

Right?

Onward Towards the Truly Free Software Foundation.

Bengt L.
-- 
Bengt Larsson - bengtl@maths.lth.se