🚀 go-pugleaf

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Date: 6 Feb 92 20:33:26 GMT
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From: Joe Buck <jbuck@forney.berkeley.edu>
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Subject: Re: Too Good to be True?
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In article <1992Feb6.044358.144@lth.se> bengtl@maths.lth.se (Bengt Larsson) writes:
>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"?

What you're forgetting is that there's only one way to violate the GPL.
If you write a program that uses GPL code, then sell someone a binary,
and then that person says to you: your program contains GPL'd code;
I'd like to obtain the source, and I'm willing to pay a reasonable
distribution fee -- the violation does not occur until you say NO,
I'm not giving you the source, or NO, you can't give the binary to
someone else.

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

I don't always agree with Gnu proponents; I don't think that all software
should be copylefted, for example.  But I have no sympathy for people
in the commercial software industry who complain about it, though: you
don't have to use FSF code if you don't want to; every other large
organization that produces code attaches some condition or other to
their code, and if you don't like the conditions you can write your
own code or buy software from someone else who has conditions you can
live with.

Every manual for the larger Gnu software packages starts with about
three pages describing what the Gnu license is and why it's there.
I'm not very sympathetic to pleas of ignorance.

>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. 

Wrong -- if you make your code PD, you may not be protecting yourself
from lawsuits because of disasters caused by errors in your code.  One
reason to have a strict copyright on your code is to force everyone to
leave the "NO WARRANTY" statement in the code.  That's why, for instance,
UCB and MIT don't make their code public domain; it's copyrighted and
there are rules.  The rules aren't the same as for Gnu code, but they
are there.  Your Truly Free Software Foundation will also need to do
this; if you don't, FSF is free to attach the Gnu license to the beginning
of your code!  PD means no rules at all.

Your reasoning is totally backward and bogus.  A legal conflict about
the GPL can only arise if someone uses GPL'd code in a product and
attempts to "hoard it" -- sell the binary without the source, and
forbid their customers from giving it away.  Are you really saying that
if Joe Blow writes a GPL'd code, and Big Blue comes along and makes a
product out of it, that Joe Blow is somehow partly responsible for the
stink that occurs later?  Joe Blow never gave Big Blue permission to
use his code for a product in the first place.  The FSF has not given
you permission to use its code in your commercial software business.

I think you have a perfect right to engage in what the FSF calls "software
hoarding".  But if you do, hoard your own software and stop complaining
that if you do so, you can't ship a product that contains FSF's code.
It's not yours.  I'll say it again, because you don't seem to get it.
It's not yours.

--
Joe Buck	jbuck@ohm.berkeley.edu