🚀 go-pugleaf

mathew@mantis.co.uk (en font terrible) writes:

>ian@airs.com (Ian Lance Taylor) writes:
>> The NOS (KA9Q) TCP/IP program is not under the GPL [and was
>> distributed without source and with various other problems]

>Then what should have been done is that several AMOS users should have
>re-ported it themselves and provided source code for their port.  Alpha
>Micro would have been unable to sell their program without source, or
>maybe even with source if it's as buggy as you suggest.  So next time they
>ported a program, they would have done it properly and provided sources.

I don't understand why this is ``what should have been done.''  Why
can't I similarly say that what should have been done is that NOS
should have been released under the GPL in the first place, avoiding
the duplication of effort which you are suggesting?  Why is it better
to force a desired action through economic competition than to simply
require it in the first place?  (Note that I have no idea what Phil
Karn and any other authors of NOS actually wanted).

>Again, look at MINIX.  It's commercial, not freely-redistributable, but
>source is provided.  The license allows users to provide context diffs
>against the source in order to upgrade the system.  A similar commercial
>license would have been ideal for KA9Q, it seems to me.

Sure, that would have been fine.  Don't forget that the license you
describe is more restrictive than the GPL, though, since it appears to
prevent you from taking parts of the code, putting them into your
non-MINIX program, and releasing them under any terms at all.

>Basically, your example is an argument in favour of available source code
>and redistributable patches (i.e., a sensible license).  It's not really
>an argument in favour of making everything freely redistributable.

I think you are misunderstanding my argument by taking it out of
context.  I was responding to the following paragraph which appeared
in an earlier post of yours (and was included in my post to which you
responded).

>>>I don't use GNU products unless there is no alternative.  However, I feel
>>>obliged to point out that if people who spend their time writing GNU
>>>software were to spend their time writing free software instead, everyone
>>>could benefit.

I was arguing against putting programs in the public domain.  I was
not arguing against various choices of license agreements used by
commercial software.  Commercial software vendors can do whatever they
want, and they are not too likely to use the GPL; some do but most
never will.

I was addressing those people, like myself and the authors of NOS, who
write programs which are distributed for free, by presenting a case in
which a public domain program was used in a counter-productive way
which could not have occurred had the program been covered by the GPL.
In other words, a case in which not everybody benefited by avoiding
the GPL.

Sure, Alpha Micro could have done things better.  But they didn't, and
if NOS had been released under the GPL they could not have done what
they did.  But to make this absolutely clear I'm not saying that what
Alpha Micro did was wrong (it was just stupid); I'm saying that the
authors of NOS could have made their program more widely useful if
they'd released it under the GPL.
-- 
Ian Taylor                 ian@airs.com                 uunet!airs!ian
First person to identify this quote wins a free e-mail message:
``Hagenbeck sent a special expedition to Lake Bangweolo; unfortunately
  this expedition did not even find the lake.''