🚀 go-pugleaf

d87-mal@bella.nada.kth.se (Mats L|fkvist) writes:
> I see the choice between using the GPL for a piece of software or putting
> it in the public domain as choice between ensuring the freedom of the
> _users_ or ensuring the freedom of the _programmers_.
> 
> The GPL restricts what a programmer can do with the code but ensures
> that the users of the code don't loose their freedom (to have it changed,
> fixed, ported etc).

The users of PD code cannot lose their freedom to have it changed, fixed,
ported or whatever, so the GPL does not ensure any such thing.

What the GPL ensures is that the users cannot lose their freedom to duplicate
the source code of software *derived from* GPLed code.  It does this at
the expense of not allowing users to give away the code freely or restrict the
distribution of modified versions.

> Putting the code into the public domain ensures that any programmer can
> do what he want to with it, maybe restricting what the users can do with it.

No, the users can always get a copy of the PD version.  A programmer can take
that PD code and turn it into a different non-PD program, yes, but that hasn't
taken anything away from the users.  It might have given them less than you
would like to have forced the programmer to give them, but that's hard luck.


mathew

-- 
Another would-be Mac owner put off by Apple's monopolistic practices.