🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Fqa0aB21w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) writes:
>d87-mal@bella.nada.kth.se (Mats L|fkvist) writes:
>> 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.

This is true.  If all the FSF cared about was users' freedom to obtain
their original programs, PD probably would have sufficed.  But Stallman's
goal is to encourage *others* to distribute programs in the same way as he
does.

I used to read a number of postings that referred to the the GPL as a
"virus".  The poster meant this in a derogatory way, but he was basically
right.  The GNU project is apparently trying to develop lots of basic
software, so that other software developers would frequently decide to
choose developing GNU-derived software rather than from-scratch software.
Developing derived software permits faster, less expensive development;
developing software from scratch permits restricting its distribution.  As
derivatives spread, there's even more encouragement, and it's like a chain
reaction.  Instead of thinking of it as a virus, you could also think of it
as evolution by way of a dominant gene.  Or as the growth of a snowflake
around a nucleus of dust.

This also relates to another posting, where I was responding to why there
aren't GPLed versions of specialized software.  I said that no one had the
inclination to write it.  In the current state of the industry, you need
someone to start the chain reaction, by supplying the nucleus.  There are
currently only a few people infected with both the talent and altruism
necessary to start the processes, so we're dependent on their choices of
development projects.  The most talented of them are presumably working on
either existing, super-popular programs (GNU Emacs and GCC) or developing
the GNU OS.  If the philosophy spreads more, the talent pool will open up
and more varied GPLed software will appear.

-- 
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar