🚀 go-pugleaf

[ Another discussion about the GPL,
  this time about allowing grant recipients to use it ]

> I think that would be a very bad idea.  The purpose of forcing grant
> recipients to release work into the public domain is surely to ensure that
> everyone can make use of their work, since it was publicly funded.  If
  ^^^^^^^^
  ^^^^^^^^
> grant recipients were able to release their work under the GPL, they would
> be able to prevent some people from making use of that work -- people
> who only write public domain or non-freely-redistributable work. In short,
> you would be reducing the number of people able to benefit from the publicly
> funded work.
> 
> Specifically, if we categorize people writing code as:
> 
> a) People writing "free" software under the GPL,
> b) People writing free software, and
> c) People writing limited-distribution software,
> 
> then if grant recipients' work is PD it can be used by all three categories
> of programmer, whereas if it's GPLed it can only be used by people in
> category a).

You forgot

 d) People _using_ the software, who without doubt outnumber a-c above.


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).

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.

Neither is perfect in all cases.  Government agencies as everyone else
should decide who they want to be able to benefit from the code.  If the
number of people affected is vital, the GPL isn't necessarily a bad choice.

      _
Mats Lofkvist
d87-mal@nada.kth.se