🚀 go-pugleaf

Oh come on, guys, stop sending me mail.  Put the flames here for every-
one to see :-).  But be sure you understand what I'm saying.  I'm not
by any means expressing a desire that the FSF go away.  Quite the con-
trary.  Read my last posting more carefully.

Let me reiterate:  I regard the use of an inappropriate word, name-
ly "free," as deliberate misdirection on the order of "pro-abortion" for
"pro-choice" and "anti-choice" for "anti-abortion."  Most aren't really
fooled, but the gratuitous attempt at obfuscation can be very annoying,
perhaps indicative of a failure to fess up to the real issues at stake.
If the software is not unrestricted, then a different word should have
been used.  Perhaps "socioeconomically laden."  SELSF:  The Socio-Econom-
ically Laden Software Foundation.

All the "read the license" mail in the world will not change the fact
that FSF software is free only in a specially and idiosyncratically de-
fined sense dreamt up by the FSF.

About GNU stuff in PD software:  Its rediculous to have to parcel out
software, and label it as GNU copylefted.  In many cases, I'd like to
intermingle it with my code in ways that would mean line-by-line separa-
tion, or at least an attempt at subcategorization of files into GNU-
influenced, and "pure PD."  This is a pile of crap, and no one should
have to do this with *truly* unrestricted (aka "free") software.

Note that I am not calling FSF software a pile of crap.  And in fact, I
see no reason why the FSF will not have beneficial impact on the indus-
try.  I admire, in a very real way, the goals of the FSF (aka SELSF),
and hope they succeed.  Their work is top-notch, and they are nothing
if not interesting people (at least from my e-mail perspective).  The
world could do with a few more FSF types.

I merely reserve the right to complain when the FSF copyleft conditions
impinge on my freedom to write software, and make it totally "free."  I
also reserve the right to comment on the irony when I find myself feeling
constrained by the "Free" Sofware Foundation.  I feel like a whore when I
have to knuckle under to their socioeconomic agenda in order to lay hands
on the code.  Better than an AT&T source license, though.

Go FSF!

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%sophist@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@sophist.uchicago.edu         rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer