🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <226@news.duke.edu>, magidj@cellbio.duke.edu (Jonathan Magid) writes...
>hmmmm i'm not so sure that we have a real disagreement here, just a 
>misunderstanding... innovation is of course good: that is what we
>like to encourage. but on the other hand, what i was saying is that
>we want people to originate *new* things, not spend their time 
>innovating things that have already been done... (is this a contradiction
>in terms? :)) 

This is exactly what GNU does not do.  It spends most of its 
time reinventing programs that have been around for years.

gawk, gcc, ghostscript ...

What is this but reinventing the wheel, or "innovating things that
have already been done"?  Even the GNU OS, when completed, will 
merely be "yet another PC Unix".  Free, but not innovative.

I agree that having these tools available with source will contribute 
to continued incremental improvement.  What I disagree with is whether 
it will contribute to contribute to the goal of getting people to 
"originate *new* things".

By insisting that all GNU code improvements be 'CopyLefted', 
the GNU source is off-limits to anyone who plans to write 
commercial software.  Unless one buys the utopian vision that
the software industry will give up the profit motive, one of 
the main effects of the GNU restrictions will be to prevent
innovators who happen to work for a company that copyrights 
and sells software licensed in the usual way from using GNU 
code as a a springboard for their next work.

This is the sad thing, because one of the most compelling arguments
of the FSF is it would help programmers to avoid "wasting" the value
of their programs by ensuring that others can build on the work.

-- Bill (johnston@minnie.me.udel.edu)