🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <u66J513w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (Industrial Poet) writes:

   But I am not earning anything the author wants by my use of his software.
   Nor am I preventing him from gaining the reimbursment he desires from his
   software.  So why should I reimburse him, and what should I reimburse him
   with?

   Does this mean that if I decide to use some GNU software, I am *obliged* to
   provide the world with some 'free' software in return?

I think some of the earlier statements may have been too strong, perhaps that
is why you seem confused about this.

Look at it this way: if you receive a scholarship to attend college, are you
*obliged* to pay it back?  From what I understand, that IS the idea of
scholarships, but most people don't pay them back.  However, those who become
successful and feel a scholarship or two helped them, or might have helped
them, might well decide to contribute to the creation of a scholarship so
as to benefit others.

The "letter" of the GPL prevents you from taking GPL-protected software and
reselling it as your own, without source code, and/or with restrictions on
its further use beyond those of the original GPL.  (Essentially.)

The "spirit" of the GPL is that we all benefit from a more free exchange
of code and ideas, so if you are getting quite a lot of benefit from GPL-
protected code, you should think about giving something back.  Even though
I never benefitted from GPL-protected code per se, I am doing volunteer work
for the FSF to create GPL-protected code (GNU Fortran) because my whole
career is based on the wide availability of source code and the free exchange
of code and ideas (plus the free availability of machines) that existed when
I was younger.  So I am "giving something back", and want to keep doing this.

So, no, you don't HAVE to write GPL-protected code just because you use GCC,
GNU EMACS, or other GNU software.  But you might want to.  Or you might
want to send an occasional donation in to the FSF, especially if you weigh
the quality and quantity of software and support you get from the FSF and
its people against proprietary-software developers and see how much money
you're saving (or how many legal hassles you're avoiding :-).  Or you might
want to support the political goals of the LPF (League for Programming Freedom)
by actively supporting and voicing support for the various boycotts they
have, writing letters, and so on.

I choose to do only the first thing for now (write software) because I don't
have any money to donate (and no corporation for which I work to convince to
donate) and don't personally believe in boycotts.

Especially if you are making changes to GPL-protected code that others might
find useful, you should participate in the "spirit" of the GPL by providing
those changes to the community.  Only if you distribute (e.g. sell) software
derived by combining GPL-protected code with your own changes does the
"letter" of the GPL require you to distribute the source code of those
changes and the resulting derived software with the GPL terms (though I
guess the changes themselves, as in a new routine or something, can be
public domain, perhaps).

In short, I wouldn't feel guilty about using GNU stuff as an "ordinary user"
and not doing anything beyond, say, ordering the occasional distribution
tape (from which the FSF derives income) and making the occasional
doncation, perhaps.

But the question to ask yourself is this: if the FSF and its GNU project
were halted, either due to lack of income, legal barriers, or a combination of
both, will I kick myself for not having done just a little bit more to help
them out, given how much I've been helped by their (comparatively unselfish)
offerings?  (Remember, you only need to do a "little bit more", if there are
enough "you"s out there!  If every happy user of a GNU product wrote their
congressman or senator saying "make sure patent law and copyright law are
not going to make GNU-style free software difficult or dangerous to write",
software patents and look-and-feel copyrights might well be dead issues
within a few months.)

I know that, without the kind of environment that the FSF and LPF are trying
to recreate, I never would have become even marginally knowledgeable about
computers, and while I might have become a joe ordinary programmer, I might
also have ended up washing dishes or something I would find much less
personally fulfilling.  So I have decided to devote a couple of years of my
life to helping them out, without income.  Not everyone can make this
decision.  But then, not everyone had the opportunity to benefit from and
understand the benefits of the kind of environment I had available to me
back in the mid-'70s, either.  Some people who didn't have this opportunity
just spend their time and energy explaining why FSF/GNU/GPL/LPF are seriously
flawed or misguided instead of helping them.  "Those who can, do; those who
cannot, say it cannot be done, or isn't worth doing."
--

James Craig Burley, Software Craftsperson    burley@gnu.ai.mit.edu