🚀 go-pugleaf

Joseph Edward Hummel:
     But something still bothers me.  One of the ideas of the FSF
   (correct me if I'm wrong) is that software should be free so that
   people can build on the work of others, instead of having to
   reinvent the wheel.  But if someone can take say gcc, port it, and
   yet they don't have to release it, where's the benefit to society?

The benefit to society is (1) we are no worse off after this event
than before.  (2) presumably the person who ported it got something
out of this.

Is there any reason to forbid this sort of hoarding?  Seems to me that
allowing this sort of thing is essential (for freedom to exist, and
for security I suppose).

As a specific forinstance, suppose I do a 5 minute patch to emacs Say
I changed "~/.emacs" to "system$ini:emacs.el" in [lisp]novice.el on a
VMS system.  Are you going to obligate me to go through all the hassle
of distributing emacs because I did a quick fix?  Conceptually, I
should be able to do a port and not distribute it if I find the port
easy and the distribution hard.

   If I have to port gcc to a similar platform, I end up having to
   reinvent.  Is this where reality (GPL) meets the FSF?

yep.  You are no worse off than if (*) you didn't know about the port
or (*) the port did not exist.

     Related question to above, which I don't get the answer to from
   reading the license.  Suppose company X ports gcc.  I work for
   company X, and have access to the port of gcc.  Can I legally give
   this software away to others, even if X doesn't want it released?
   Or does company X own the port of gcc at this point, and so I'm
   stealing by copying it?

The idea is, don't work for X.  Basically, if you've signed a contract
with X saying that you agree to do what X says, there isn't a lot FSF
can do about it.  So it's really up to you (and X).

Raul Rockwell