🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <PREECE.91Jan28095432@etude.urbana.mcd.mot.com> preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Scott E. Preece) writes:

   |   From: david@WUBIOS.WUSTL.EDU (David J. Camp)
   |   In Reply to this Note From: <Michael Mclay>
   |   >...
   |   >attempts to impose morality on others.  While I like many of the
   |   >FSF products, I absolutely disagree with your distribution tactics.
   |   [text deleted]
   |
   |   Then do not use GNU software.
   ---
   What he said in his note was that a lot of people couldn't use FSF
   software because of the distribution policy.  So telling him not to use
   it is pretty stupid.

If he said people "couldn't use FSF software..." then he was most likely
wrong.  They can USE FSF software, except I think for bison and flex (since
they produce output with their own code inserted), they just can't incorporate
FSF software into their own (creating a "derived work") and then distribute
it without honoring the GPL.  This never PREVENTS anyone from incorporating
GNU software in their own unless they are working for an organization whose
rules prevent it (in which case the organization isn't prevented from doing
it, it's merely one of its "rules") or they for some reason must distribute
their works into the public domain (in which case nothing about the GPL,
to my knowledge, prevents them distributing just their changes in the
public domain, thereby solving the problem while maintaining the integrity
of the GPL).

I agree that telling someone not to use GNU software might be stupid, but
given your next paragraph...

   Is there some reason why he shouldn't express his opinion of the FSF
   policy, or is it a condition of posting here that you sign a loyalty
   oath?

it also seems stupid to assume somebody saying "do not use GNU software"
is saying "do not express your opinion".  I don't remember anyone saying
that, or even saying "don't express any negative opinions of FSF policy
in gnu.misc.discuss".  Maybe David went too far -- you certainly did.

It is valid to tell someone who complains about GNU "restrictions" that
not using GNU software is an option we're comfortable with.  rms did so,
as have others, in responding to the original post.  "Then do not use
GNU software" is possibly an inadequate way to express that sentiment.

   ---
   |   You are welcome to charge as high a fee for gnu software as you wish.
   |   You are not welcome to restrict the rights of others to disseminate
   |   information.  -David-
   ---
   So, what does that last sentence mean?  What he said was that if FSF
   allowed unrestricted use of its software, some people who cannot now use
   it would be able to.  In what arcane way does that get mapped into
   "restrict[ing] the rights of others to disseminate information"?

No arcane way at all.  We make sure that someone else distributing gnu
or gnu-derived software cannot make recipients signing licenses saying they'll
never use the distribution on more than one computer at a time or they don't
get source code and so on.  In fact, if FSF allowed what you call
"unrestricted use" of its software (which in fact people already have, in
effect, as I explained above), then in pretty short order, a significant
portion of people using gnu-derived software would not have free access
to the source -- because it'd be sold to them without source, without
freedom to copy, &c, by others who took full advantage of "unrestricted use"
but did not pass it on.

   Restricting the distribution of your products for political reasons is
   in no way different from restricting their distribution for economic
   reasons; the equivalence of political power and economic power is hardly a
   new concept.

That may be, but I'm unsure what you're implying.  In any case,
restricting distribution is not what the FSF is doing -- it is restricting
the TERMS of distribution to an "inalienable right to freedom" with regards
to the code and to derived works.  It is others who restrict themselves
voluntarily because they object to those terms (either because it means
they can't make a fast buck, or they can't write "freeer" software off
which others can make a fast buck).  Further, while political reasons can
and do exist for the restrictions, there are simple, practical, economic
reasons for them.  And there's a very valid reason, "inalienable rights" --
we want everyone who uses GNU or GNU-derived software to have certain
inalienable rights (access to source, freedom to make as many copies as
they want, etc), and to do that, we must deny the rights of others to take
away those rights.  There's nothing "wrong" about this -- it might turn out
to not be the best way to distribute free software widely (though this
has not proven to be the case so far).

   I have no problem with the FSF restricting its software in any way it
   chooses -- that's the way it should be.  But I am also free to resent
   the FSF cloaking itself in the mantle of virtue while doing the things
   it decries.

It doesn't do that.  Any more than the U.S. can be said to "cloak itself
in the mantle of virtue with regard to personal freedom while denying its
citizens the right to sell themselves into slavery".  An inalienable right,
whether something as massively important as personal freedom or as
moderately important as freedom to access source code and make copies of
programs, is a right that can only be granted, not be taken away -- and
to do that, the "right to voluntarily give up the right" must be
withheld.  It's a simple doctrine.  If this doesn't make it clear to you,
I don't know what will.  But it isn't hypocrisy, as you seem to be making
it out to be.

   I have no problem with the FSF's supporters expressing loudly their
   adherence to the politically correct line -- free expression is the very
   greatest good.  But I am also free to despise those who parrot party
   line dogma and who are apparently incapable of listening to a civil
   statement of a different position and responding to it rationally.

You not only are free to despise those who so parrot, I hope you continue
to be free to do so.  However, some people have more difficulty than others
putting their position into words and have no choice other than to parrot --
and some (not me, I haven't been doing this long enough :-) are so tired
of hearing the old "you're not 'free' enough" line turning out to be, in
most cases, really "I want to have it be easier to use your great 'free'
software so I [or someone else] can make an 'unfree' product out of it
and make lots of money" that they no longer have sufficient tolerance to
really listen.

I'm glad I've been listening, not only to this short discussion but to
someone who objects to the GPL's restriction because he really likes
putting stuff in the public domain and with whom I've been engaged in a
highly useful and friendly email dialog.  By listening to (reading) his
objections and engaging in a discussion, I've been able to think things
through much better with regard to this issue, and am now much more able
to elucidate the reasons for the GPL as it now stands -- and in much more
support of it than I had been prior to these discussions.  I'm still open to
hearing something that'll convince me otherwise, but so far the discussions
seem to be less than rational.

On the other hand, I'm not getting as much work done on GNU Fortran as I
could be, and it is this concern that might account for some FSF people
not "listening".  There is no moral requirement that someone working on
something they feel is important must stop and listen to and respond to
criticism from those who might only want to just stop their work so they'll
be less successful -- reread the Old Testament story of Nehemiah rebuilding
of the walls of Jerusalem if you don't believe that.  Once someone knows
what they want to do and how they want to do it, which is largely the
case with FSF people (and becoming the case for me), there is no moral
grounds for you to "despise" them for not taking time out of their work
to listen to your statements, however civil, and respond to them
rationally.  You and they may regret that the time was not taken sooner
or later, and the workers especially might regret not learning of something
that would affect how they pursued their work.  But it is not worthy of
a moral person to despise someone for focusing entirely on their work and
not taking the time to listen to arguments against it.

So while you have the freedom to despise them (or me), you have far less
moral standing on which to do so than they have to not listen and to
continue to write software protected by the GPL, in my opinion.  And
given that you are trying to turn this into an argument of morals and
hypocrisy, it strikes me as contradictary of you to despise someone for no
good reason, since I think despising people for no reason is quite immoral.
(Of course, you can argue that it isn't contradictory because you don't
pretend to aspire to any level of morality, and simply point out that you
feel the FSF does seem to so aspire and fails -- but I stand by my claim
that we are not pursuing our morality through grounds of hypocrisy, and if
you don't personally aspire to morality, perhaps that explains why you
seem to have trouble discerning the morality of others.)
--

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