🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9101161300.AA22325@zardoz.coral.com> don@zardoz.coral.com (Don Dewar) writes:

RMS,

Please reread the following excerpt of a posting concerning your
attempts to impose morality on others.  While I like many of the
FSF products, I absolutely disagree with your distribution tactics.

   So, what is happening here is that because someone is trying to impose
   their concept of free software on us, we may have to avoid using some
   GNU software when we release our product.  I think that FSF might
   learn something here from a very serious mistake that our government
   repeatedly makes: You can't legislate morality -- education is the
   only way to help people make the right moral decision.  The more you
   try to force your convictions on someone else, the more they may
   resist.  If you show them the right way through your own example, you
   are more likely to get the results you want.

If you truely want your software to be free, then distribute it as X
Windows and InterViews are distributed.  We use the public domain
version of both these tools, however, organizations that aren't in the
software business are able to buy, for less than it would cost them to
do the work themselves, a compiled and tested version of X Windows
from DEC, Sun, IBM, HP and others.  The programers who worked on X
Windows or InterViews cannot feel cheated when one of these companies
sells a copy of X Windows for $500 or $1000.  They wanted their code
to be used by other and put it in the public domain so that this would
be possible.  In order for some of the public to be able to use it,
however, more work was required.  This extra work must be paid for and
that is why the $500 or $1000 was spent.  There was no coersion
involved.  See Adam Smith for details on how this works:-)

Why not have the FSF copyright read as follows:

  I don't believe software should cost money.  You can use what I wrote
  for free.  If you agree with me you will do the same.  If you don't I
  wish you well.  Please be kind enough to tell others that I wrote this
  code or parts of the code.

  Thank you 

  RMS

Anything more than that is going to restrict the distribution of the
FSF software.  If this were not true then at least one of the above
mentioned companies would have started distributing FSF software along
with their own.  

The Soviets have finally admitted that Marx was wrong and Adam Smith
was right.  FSF should do the same.  It's ok to give the source code
away or sell the tapes for $195 each, just don't require that everyone
do the same.  That only causes those who need additional support to
not be able to use the products at all.

--
Michael J. McLay
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Bld 220 Rm A355 (office), Bld 220 Rm A150 (mail)
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, (301)975-4099