🚀 go-pugleaf

preston@titan.rice.edu (Preston Briggs) writes:
>You seem to be content to use tools given to you by
>the FSF, but you are unhappy with the goals of the FSF.
>You use and modify gcc, which represents a huge effort
>in design, programming, distribution, and support;
>but you connive to avoid publishing your own source.

David Detlefs (dld@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU) has written a good response to
this that I pretty much agree with. The problem with responses like
this (which are all too common, and on both sides of the discussion)
is that they argue that, if one disagrees with one part of the FSF,
one must surely disagree with the entirety of the FSF's goals.

This is hardly the case. I agree with the goals of the FSF, even more
than they seem to themselves. I'm working on building free software.
I've modified Gnu programs, and I distribute them with full source. In
short, I'm a model user of Gnu software. I follow both the spirit and
the letter of the GPL, even though I think it's a flawed document,
because that seems to be the right thing to do right now.

However, I _do_ think the GPL is flawed, and I'm not afraid to say it,
even though it may cost me something (the enmity of some elements in
the FSF). I think free software is a good enough idea that it doesn't
need complicated, and legally problematical, licenses to protect it.
I think that the number of people who will abuse free software by
building un-free products with it will do less harm than the GPL does
now by scaring off some people and offending others. I think that
some of the arguments about libg++, and header files, and linking
in general, lead uncomfortably far down the path of software interface
copyrights (or look and feel copyrights on code). I think the FSF
shows a disturbing tendancy to forgo long-term goals and ignore ethics
in order to pursue their short-term goals. I'd like to see this
changed, and so I argue. My dedication is to the goals of free
software, not to the FSF or any other entity.

--John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1990 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.