On Friday 15 June 2007 07:32:01 Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
And it doesn't *MATTER* what they intended, or what they feel the "spirit" of
the license is. The second they made it public and gave people the option of
applying the GPL to their projects their intent lost all meaning - because
the intent of all the people that decided to release their projects under the
GPL also has to be taken into account.
Note that I am not arguing, and have never argued, that the FSF overstepped
its bounds when they wrote the GPLv3. Instead I am arguing that they are
taking their own interpretation od the GPLv2, the intent of one *small* group
of users of the GPLv2 and saying "this isn't something it was supposed to
allow, so we have to make it clear in this new version".
And even then they aren't being really consistent. The fact is that RMS has
stated he believes it isn't ethical to charge for software. I see *nothing*
in that belief that is in conflict with TiVO. What *IS* wrong with TiVO is
that it makes it impossible for anyone to *easily* change the system - that
the TiVO corporation could do something with ease that other people can't.
DRH
http://www.faifzilla.org/ch06.html ("the prospect of charging money for
software [is] a crime against humanity")
http://www.faifzilla.org/ch01.html ("I already had an idea that software
should be shared, but I wasn't sure how to think about that.")
PS: Note that Stallmans motivation was *SOURCE* *CODE* *ACCESS* - nothing
else. His inability to get the source code to that printer was just the
proverbial "straw that broke the camels back", *NOT* the prime motivation.
--
Dialup is like pissing through a pipette. Slow and excruciatingly painful.
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