Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!eris.berkeley.edu!mwm
From: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: BISON, GCC, and the GNU public license. (Re: increasing yacc states)
Message-ID: <26695@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 27 Jul 89 15:36:39 GMT
References: <Jul.5.09.29.33.1989.23541@topaz.rutgers.edu> <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26609@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5271@ficc.uu.net>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Followup-To: comp.misc
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 79

[Followups have been pointed to comp.misc.]

In article <5271@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
<In article <26609@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer) writes:
<> The GNU General Public License isn't about profit or sales, it's about
<> the right to give away neat tools to our friends.
<
<No, it's about the right of intellectual property. It uses the laws
<that are based on that right to deny it to other people.

Well, it is about the right of intellectual property. It uses the
busted laws to insure that all people have the right to the
intellectual properties it covers.

It in no way denies any intellectual property rights to anyone, any
more than any other license agreement does. To claim otherwise is to
lie.

<Look, I want to be able to sell software. I want to be able to buy
<software.

Ok, you're a bit teched :-). Nothing wrong with that.

<Sure, one can be creative and find a way to operate within the scope
<of the GNU copyleft, but by doing that one is putting oneself at a
<competitive disadvantage.
<
<	[list deleted]

Your imagination is still misfiring. Everything on that list is a
problem only if you are trying to hoard your software, or because
you've not understood the GPL.

Don't hoard your software. There are other ways to make money off of
it.

<I'm sure you can see other problems with that. If you can't see how
<giving up intellectual property rights can hurt you it's a failure
<in your imagination, not in the concept.

Your statement is ambiguous, and in either case makes an assertion I
haven't said anything about.

Interpretation 1) Me giving up my intellectual property rights to one
or more pieces of software can hurt me. Obvious. On the other hand, it
may also do me more good than harm.

Interpretation 2) Doing away with all property right will hurt me.
This is a completely different topic.

What's amusing about all this is that the GPL isn't that much worse
than licenses for commercial software that I've seen. How about
$2000/year for the compiler (for an IBM PC!?!?), plus royalties on the
library if you distribute binaries.

For that matter, at least one FORTRAN 77 compiler had a license
requiring that programs compiled with it say so. This requires me to
change my user interface for them. I'd rather pay royalties.

Even worse, copyleft is a _lot_ less restrictive than any of a large
number of programs that are PA, which just say "freely
redistributable, except for commercial purposes." Copylefted material
is generally available for any commercial purpose, and the exceptions
are clearly stated beforehand.

Tell you what, Peter - from now on, I'll add one more condition to any
software I release: that you can't use it. Will that make you happier?

Actually, I won't do that - unless you explitictly tell me to. If you
can use my code to turn out a bettter product, or turn it out faster
so you can go on to something else, then we all win. Which is also
part of what the GPL is about.

	<mike
--
Round about, round about, in a fair ring-a.		Mike Meyer
Thus we dance, thus we dance, and thus we sing-a.	mwm@berkeley.edu
Trip and go, to and fro, over this green-a.		ucbvax!mwm
All about, in and out, over this green-a.		mwm@ucbjade.BITNET