Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: BISON, GCC, and the GNU public license. (Re: increasing yacc states)
Message-ID: <5486@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 3 Aug 89 14:25:14 GMT
References: <Jul.5.09.29.33.1989.23541@topaz.rutgers.edu> <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26880@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 135

In article <26880@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer) writes:
> In article <5361@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
> <In article <26759@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer) writes:
[ about GNU being about giving away neat tools to my friends ]
> <> Correct. It uses one to allow people to do the other. So in a sense,
> <> it is about both of them. You can draw finer distinctions if you want.

> <This is the silliest argument for the FSF that I've ever seen. I don't *need*
> <the GNU PUBLIC LICENSE to give away neat software to my friends. I just do
> <it.

> Do you tell the people who hold the copyrights on those tools that
> you're doing that?

Since either I own the copyrights on these tools, or they're stuff I got
through comp.sources.* (of which a vanishingly small percentage are GNU
stuff)... no.

> They don't claim they own it. They merely claim partial ownership of
> derivative works - which the law allows them to do. They don't let you
> distribute copies of those works unless you agree to their terms for
> doing so. This is _exactly_ what copyright is for - to control the
> conditions under which others can copy your works.

Semantics. Quibbling. If I can't do what I want with a compiler I wrote
because I used Bison to compile it, I don't own it any more.

I'll even give them the right to a version of, say, GNU-Emacs I might
have hacked up. But when they extend this to sections of code that
are purely intended for inclusion in another... such as a library or
parser skeleton... that might be legal but it's neither fair, ethical,
or moral.

> ... [rich and/or highly skilled] programmers are the only
> ones who can use the GNU tools and [control the use of] the resuls.

This is fair? This is ethical? I have other words for this.

> This should be compared with commercial
> tools, where it doesn't matter how skillfull you are, you just have to
> be rich.

You keep making this claim, but it's not backed up by reality. The
highly restrictive licensing agreements, where you have to pay huge
amounts of royalties to distribute binaries, are a thing of the past.
The *market* has spoken. Borland has done more for poor programmers
than the Free Software Foundation.

> So if you're not a member  of the privileged classes, you
> have two choices: use the GNU tools and abide by their terms, or don't
> use any tools at all.

Let me tag this paragraph (reference 1). I'll come back to it later.

If you're not rich you can't afford a computer big enough to use GCC
in the first place anyway. It needs, what, something on the order of
a megabyte of stack? It's cheaper to buy a PC and Microsoft C.

> The commercial licenses have really helped them
> out a lot, haven't they?

Yes.

> You didn't say it, but I don't think I misreprestented your position.
> You don't want FSF exercising their copyrights on derivative works if
> it's not an obvious derivation.

No, I don't want the FSF excersizing their copyrights on works intended
to be used as part of someone else's code. Libraries, the Bison Parser
Skeleton. That sort of thing. Stuff you can't use at all without including
it in your code, and which has to be included in your code if you want to
use the GNU tools.

[back to commercial licenses]
> Correct. However, I don't see any commercial license agreement that
> doesn't require that either I buy time on the target hardware, or that
> the owner of the target hardware buy the commercial product, if I want
> them to have a trivial installation process.

Check out any of Borland's products, Microsoft C, Lattice C, Lattice C++,
Aztec C, or any of the other microcomputer compiler vendors.

> <OK, you're saying I'm incompetant.

> Either that, or misininformed. Probably a mixture of both.

OK. Now we get to the meat of the matter. Personal insults. I can take it.
I've been insulted by far more competant folks than you.

> <For small-volume items, can you make enough to live on? I know RMS doesn't
> <believe in living off software sales. Do you?

> Yes, you can make enough to live on (quite comfortably) on small
> volume items. Check out the salaries people pay Unix systems
> programmers for maintenance positions.

Or for support, like me? Just because my ox isn't being gored directly
doesn't mean I don't have an interest.

> <Oh yes... quality is in the eye of the beholder. I don't have the RAM to
> <spare to run GCC.

> Given the current memory prices, not buying a single commercial
> compiler would pay for that ram.

Not so. You can't buy enough memory to run GNU on any IBM-PC or
clone for any amount of money. I doubt if you could get it to run
on an 80286 at all. I know RMS thinks this is a good thing, but
most folks are stuck with this sort of hardware. You can't talk
about GNU-CC being for the little folks when the little folks can't
afford GNU-CC. (see reference 1 above)

Now I must admit that my machine at home, and Amiga 1000 with 4.5 Meg
of RAM, is more competant... but still the RAM on that machine costs
a lot more than the $400 I spent on my C compiler.

> <> Nope, it's part of the point. The GPL is _not_ incredibly restrictive.

> <Yes it is. It imposes a restriction that is completely unprecedented outside
> <of eastern governments.

> Sorry, but you're wrong. People have sold compilers with yearly rental
> fees and requirements for royalties. Those set a nice precedent.

Yearly rental fees and royalties are in no way equivalent to forcing
people to give away sources.

I'll see you later. This is getting tiresome. You keep pushing arguments
that haven't been even vaguely valid in 10 years, or that won't be valid
for another 10. Meanwhile, I find it more useful to live in the present.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Business: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. | "The sentence I am now
Personal: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.   `-_-' |  writing is the sentence
Quote: Have you hugged your wolf today?  'U`  |  you are now reading"