Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!lib!thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu
From: jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: rms says...
Message-ID: <4687@lib.tmc.edu>
Date: 6 Feb 91 13:08:35 GMT
References: <21327@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <4607@lib.tmc.edu> <1991Jan29.201935.840@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Sender: usenet@lib.tmc.edu
Organization: University of Texas Medical School at Houston
Lines: 46
Nntp-Posting-Host: thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu

In article <1991Jan29.201935.840@watdragon.waterloo.edu> ccplumb@rose.uwaterloo.ca (Colin Plumb) writes:
>jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu (Jay Maynard) wrote:
>> Stallman's comments make it plain that he's not really interested in
>> maximizing the reuse of software, as the GNU General Public Virus claims;
>> rather, he's using it as a political weapon to further his utopia.
>Sigh.  Was there ever reason to believe he wanted anything else?  Everyone
>wants the world to be more like their ideal world.  Is this surprising?

If he's not interested in maximizing the reuse of software, then he should
remove the claim that people should place their code under it so that reuse
will be maximized and mankind will therefore benefit.

>What would AT&T do if some of its source got into your product?

I don't know. Fortunately, that's next to impossible; I have no access to
AT&T source, and cannot afford a source license.

>But it's also contrary to other companies' objectives
>of keeping their trade secrets or extorting gobs of money, so it's not as
>if the restriction is unusual.

Sorry. I don't view charging money for one's work as extortion.

>>Oh well. So much for gcc, bash, perl, smail 3,...
>Really, I can't see the fuss.  If you just want to *use* them, you don't need
>to keep source on-line at all if you're paranoid.

Except that I still have to install them, and hack them up to get them
going on my SysVr2-based system. Therefore, I have to have seen their
source code. Microsoft, Lotus, et al can afford to have separate people
for installation and maintenance of GPV-infected code. There's only one
of me (I can hear several "Thankfully!"s around the net now... :-).

>Oh, well, it's well known that there will always be *some* people who
>are unhappy.  All the revolutions in the planet's history ever seem
>to accomplish was to move that set around.

All that'd have to happen to make me happy is to disinfect the virus. I
realize that's not going to happen, though...since RMS wishes to coerce
others into his utopia. Oh well.

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu  | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"Today is different from yesterday." -- State Department spokesman Margaret
Tutwiler, 17 Jan 91, explaining why they won't negotiate with Saddam Hussein