Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!dcl-cs!aber-cs!pcg
From: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Making $$$ from software - GNU vs the world
Summary: Restricting is *immoral*
Message-ID: <1554@aber-cs.UUCP>
Date: 22 Dec 89 19:44:56 GMT
Reply-To: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Organization: Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth
	(Disclaimer: my statements are purely personal)
Lines: 120

In article <8322@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:

	[ ... about MIS-heads that only trust expensive brand name sw ... ]
    
    Have you never DEALT with these people? They make up a phenomenal
    percentage of the market. IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHETHER THE SUPPORT IS
    ANY GOOD. It is that the support says "IBM" or "DEC" on it.

Ok. So there are a lot of suckers out there. Surely IBM and DEC are not the
only ones that can squeeze them :-(. On the other hand, the FSF, as I
understand it, has a strong ethical attitude; doing in the suckers is not
among their goals, but rather educating the public is. It may well be
different for you.

    Reread it, please. I said that's how THEY (the MIS-heads) would perceive
    anything that came in their door without a PO for thousands of dollars.
    Anything that can be gotten for free, they consider worthless, or worse.

Well, the MIS-heads surely could be sold GNU Emacs or GNU C for a lot of
bucks.  You could make a killing. They will never even read the license, and
so they will never discover that they need not have paid for it, because
being suckers they do not read the licenses of proprietary software either.
I know! I worried a few of them by pointing out the reverse warranties in
most commercial sw, and that they had paid good money for tapes and floppies.

    Fine. YOU go be a systems integrator, and a trainer, and an installer,
    etc, etc, etc. I want to design, write, and document software. And I want
    to make a good living at it.

As RMS writes, you may want to make a good living making faces at people in
the street, but there is no legislation that compels people to give you
money for it. Nobody has a "right" to make a good living at any odd job they
might enjoy. A lot of musicians and actors starve. Legislation that
recognizes property rights does so, at least in principle, because they are
expected to be beneficial to the functioning of the nation, not because
anybody has a right to som other people's money.

If you want to make a good living by doing something that you don't care
about being antisocial, like possibly impairing the growth of the nation by
hoarding software, in order to squeeze money out of gullible MIS-heads,
well, it's your choice.

The FSF choice is to make a case that certain types of property rights on
certain types of intellectual property do not benefit the nation, and they
want to demonstrate that the alternative is better.

    This whole discussion began around Richard Stallman's (apparent) belief
    that selling software is immoral, not around whether I should use GNU or
    what I should get from/give to GNU/anyone else.

I think this is a misconception. I understand that the reason behind the FSF
policies is that they reckon that the public stands more to gain from
unrestricted sharing of software technology than by proprietary hoarding of
it. Under this view, there is no reason not to allow selling software, as
long as its further circulation is not restricted. 

The FSF idea that granting the right to restrict software circulation is not
desirable is motivated by the ethical idea that what benefits the nation is
good, and that the nation's best interest is to have as unrestricted a
sharing of software as possible.

Any discussion of the FSF policies is about these three points, in order
of increasing generality:

	1) that the GPL as it stands is less effective in promoting the aim
	of unrestricted software circulation than if it were changed in some
	particular way.

	2) that unrestricted software circulation benefits the nation more
	than granting restrictive rights to software.

	3) that it is a worthy aim to benefit the nation by opportune
	legislative policies or demonstrations of their desirability.

As I understand *him*, RMS has pretty good arguments about point 3), i.e.  a
long tradition of political thought that starts with the Constitution of the
US; has intriguing arguments for point 2), based on the particular nature of
software w.r.t. to other types of intellectual works. It also seems that
point 3) is central to RMS' life, and he believes passionately in point 2),
so probably any argument to the contrary should be very strong to change his
mind.

As to point 1) he seems less sure; I understand that RMS *reckons* that the
current GPL is better than certain alternatives as to promoting point 2),
but stands ready to be persuaded otherwise. If anybody has persuasive
arguments that changing the GPL in some way, such as lifting the condition
about incorporation of FSF technology in sw distributed to third parties,
may encourage more sharing of software, I am sure RMS stands ready to do it.

As I understand *you*, you are not very concerned about 3). You are more
concerned about yourself. Fine. Try to persuade RMS that he should share
your concern. :-/
    
    Coupled with other remarks I have seen of Richard Stallman's, it seems
    that the idea is to FORCE software sharing, by one means or another. Very
    different thing.

I beg to differ; he likes to *encourage* sharing. This is done in a very
mild and gentle manner, as is apparently RMS' character overall: you are
permitted to *incorporate* nontrivial FSF technology in your programs that
you make available to others, if you don't restrict their further
circulation. It is entirely voluntary. If you share your work, you are
rewarded by being able to incorporate FSF technology in it. This may be
enough incentive to encourage more people than otherwise would to share their
programs; it may be not, and if this is persuasively argued, the FSF should
be ready to change the license.

Note that nobody forces you to incorporate FSF technology in programs you
make available to third parties, and you can make *use* of FSF technology,
or even incorporate it in programs that you keep to yourself, without any
condition.

The two latter points are consistent with a gentle sense of ethics under
which that you do by yourself are your business alone, and that which you do
with tools is yours alone. You are only asked to share your work if a
nontrivial part of it has been shared with you by somebody else.
-- 
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi           | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth        | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk