Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> The whole idea of the FSF and thus the GPL is to turn software development
> and ownership of software into some kind of communism.

This is where my view differs from yours. Remove the phrase "and thus 
the GPL" and I completely agree with that statement. The GPL is just 
saying "I'll let you have the source code for this, but only if you do 
likewise for anything you use the source in, if you don't like that, 
feel free not to use the source in your program". It never claims to be 
the one true license, the FSF does that. Certainly, the GPL does embody 
some aspects of a certain political belief, but I don't think that means 
that it is a political document in and of itself.

> It seeks to strip an
> elite group (programmers) from the right to make money from their creative
> work and sole right to their work.

Again, I think this can be attributed to the FSF, but not specifically 
the GPL, unless you are tarring all open-source licenses with the one 
brush here. Any license which allows the users to redistribute the 
software is obviously going to cut down on the authors revenue, but it 
in no way strips the author of the right to choose different licenses 
for different pieces of software (of course, the FSF does).

> Instead the masses of uneducated wannabe
> programmers are allowed to screw up the programs.

So the "bazaar" can't work, only the "cathedral" is acceptable? What 
particular GPL licensed programs are you referring to, and in what way 
are they screwed up? I don't see the Linux kernel as being particularly 
screwed up. Sure, there are many patched versions vying for distributor 
attention, indeed there are 11 different kernels on offer at the 
www.kernel.org frontpage alone. But everyone knows that the canonical 
stable release at the moment is 2.4.20, maintained by Marcelo, directly 
appointed by Linus.

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