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Jim Henderson wrote:
| On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:28:50 +0200, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:
|
|> 	The issue here isn't what the *original* author can do. The
| problem
|> arises when somebody wants to reuse parts of the original code. The
|> sequence of events goes like this:
|> ~ - You write some code and license it under the GPL; ~ - I take your
|> code (or part of it), write some more code that interfaces with yours
|> and want to distribute it. Then I can't choose the license under
which I
|> distribute *my* code. The GPL has taken a fundamental freedom
from me,
|> just because I interface with some code that is GPLed. Therefore
I don't
|> regard the GPL as "free" (on the other hand, I do regard the LGPL as
|> "free": it ensures that the LGPLed code will remain available
while not
|> restricting my freedom to write and distribute code that
interfaces with
|> it).
|
| Well, as a software developer, I *may* not want people to use my
code in
| something they make money off of, or something that removes my
copyright
| from my code, or something that is closed source.
|
| I can *totally* understand why an author may choose to pick a license
| like this - because they want to be free to see how their code is
being
| used.  BSD isn't free to see how Microsoft has implemented the BSD
TCP/IP
| stack, because the MS code is closed, even though it's based on
the BSD
| stack (or rather, it is the BSD stack - evidenced by behaviours of
the
| stack itself that are unique to that implementation).
|
| It's all a question of what the original author desires be done with
| their code.  I can see that maybe the FSF point of view is that the
| original author should be free to see how their code is used and
to not
| have others profit financially from it.
|
	You're missing the point here. I agree with you that this is the
original author's choice and his right to impose whatever
restrictions he wants on his code. The point here is that the GPL is
*not* free (as in freedom) because of the restrictions it imposes.
If people want to put software under a non-free license it's their
right (and I have done it too), but they should be aware that it is
not free.

		Jerome
- --
+------------------------- Jerome M. BERGER ---------------------+
|    mailto:jeb### [at] freefr      | ICQ:    238062172            |
|    http://jeberger.free.fr/     | Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr   |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+
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