Re: [ox-en] GPL Restrictive was - RedHat and Fedora and SuSE and Novell
- From: "Benj. Mako Hill" <mako debian.org>
- Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 08:05:06 -0800
On Thu, Nov 13, 2003 at 05:00:40AM [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED], Martin Hardie wrote:
We often see this type of statement and things like "The GPL Is restrictive"
Compared to the public domain or licenses that attempt to approximate
it, the GPL is restrictive. Compared to proprietary licenses, the
limits it places on distribution, modification, and distribution of
derived works are not very restrictive at all IMHO. There's been a bit
of recent press from people who assume that free software means (or
should mean) public domain and get upset when they can't do anything
they want with it (like create non-free derived works). But they
wouldn't be in a position to be upset about the nature of the their
derived works unless the software had given the freedom and the
ability to start down that road in the first place.
MY growing view is that the attacks on FLOSS (starting with the SCO case it
appears )will come based upon the freedom of contrcat enshrined int he
emaning of liberty in the US Constitutionand he fact that the GPL is
"restrictive" and thus contrary to this liberty and anti competetive (a la
anti Trust law).
Any thoughts on this out there?
I'm doubtful. There's a lot more money riding on proprietary software
licenses which take away people's freedom in non-standard and largely
unprecedented ways than there is money riding on free software doing
the same in much more subtle (to the point where they are hardly
comparable) and perhaps even more precedented ways.
Regards,
Mako
--
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako debian.org
http://mako.yukidoke.org/
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