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- From: ian@airs.com (Ian Lance Taylor)
- Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.usage.english,alt.society.anarchy
- Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
- Message-ID: <6064@comton.airs.com>
- Date: 6 Jan 93 06:17:01 GMT
- References: <C0B34q.Ax0@news.udel.edu> <1993Jan3.213759.18973@husc3.harvard.edu> <C0CCt3.CG5@cs.uiuc.edu> <1993Jan5.022956.19008@husc3.harvard.edu>
- Followup-To: gnu.misc.discuss
- Organization: Infinity Development, Waltham, MA
- Lines: 57
-
- zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
-
- >What I am saying is that I am not free to use GNU in any way
- >I see fit; more importantly, nor am I free of legal obligation implicit
- >in, and specific to its use. Consequently, it is not free. Is this so
- >hard to understand?
-
- In the U.S.A. I am not free to walk whereever I like nor say whatever
- I like. Therefore, the U.S.A. is not a free country.
-
- In many parts of the U.S.A. I am not free to burn fires at will, even
- on my own property, because it affects the air quality. Therefore,
- the air is not free.
-
- I have written a version of cu, which I could make freely available.
- However, you would still not be allowed to use it to call up computers
- to which you did not have legal access. So even public domain
- software is not free.
-
- I think your notion of freedom is not useful, because complete freedom
- does not actually exist. All freedom exists under a certain set of
- more or less onerous restrictions. Your argument against the GPL
- seems to me to be that the GPL is sufficiently onerous that it does
- not deserve to be called free. To clinch that argument I think you
- must show that the GPL restricts you from actions which you feel ought
- to be permitted. I don't think it suffices that argue that Gnu
- software is not free because certain actions are not permitted. That
- would make the word ``free'' inapplicable to anything that actually
- exists.
-
- I release software under the GPL. I am not an apostle of Stallman,
- and it is not impossible that I could be talked into using some other
- form of license, or no license at all. I don't know if convincing
- people to abandon the GPL is a goal of your arguments; if it is, I
- think you have been consistently irrelevant.
-
- Perhaps the goal is to make people feel sorry for you. You have
- succeeded at that. I have no way to judge the truth of your
- relationship with the FSF, but I do genuinely feel sorry for you,
- whatever happened.
-
- >The FSF forbids anyone, presumably
- >including yourself, to deny you these rights, _ipso facto_ itsef
- >denying you your rights. But wait, -- does not the scope of "anyone"
- >include the FSF itself? So we have that, in denying your rights in
- >order to protect them, the FSF forbids itself to deny you your rights;
- >and, _mutatis mutandis_, forbids itself to ask you to surrender your
- >rights, while explicitly demanding that you surrender them. To hell
- >with logic; this is more fun than Russell's paradox.
-
- This sophistry is even worse than what I engaged in above, as I'm sure
- you're well aware. Why not stick to intellectually honest arguments?
- --
- Ian Taylor | ian@airs.com | First to identify quote wins free e-mail message:
- `` `The world can grow into an ordered place where all are equal before
- the law. And the law is just. Honest. Without graft.'
- `Is that so important if you are starving?' ''
-