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- Xref: sparky gnu.misc.discuss:4382 talk.philosophy.misc:3259
- Path: sparky!uunet!ogicse!das-news.harvard.edu!husc-news.harvard.edu!husc10.harvard.edu!zeleny
- From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
- Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,talk.philosophy.misc
- Subject: Re: Copyleft vs Public Domain
- Message-ID: <1993Jan11.032430.19184@husc3.harvard.edu>
- Date: 11 Jan 93 08:24:28 GMT
- Article-I.D.: husc3.1993Jan11.032430.19184
- References: <FRIEDMAN.93Jan9124251@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu> <1993Jan10.140824.19162@husc3.harvard.edu> <6119@comton.airs.com>
- Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal
- Lines: 105
- Nntp-Posting-Host: husc10.harvard.edu
-
- In article <6119@comton.airs.com>
- ian@airs.com (Ian Lance Taylor) writes:
-
- >zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
-
- MZ:
- >>Only the newly introduced additions and amendments may be so
- >>appropriated; the original irrevocably belongs to everybody. However,
- >>we have observed that Stallman's definition of freedom "to study and
- >>change programs, and to cooperate with each other by sharing programs"
- >>both depends on and involves, its enforcement by the terms of the GPL.
- >>In this peculiar sense, it becomes trivially true that the GPL prevents
- >>the "freedom" from being stripped off when the program is distributed,
- >>by preventing itself from being stripped off when the program is
- >>distributed. But of course, this efficiency of self-serving does not
- >>yield a justification for its superiority to public domain software.
- >>Thus, the first reason fails to withstand rational scrutiny.
-
- ILT:
- >This is incorrect. If you believe, as I believe, that all programs
- >should be distributed with source code, then the ``efficiency of
- >self-serving'' is a clear advantage over public domain software.
-
- Huh? in what sense is the PD source not readily available?
-
- ILT:
- >(This is not to say that these are the only two alternatives).
-
- Correct.
-
- MZ:
- >>Consider the most likely beneficiary of the FSF's munificence, an
- >>anonymous UNIX hacker, who is likely to be employed in other people's
- >>proprietary projects.
-
- ILT:
- >This does not describe the beneficiary I have in mind when I write
- >programs. It does not describe the beneficiary of the FSF's
- >munificence in distributing Emacs.
-
- I shan't presume to speak for you or your programs, but for anyone
- *but* a skilled programmer, Emacs is *far* inferior to any generic
- (WYSIWYG, graphical) word processor.
-
- RMS:
- >>>If not for the GPL, most users of our software would not have the
- >>>freedom to redistribute and change it. That is not just speculation;
- >>>the examples of X Windows, TeX, and Berkeley's Unix extensions show
- >>>that most users of these programs have only proprietary versions and
- >>>do not have the freedom to share or change them. The first authors of
- >>>these programs did not themselves take away those freedoms, but did
- >>>not defend them either. Where that path leads was clear when the GNU
- >>>project was started, and therefore we chose another path.
-
- MZ:
- >>This is a straw man argument, which establishes its conclusion only by
- >>glossing over legitimate alternatives to legal restrictions. It is very
- >>likely that, were the GNU programs placed into the public domain, with
- >>but its current resources, the FSF could easily match, and even surpass,
- >>any proprietary enhancements to their programs, in the same way as the
- >>same is done by commercial companies striving to keep ahead of their
- >>competitors. Furthermore, in doing so, the FSF would attract a great
- >>deal of additional support from those, who are currently put off by the
- >>strictures of the GPL. By contrast, in choosing its present strategy,
- >>the FSF chooses convenience over principle.
-
- ILT:
- >I find this very implausible. The FSF is a very small software
- >company, and already uses a great deal of outside help. If gcc were
- >public domain, it would splinter into many different compilers as
- >different companies produced proprietary extensions. I do not believe
- >the FSF would be able to keep up. Certainly there have been many
- >extensions to the programs Stallman cites, X, TeX, and BSD, that have
- >never been duplicated in any free form. Why not?
-
- The difference is, no single, dedicated agency has ever tried to
- maintain and develop the PD extensions of X, TeX, or BSD.
-
- MZ:
- >>Everyone who has spent any time in textual research, is aware of the
- >>immense boon to scholarship, precipitated by each occasion of passing of
- >>the body of work of an important artist or writer into the public
- >>domain. The same could be expected of software. Why not give yourself
- >>a chance to find out?
-
- ILT:
- >This will happen to FSF software too. Never fear. I would, in any
- >case, be quite surprised if removing all restrictions on FSF software
- >led to any great boon to scholarship. What sort of thing did you have
- >in mind?
-
- Generally speaking, this happens to software only when it becomes
- obsolete. What I have in mind may be imagined as a planned and
- coordinated counterpart to piecemeal PD software development currently
- undertaken by the US government and universities.
-
- >--
- >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?' ''
-
- cordially,
- mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
- "Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."
-