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Moglen On Enforcing The GPL
jdavidb writes: "The GNU Project has a new essay today by Eben Moglen, general legal counsel for GNU, about enforcing the GPL. People ranting about the GPL not holding up in court should read this. Very interesting, but I felt that this paragraph looked bad: 'In such situations we work with organizations to establish GPL-compliance programs within their enterprises, led by senior managers who report to us, and directly to their enterprises' managing boards, regularly.' I'm all for the GPL, but this sounds suspiciously like an Software Publishers' Association audit. On the other hand, circumstances of something like this would be completely different, i.e., illegally taking copyright privileges over software you didn't write, as opposed to illegally copying software." Actually, I also think they sound alike in certain ways, but that it makes sense -- since both are about unauthorized reproduction of software. I like the FSF's terms a lot more. Update: 09/18 19:53 PM GMT by T : As Dr. Nonsense points out, davidb "probably meant the dreaded audits by the Business Software Alliance," rather than the SPA.
Knowledge doesn't want to be free -- knowledge has no desires of any kind. It is certain people who want knowledge to be free. I'm one of those people; where I differ from the GPL is in my definition of "freedom".
Freedom is a lack of obligation; the GPL does not define "freedom", it forces obligations on people, and uses the very Copyright they despise as a tool for control. Mod me down if you will, but I have just as much right to my opinion as they do to theirs.
I have respect for Mr. Stallman's goals, but not his tactics. He and I share many beliefs when it comes to freedom -- on the issue of GPL, though, I beg to differ.
In many ways, GPL's adherents remind me of an obnoxious slogan I once saw on a hat: "If you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it." Sorry, RMS, I just don't hold with that kind of thinking.
The GPL is about power, not freedom; buy into the GPL myth, and you're just exchanging one master (Mr. Gates) for another (Mr. Stallman).
All about me
". . . in the cases I have in mind, legal technicalities prevented actual criminal prosecution of the violators"
So convincing other people not to use software which continues to be published is enforcement? What are these technicalities? Specifics man, I need the facts!
A developer that improves code does not benefit from the original code, but benefits the original code.
If using it didn't benefit their aims then they wouldn't be using it.
The person who makes those improvements should have the right to make money off those changes.
Why should they? Or why should a third person not then have the right to make money by changing their code?
The idea of "free" with regards to software licensing is to eliminate as many restrictions as possible. Since the BSD license has far, far fewer restrictions than the GPL, the BSDL is freer.
Standard response: "it's not free if someone can take it and make it unfree".
The trouble with that standard response is that information has a special property in that you can reproduce it with absolutely no change to the original. Thus, no one can "take" the orignal. No matter how hard they try, they end up with a mere copy. Nothing anyone can do can damage the original or in any way reduce the freedom of the users of the original. If you have made a copy of my software, you copy does not belong to me. It is yours. For me to tell you what you can do with your own property is unfree in the extreme.
If someone uses a copy of my software, then licenses it in an unfree manner, it is not *my* software that is unfree. It is theirs. They cannot take any rights or permissions away from my users. They cannot alter one byte on the software or licenses in my users' possession.
Could someone out there, somewhere, end up using a derivative of my software that is not free? Of course! But that's absolutely NONE of my business. I will have no part in telling someone what they can or cannot do with software I claim to be free.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned