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Judicial Order in MySQL AB vs. Nusphere Suit
bkuhn writes: "Judge Saris has ruled on the preliminary injunction motion. The Court recognizes in today's order that MySQL AB "seems to have the better argument" on the GNU GPL matter. The Court fully recognized the need for expert testimony at trial about the GNU GPL and the technical facts at hand, particularly as to why static linking of software components into a single, unified, compiled binary forms a derivative work of the original components."
Many people say that American beer is watery. This is mainly because of a misperception of what 'watery' is.
Also, the idea of endowing inamimate objects such as software with rights is ridiculous. What next? Rocks? Trees? People for the Ethical Treatement of Dustballs?
Not only is the GPL not free, but because it contaminates every derivative work, it is a perpetual license that causes its restrictions to extend indefinitely.
How is public domain communistic? Does this mean that my math teacher was a communist because she taught me 2+2 and didn't claim any rights to my future use of this knowledge?
When works return to the public domain, they can be recycled and used under any license. When work enters the GPL, it may never return.
We are witnessing the 1st stage of a classical Liberal elitist plot, similar to the introduction of abortion. When the GPL shuts other software out of the market, we will see a general slowdown of progress in the software market. This will be followed by cries for more government funding of GPL'd software, the passage of laws making it illegal to write proprietary software, and repression every bit as extreme as RMS's "right to read fiction". Think "KNOCK KNOCK. We're here to liberate your source for the glorious people's revolution!" and people furtively agreeing to non-disclosure in back rooms when their business needs to get something done but can't wait for the Ministry of Software to do it.
This scenario, as far fetched as it seems, will play out. It may take 50 more years but it will happen.
I expect every true lover of freedom to rise up and violate the GPL when the time is right.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?