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Why I Love The GPL

Posted by michael on from the when-you-care-enough-to-send-the-very-best dept.

Roblimo writes "'There are a lot of good reasons to like the GPL: the GNU Public License. For one thing, it's a David and Goliath kind of thing. It's the little guy standing up to the corporate behemoths that run rough-shod over our daily lives by virtue of their influence, legal and otherwise, on government. For another, it's virtuous.' These are the opening words to a NewsForge article praising the GPL by Joe Barr. Now and then we forget how much of the software we use and love is made possible by the General Public License. Thanks for reminding us, Joe. (NewsForge and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.)"

2 of 488 comments (clear)

  1. GPL by northcat · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's the GNU General Public License, not GNU Public License.

  2. Re:Here's why I love it: by rongten · · Score: 5, Informative

    I seem to recall that the FSF did quite a
    lot of actions against some companies,
    like one that was producing routers in
    violation of the GPL.

    And each time stupid people were crying out loud that the FSF was "enforcing" the GPL and that
    they were communist, viral GPL, blah, blah, but that is beside the point.

    So, yes, you can force people and companies
    to abide to GPL, but not by yourself.

    That's why if you are concerned about
    company stealing the work of who
    benefit as all, there is an easy way to
    help :http://member.fsf.org/join.

    Time to actually do something about this,
    ladies and gentlemen.

    --
    Zed: Nothing is ever easy