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Will Stallman Kill the "Linux Revolution?"
frdmfghtr writes "The October 30 issue of Forbes Magazine has an article speculating that Richard Stallman's efforts to rewrite the GPL could threaten to 'tear it apart.' The article describes how the GPLv3 is expected to be incompatible with the GPLv2, causing trouble for Linux vendors such as Novell and Red Hat. The article wraps it up: 'And a big loser, eventually, could be Stallman himself. If he relents now, he likely would be branded a sellout by his hard-core followers, who might abandon him. If he stands his ground, customers and tech firms may suffer for a few years but ultimately could find a way to work around him. Either way, Stallman risks becoming irrelevant, a strange footnote in the history of computing: a radical hacker who went on a kamikaze mission against his own program and went down in flames, albeit after causing great turmoil for the people around him.'"
GPL 1 and 2 were developed far from the public eye. V3 is being debated and written under intense scrutiny. It would be hard to avoid the controversy being generated now.
The Linux kernel may not switch, but that will not doom V3, nor will it doom the FSF or Stallman. There is much that has happened since V2, and the attempts to address things like DRM and patents have and will continue to shed light on the ugly underbelly of modern software licensing. This, I think, is good.
"Free software" means something different now. It's not just being able to tweak a text editing program, or encourage community development and review. It's about who will control the millions of PCs in the world. The more that Microsoft and the RIAA/MPAA continue to try to lock down the PC, turning it into nothing more than a delivery system for DRMed content, the more relevant the FSF becomes.
http://www.donarmstrong.com
Yes, it is largely fud w/r/t to the kernel; but there is the issue of the rest of the toolchain (gcc, binutils, etc.) that the GNU foundation owns the copyright on, in addition to the large body of code licensed "GPL v2 or Later." Sure, the commercial vendors could fork or use the BSD tools, but then you have two different branches: the commercial branch, and the branch with code that the community chooses to license under GPL3. If the final GPL3 contains terms that would make impossible to provide to enterprise users, then some vendors could not provide that.
--I hate people when they're not polite -"Psycho Killer", Talking Heads
I heard that GPLv3 kills puppies. Just what I heard. Seriously, if you're the FSF and you have a stated agenda that you would like to promote, wouldn't it be in your interest to tailor your fast and furious new license to complement the efforts of developers working on the most significant, most widely-used existing projects? I don't mean to downplay Stallman's or FSF's historical importance, but the future of free software is not with those players. It is with Linux, and Firefox, and so on--the software projects that Stallman and a ton of other people helped make possible.
Adoption of free software by non-nerds does not happen because of a Stallman speech about the software industry's problems, or because of GPLv3. Rather, it's the result of something as unassuming as a web browser that is more resilient to viruses and spyware than IE, and that provides a better browsing experience. That's really all that people care about.
I am not personally a fan of Stallman's--I think he's made his share of missteps that have hindered the free software movement. But overall, the net good that he and FSF have accomplished has already outweighed the bad. We have seen the open source movement burgeon and grow well beyond the ability of any one entity to kill it, hinder it, or even significantly influence it.
Does that mean we should dismiss GPLv3 as moot? No. Even if GPLv3 is 10 or even 20 years away from widespread adoption, or is just dismissed altogether as "aspirational", at least it's still out there. Out there to be used or out there to be used as a model for public licensing agreements yet to be drafted. There is no downside.
Or do you seriously believe that Linus hasn't consulted with attorneys on this?
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
No. RMS's philosophy has been the same since before the modern OSS movement began. He was considered irrelevant back then, until the rise of free software success stories like GCC, Linux, Apache, etc. showed that his philosophy can produce great software while still granting end-users all the freedoms he talks about.
Now that we already have those pieces of software, some folks are ready to call him irrelevant again... but he isn't. He's looking out for those of us who value free software for more than just the fact that it costs $0 and anyone can contribute. I don't want to live in a world where companies like TiVo (although I love their DVRs) can use technological loopholes to build on the community's work while denying their end-users the ability to build on and tinker with the products they paid for. The open-source nature of Linux doesn't count for jack if your computer will only allow you to boot the signed copy of Linux that came preinstalled, and/or signed Linux upgrade CDs that you buy in a box at the store, does it?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
But the main point is essentially correct: Stallman is trying to aggressively expand his "freedom empire" with the GPL 3, and it could just bite him on the ass.
The article also insulting, inflammatory, and funny. Gotta love a good dustup.
But see, that's my definition of Free as well, which is why I will use the GPL if/when I write any non-trivial software.
And yes, in a way I'm imposing it on others. I don't want anyone to use my code to sue someone for copyright infringement, ever, when all they did was tinkering. The BSD license allows this kind of litigation nonsense by allowing restrictive copyrighting of derivative works. The GPL does not, and therefore conforms to my definition of Freedom.
groupthink: It's good for self-esteem.
No offense, but you just illustrated what the original poster was mocking by padding your list of Windows steps to make it look worse, when in reality, your average install on Windows is:
Windows
1.) Insert CD. Setup automatically begins.
And the fact remains that a lot of Linux packages require more manual configuration than their Windows counterparts.
"Sufferin' succotash."
RMS isn't specifically against DRM in so much as he's against the tivovization. That is, using GPL software, but not allowing it to run modified on the hardware.
:-)
Sure he's against DRM, but he's more against stoping hackers
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I think the real point is if GPL2 and GPL3 are incompatible with each other, and a whole bunch of open source projects move to GPL3, that's going to cause huge issues for distro makers. So you'll end up with a world where almost every open source project has two different forks, one for GPL2 and one for GPL3, each of which is maintained separately from the other.
I'm not saying that will happen. But to dismiss this article as if there was no relevance isn't helping anything. There is a real potential issue here.
As for Stallman becoming irrelevant, my personal opinion would be "thank God!" The sooner that wacko retires to Argentina or somewhere, the sooner people can start treating the open source community with a little bit of respect and dignity. And maybe they can get a spokesman who doesn't have a hissy-fit every time someone asks him to wear a namebadge at a conference.
Comment of the year
It is ironic that you are forcing your personal definition of "free" upon me.
To take a really off topic, but simple, example; When they said; A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. They knew what them meant. Would it have been so hard to add a sentence? Either By this we mean a well regulated militia is one that is under state control or The intention of this is to prevent the state from usurping the rights of individuals, so this to means all citizens of good standing can bear arms.?
Makes a big difference, and not subject to later interpretation.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Ironically, TFA displays a blantant lack of respect for intellectual property and copyright. While it is busy smashing RMS for "demanding that the big tech outfits crack open their proprietary code whenever they inserted lines from [GNU/]Linux", it fails to realize that the FSF owns that code. Stallman and the FSF have just as much a right to enforce open source as Microsoft does to enforce closed source. Yet another case of confusing "free" and "freedom".
This author is completely ignorant of the issues surrounding Open Source/Free Software. He just realized all his favorite Fortune 500 companies were investing in a "socialist" operating system and let the FUD fly to make himself feel better.
I got as far as this part:
M. Stallman is a 53-year-old anticorporate crusader who has argued for 20 years that most software should be free of charge.
and realized that the author of TFA has no fucking clue what he's talking about. Stallman and the FSF are fine with people
charging money for software... The author clearly does not grok the difference between "free as in beer" and "free as in speech."
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
The framers of the Constitution *did* think the Second Amendment was clear when written. And no one much questioned it for nearly 150 years: that's pretty darned good. 220 years of hindsight and court decisions have added an unbelievable amount of nuance and interpretation to what is simply the most carefully and expertly drafted political document in human history. How many other such documents have stayed around and had to be altered so little for such a long time? (Other than Germany's Rheinheitsgebot, that is.)
TANSTAAFL
I think the greatest difference lies in the position of "free"
BSD code is free code to be used in software.
GPL code is code to be used in free software.
I don't have a problem seeing that free has two different meanings, and that I don't need to subscribe to one particular definition. Of course, we can still have a holy war about which is "better". In fact, I liked those two lines so much I'll make it my sig.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't see that at all. He might be a fanatic, but I really don't see that as a problem. Goldwater said that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice", and I have to agree. You say he isn't interested in progress. For what values of "progress"? He has stated time and again that he doesn't define success as how many people use free Software. He isn't interested in getting as many people as possible to use GNU/Linux distros, but simply making sure users have the freedoms laid out in the GNU manifesto. As people use loopholes in the GPL to remove those freedoms, he should attempt to close those loopholes to protect the freedoms.
As far as him "resolving the conflicts between concerned entities", I will assume you mean making the GPL more palatable towards interests who believe the draft GPL v3 is too restrictive. If its too restrictive for your ends, then don't use it. It is not like Stallman is revoking the ability to use GPL v2 in any newer projects. Now, if you're worried about factionalization and adoption issues, that is your problem not RMS's. It is not his job nor his wish to create a license that most people will use without objection. It is his job to make sure the four freedoms are protected at all costs. I will now leave you with the 2nd half of that Goldwater quote: "Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
I, for one, welcome Stallman's extremism in the defense of my liberty and his unwillingness to compromise his ideals in pursuit of justice.
His philosophy is more than just providing source code. It extends to the idea that you should be able to make whatever changes you want to the software that you use, without being limited legally (by licenses) or technologically (by measures like TiVo's kernel signature checking), and providing source code is a consequence of that. The GPLv3 uses legal measures to ensure that end-users aren't impaired by technological measures which were unforseen at the time the GPLv2 was written.
RMS isn't enforcing anything on anyone. If a software developer wants to release his code under the GPLv3, that's the developer's choice, not Stallman's. If you want to release your software under the BSD license, that's your choice too.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
First, language is not immutable, meanings change, grow, shrink. Second, a person's intent never extends to the full consequences of an issue. This is why we have a judicial system in the first place. If things were simple (i.e. there weren't fuzzy or complicated cases that defy easy categorization), we could simply write laws and everything would fall neatly into the buckets we'd carved out. Also, Stallman isn't a lawyer, although his intent is well and good, does he really understand what the consequences of his intent are? Should we have to shoe-horn previously decided case law into the framework of Stallman's intent?
Regardless of whether Stallman or other's think he's leading us into the bright new future, there's all this legacy baggage out in the real world that needs to be squared properly. And that's what judges are supposed to do.
There are lives at stake here!
Article:
.. gee, the public.
Richard M. Stallman is a 53-year-old anticorporate crusader who has argued for 20 years that most software should be free of charge.
RMS quote:
"I think it is ok for authors (please let's not call them "creators", they are not gods) to ask for money for copies of their works (please let's not devalue these works by calling them "content") in order to gain income (the term "compensation" falsely implies it is a matter of making up for some kind of damages)."
The guy is wakko, but you know why he's so successful? Because people make a god or demon out of him; hes neither. The guy has obviously spent some time learning the history of copyright/patent/trademark laws, and thats more than most can say.
He understands that copyright law was enacted to benifit the public, not the author. He understands that patent laws were enacted to encourage publication, and that trademark laws try and enforce a certain level of market transparency for
His ideas may come across as complicated and pedantic to people; which is the way it should be. We're talking about the systems that were put in place to encourage the advancement of science, technology, and culture here.
FTFA:
Cisco caved in to Stallman's demands rather than endure months of abuse from his noisy worldwide cult of online jihadists.
As soon as you agree with an article that demogogues by using the word "jihad", you might begin to question the source. RMS, that crazy nut, is basically pointing out that the last 500 years of laws based on intellectual property arn't based upon secrecy; they're based on encouraging publication while granting the author (and more importantly, denying the state) a relatively modest amount of control over the invention or creative work. In other words, he realizes that we've all been through this before, and its the public domain that needs protecting, not the author, because in lieu of laws that protect the public right to its own culture and technological innovation, we end up with something that very closely mirrors a feudalist system with a barrier to market that would make Adam Smith rise from the dead to slap us silly. The guy might be a little too over the edge, but anyone with a basic grasp on the history of copyright, patent, and trademark laws should immediately understand where hes coming from. This article does little else than cry wolf for some tech companies. I work for tech companies, as a programmer. They won't live or die based on licenses of available technologies. This is just a bunch of whining.
"Old man yells at systemd"
It's not splitting hairs. The GPL is quite specific:
"...have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish),..."
and
"You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee."
The GPL distinguishes between licensing and distribution. You may not charge for the right to copy the program ("...to be licensed as a whole at no charge..."). You may charge for the act of distributing the program (see above).
The GPL does not dictate that you must give someone a copy of a program. You are free to say no when someone asks for a copy of a program without paying money.
If you choose to sell a copy of a program to someone you may distribute it as a source or binary.
If you distribute it as source take the money, give them the source code and that is the end of the transaction. There is no limit to the money you can legally charge as the GPL does not come into play until the transaction is complete.
If you distribute it as binary take the money, give them the binary. Again there is no limit to the money you can legally charge under the GPL for distributing the copy. In the case of distributing the binary you must also offer to provide the source at a minimum cost of distribution. This is fair as you have already made your profit on the distribution of the binary. It's worth noting that the offer to distribute source for minimal cost only comes into play once you have distributed a binary. Distribute source initially and you can charge what you want for it.
The low cost of GPLd software is a consequence of unfettered competion, not the GPL. Something to warm the heart of every capitalist.
They did indeed. However, word meanings and connotations change with time. Today many people think the "militia" is synonmyous with the National Guard (when in fact, the Guard has been part of the Army since 1933), and "well-regulated" means "operating under a large set of rules"; but at the time, it was clear to the authors that "militia" meant "every able-bodied man young enough to fight", and "well-regulated" meant "prepared and trained in military skills".
The meaning of "arms" has also changed: at the time, it was understood to mean the sort of weapon carried by an infantryman. Heavier weapons would be refered to as "cannon"; so Amendment II doesn't mean you have a right to a howitzer on your front lawn. But people arguing against the Second Amendment today often attempt a reductio ad absurdum which includes WMDs under "arms".
(Some people evidently also seem to think that "shall not be infringed" somehow means "can be limited by the government", but that's a linguisitic drift that's harder to account for.)
Anyway, point being that what is absolutely clear and precise to one audience, can still be interpreted differently by another (especially if the two group have different motivations).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Business people might believe Forbes, but it doesn't follow that the article is credible. The magazine as a whole might be credible, but individual articles can still be incredible. A wise business person would take each article on its own merits (or lack thereof).
"is laughable at best and hippocritical at worse"
Please show me evidence to back this claim. You might think so, but that opinion is probably based on misunderstanding and reading too many Forbes articles.
"...since what individual would pay for something he can get for free?"
Some altruistic individuals might. Most wouldn't. The point you are missing though is that most free software is not zero cost to the majority of people. There is the cost of knowing where to get it from, what is the best of the multitude of options, knowing how to set it up, the cost of making sure it is available when required and so on. These are all things that cost time and money and that people are prepared to pay for. There is a business in selling Free software.
Simple economics dictates that you can make a reasonable profit out of free software. If you can't make a profit either your expectations are not reasonable or someone is undercutting your costs so you need to become more efficient. The model of "write a program, sit on your bum and profit selling copies" is dead. The Internet has made distribution so efficient that you will instantly be undercut. The problem isn't the GPL. It's people flogging a business model that is a dead horse.
There are plenty of people making money off free software. It's just that it tends to be thousands of small companies rather than a few multinationals.
"How can you possibly equate anti-MicroSoft people with anti-GPL people? First of all, anti-GPL people aren't people, they're corporations. Anti-MicroSoft, pro-GPL people are actually real people, who are advocates of freedom for all, not profit for the few and slavery for the rest."
Some the new additions to the GNU license are a little zealous to say the least. The GNU license has always been touted as a "distribution" license. One of the new restrictions is on code is with services. Someone who has a service that uses GPLd code and does not re-distribute their code are still required to give out their source.
Even though many people in favor of the GNU may not like it or admit it, if the GPL starts getting too restrictive such as what I mentioned above, people will just stop using it. Companies will stop supporting it and developers that actually want to make a living with their software will just find code that is licensed under a different license because it will be a liability.
Well, in your hypothetical situation, I think that the GPL3 has already accomplished its goal. A and B cannot be in each other's beds. B cannot ship their hardware with the GPL3'd software from a particular repository (apt-get is a program, not a repository or a signing system...) on it, or else they are clearly in violation of GPL3. And how large is the market for hardware shipping with no software on it? Or even hardware shipping with software other than the software it was designed for? The aim is to prevent (eg) TiVo from shipping PVRs with Linux on them, but only allowing that one version of Linux to ever run on them. Of course, since Linux is likely staying GPL2, this particular won't be prevented, but you get the point. TiVo is not going to ship PVRs with blank HDDs, and say "Oh, by the way, you can install this particular linux binary which is maintained by this completely unrelated company over here if you want to do anything with what you just bought".
So, in the situation you describe, the hardware sold by B would be essentially useless (you can't run the GNU utilities because they're GPL3, and you can't run any other utilities because they're not signed). But, if you went ahead and installed the signed GNU utility binaries, knowing that this was not permitted, then you the end user would of course be in violation of the GPL3, not A or B.
OTOH, I think it unlikely that Stallman or anyone else will spend a great deal of effort to stop that particular sort of violation. 1) It is unlikely to occur much, because B shipping hardware without software is not going to sell much. 2) It would go against his ideas of freedom, as I understand them. You've bought this hardware, you can do what you like with it. But I could be wrong in this paragraph; it is mere speculation.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
If I don't like it and I don't buy their hardware, can I somehow prevent them from using code I've written in a way that prevents modification by people who do buy their hardware?
how to invest, a novice's guide
Ok, Fine. What counts as arms? a .22 pistol? A tank? A basement full of C-4? An F16? and what counts as a citizen of good standing? Someone who hasn't been convicted of a felony? Someone who has no criminal record? Does this include traffic violations? Even your clarifications must be further clarified. It's a never ending cycle that can never be fully codified.
Not so simple. Your version of freedom seems to be anarchy. BSD lets bullies bully, and does nothing to prevent the Tragedy of the Commons. That phrase "define freedom for yourself" sounds like a great justification for the strong to indulge in tyranny. GPL tries to give everyone more freedom by restricting the freedom of the slick and sharp to take freedoms away from the less sophisticated. It's hard to cover all the means by which that can be done, especially when the law might change at any time, which is why the GPL needs updates. There was no DMCA when GPLv2 was written. Turning to the ever popular analogy with the automobile, surely you agree that people should not have the freedom to drive anything whatever on the road no matter how dangerous or destructive to others or the roads? It's no fun dodging debris falling off a poorly maintained, slow, overloaded truck in front.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Not for those of us who aren't in on the joke yet. I had never heard of FSM before i clicked on that link.
Yet another blogger begging for an audience.
To take a really off topic, but simple, example; When they said; A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. They knew what them meant. Would it have been so hard to add a sentence? [etc., etc.]
If you are familiar with the history, it's obvious that, at the time, it very clearly referred to an individual right to bear arms.
That's what instigated the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and hence sparked the American Revolution. The British soldiers based in Boston went to collect caches of weapons from known or suspected agitators in the countryside. The British-American colonists felt their rights were violated, and it led to open combat, a fighting retreat, and the colonists successfully besieged Boston. All because the government wanted to collect weapons from citizens.
The problem is that, when man-portable automatic weapons were developed, the Constitution was not changed. Practically everyone recognizes that, if private individuals are allowed to own fully-automatic AK47s, there will be serious problems enforcing civil order. They were made illegal some time around 1900, but no one could be bothered with amending the Constitution to make such a law possible. So ever since that time, we have been subjected to the bizarre construction of 'oh yeah, it refers to ownership by militas, not to private ownership'. This only led to still more bizarre things like the creation of the 'Michigan Militia'.
Anyway, the problem is not that the second amendment is unclear. It's that it was outdated by late 19th-century technology, and we have been suffering under legal kludges ever since. All that we need is to pass a new amendment to say "people generally have a right to own handguns and rifles, but deadlier things can be prohibited".
But considering the trouble Congress has with even considering any modification at all (liberal or conservative) to Social Security, my hopes are not high.
Trust me, without "crazies" like RMS there would be no ruler to meaure how bad the situation truely is. RMS BEGS people to follow him, but he's not the one out there passing crazy laws like the DMCA, or making 100 billion from "borrowed" code, or suing people for a few songs... those are the capitalists that know what's best for us.
Given their lead, they had visions that they owned aviation through patents. They had the idea that flight was going to be bigger than anyone could imagine, but their idea was of themselves being a Microsoft rather than the aviation industry being Open Source. They made some money from it, but they didn't realize their dream of becoming personally rich beyond imagining. An engine maker called Curtis-Wright had their swan song in the form of the TurboCompound radial engine that powered the DC-7, Lockheed Constellation, P-2 Neptune (did they have one in the Skyraider?). But in the age of Boeing and Airbus, they are a historical footnote.
"A reasonable man adapts himself to his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
> I mean, if it is from the original author of the clause in question, why
> would it not have standing, even if clearly different from the exacting
> legalese
Because of the requirement of legal certainty.
Say you have a license agreement (or contract). Both parties read the terms and agree to it. All is happy. Now one day the drafter of the agreement (who isn't one of the parties) comes up and says "nevermind what I wrote, I actually meant *this*!". If this was accepted, then the parties are now bound by terms that they didn't agree to.
Note that (AFAIK) in common law, the court will put some weight on the intention of the parties of the agreement or contract. But this is different from the case where the contract or agreement or license (eg. GPL) was drafted by a third party (eg. RMS). RMS's intentions are not relevant (unless, of course, the parties had RMS's personal interpretations in mind when agreeing to the terms, then maybe that would be relevant)
Anyway, the bottom line is: the law expects you to read and (argh) understand the legalese, and it doesn't expect you to find out what the drafters of the document have to say about their intentions. What you agree to is the terms expressed on the document, not the drafter's intentions. In fact, the drafter's intentions are probably even more irrelevant than the parties not involved in the drafting: (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_preferendum )
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
Another disclaimer: the above is a very rough approximation of the law. It is not accurate by any means.
Another disclaimer: I live in a common law jurisdiction, but the law in the US and my jurisdiction can vary.
Don't quote me on this.
An interesting article, but it shows a remarkable lack of knowledge, both on the part of the author and on the part of some of the people that he quoted. He seems to think that if you distribute software under the GPL, that it gives Stallman control of said software, or that it gives Stallman a right to sue people who (mis)use the software. That simply isn't true. The copyright owner (i.e. the person(s) or company that actually wrote the software) controlls it, and is responsible for suing those who infringe on the GPL.
If said companies broke the terms of the GPL, then they're in the wrong, aren't they? I mean, hey, if I broke the terms of the license for, say, MS Windows and Microsoft found out about it, they'd be all over me like stink on you-know-what. But when the big corporations are called on *their* (alleged) copyright violations, suddenly it's Stallman that's in the wrong.
And then there's the fact that it goes on paragraph-after-paragraph describing Stallman in the most unflattering terms. I mean, hey, Stallman is no saint, and he is a bit bizarre, but what does that have to do with the GPL? What does hair in soup have to do with copyright law? What does bad singing have to do with finance? Forbes *is* a finance magazine and not a celebrity trash rag, right?
Ah, I see. Daniel Lyons said bad things about Richard Stallman, so Stallman snubbed Lyons, so Lyons is in a snit. Grow up, guys.
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber" -- Plato
Because your "plain language" is plain to you but not to everyone else, and especailly not to an determined lawyer.
I live in Hong Kong, where your "intent" idea has sadly been put into effect. When Hong Kong was handed back by Britain to China in 1997 the laws of Hong Kong were determined by the "Basic Law", in effect a constitution, as enacted by the PRC after negotiation with the UK. However, some years later when the governement wanted to enact laws that went against the "obvious" interpretation of the Basic Law (relating to elections mostly), the rulings of Hong Kong's High Court were overridden by the government by appealing to the "intent" of the laws, by asking members of the committee that had drafted them what they had been thinking about. Thus the government is able to retrospectively change the effect of laws without even having to pass legislation.
So as much as we all hate lawyers, having judicial oversight that follows the strict letter of the law, and not its "intent", is a much more democratic system. If governments want to change laws, they can make new ones and let the legislators openly argue and vote on them.
In other words, let's take a few examples of closed-source software, force them into a completely different development paradigm, and then see how they'd do without adjusting their business models accordingly? I'm not exactly the economical mastermind of the century, but otherwise it sounds just like the sort of question that's rigged to have only one answer.
For that matter, I'm continuously baffled by the fact that Windows users still would pay in the tens of dollars for such basic packages as an archival utility or a text editor. Games are luckily a much simpler issue, seeing as you don't have to license the content under the GPL.
You probably wouldn't get the same level of service from the Romanian kid. If it did turn out that the kid was actually more interested and capable in developing the application than the original author, would money paid to the latter be going in the right place?
Microsoft used to spell itself that way, as well as a hyphenated Micro-Soft which I'm sure is sending you rolling on the floor just now.
From the article:
From The GNU Free Software Definition http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
This is pretty much part of the foundation which has built the GPL, and continues to be part of the philosophy created by Stallman.
GNU/Linux will persist, this process is an important part of finding a definition we eventually will find a good fit. Mixing licences has always been a balancing act that Distributions and users have had to deal with since the beginning.
Articles like this are to keep the technology specualators happy that the flow of cash will continue. They get laugh and point at the silly commies bumbling around -- sit-coms for suits.
jer