First.. As everyone always says.. There is no such thing as "X Windows". it's "X" or "The X window system"
Also, X predates microsoft.
ALSO... Windows is NOT a 'generic term for a type of GUI'. It is a specific, trademarked name of a line of operating system products sold by Microsoft.
1) Lindows is also phoenetically similar to Windows, so much that it OBVIOUSLY has something to do with windows (it does, after all)
2) Wind River is NOT similar to windows.
3) Wind River does make an OS, but it's not called 'WindOS'or anything. It's called 'VxWorks'.
There is no solid line between what constitutes conflict. It's bout what a reasonable person would assume if they see it.
And if they see 'Lindows', let's face it.. they may not think it's from microsoft, but they KNOW it has something to do with Windows.. which is the whole point of the name.
I mean, really.. are you telling me it was called Lindows for some reason OTHER than attracting attention due to it's similarity with Windows(tm)
.
And that trademark will never hold up in court, other than to not allow someone ELSE to trademark it.
It's not enforced> Many people, with their own custom kernels, call their kernel 'linux'. Alan could fork to his heart's delight.. Linus could not decide one day that it's not Linux any more, and stop him from using the name. Nor WOULD he, I imagine.
The trademark on Linux only serves to ensure nobody else can trademark it.
I have the feeling it's probably the same up here. After all, the guy did take the warrant to the cops.
Maybe his angle was that he could certainly get the warrant, but just couldn't execute it.
As for citizen's arrest.. same up here. It's on the books (The police really have no more power to arrest someone than the common citizen, technically). You just don't have the training to stand up in court and defend your actions.
Open source licenses do NOT require local changes to be distributed. They only cover under what terms you may distribute..
As for the conflict you see.. there is none.
The original author is NOT required to follow GPL.. he holds copyright. He can do WHATEVER HE WANTS with his code. It's others, who get his code by way of the GPL that must follow it.
Could be.. I mean, if you WERE distributing mp3's through napster without a contract from the recording company, you would be doing something illegal, right?
These companies are NOT running pirated software. They sent out 700,000 of these letters. They did not send them to 'suspsects'. They sent them to anyone who has a computer.
Copy protection methods cost MONEY to develop. My god.. do you know how much a dongle would drive up the manufacturing cost of each copy of a piece of software? A CD costs a penny to produce. The box, a few more pennies. A dongle? Get real.
And any method they come up with will be broken in a short period of time anyway.. so it's a waste of effort.
Actually... and I have no idea whether this is the same in the US or not...
But technically, if a private citizen (not a cop, I mean) showed up with a warrant, you'd have to let him exercise it, just as if he were a cop.
I know of one person anyway (This was in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) who, years ago when his credit card was being used fraudulently to look at porn, and he tracked it back to a local ISP... he went to the cops. The cops said "We don't really have any idea how to proceed.. sorry, nothing we can do (this was years ago)"
So.. he went to the courthouse, went to a Justice of the Peace, and filed for a search warrant. The Justice said "I don't think I can do that sir (it had never come up before)". The guy cited relevant sections of the law, and the judge politely asked for some time to review it.
The next day, he had a search warrant, to search the logs of the ISP in question to find out who the user was.
Now.. not wanting to piss anyone off, like the cops, he then took the warrant to THEM, and again requested their assistance, as he already had a warrant. They sent a couple guys with him, no problem.
What you say about proof is absolutely what the problem is. It's like the police sending letters to everyone saying "Please prove there is nothing illegal going on in your house", and then getting warrants for everyone who doesn't respond properly.
Let's say someone robs a jewelry store.
So now, the jewelry store sends letters to everyone in town saying hey have to open up their house and PROVE they don't have the goods, or they will show up with federal marshals and toss your house.
That's what the BSA is doing. That's how it works. Microsoft does it too. They send you a letter requesting that you voluntarily AUDIT your company to make sure you comply with all their licenses. They offer to send someone to 'assist' if you like. They also remind you of the dire consequences if you refuse.
The one thing, though, is.. how do you think they find out about you? They find out when you actually call to get licensing information, or to buy software.
In fact, I would NOT be surprised if, when you buy it through a VAR, the VAR submits all your information to Microsoft.
So say you buy 50 licenses of Win2k. A year later, your web page says you've grown in size, are shipping more product, whatever. Microsoft checks it's database.. hmm.. you didn't buy more licenses form them. What are the odds that you have 'stolen' their software?
This is one place where Free Software really has an advantage: You don't have to spend the same amount of resources auditing your licensing all the time.
What you say is true. It's the same in the US, and most other countries. (Though I think we use debit more in Canada, but that's another issue)
It's even worse than what you say.. it's not even about cash reserves. Even the numbers don't work out.
Money in the country has not been equal to cash in a long, long time.
Just look how banks work. It's a shame how it's not explained fundamentally in school.
Banks are NOT big vaults that store your money.. they are far, far more involved in the economy than that.
Say you need cash to start a business. You get a loan. The bank borrows this money from the Bank of Canada at the prime interest rate. Then they lend it to you, at their rate.
Then, of course, you buy something with that cash (Say you were loaned $10,000).
Now.. all those whom you paid with that money deposit THEIR money in the bank. Now... you need another $5000. The bank loans you this as well, out of the money that is on deposit from the other people.
So now, you have $5000 in your account (they just gave you a loan)
Collectively, the others have $10000.
So now, there is $15000 in circulation.. but only $10000 was put in in the first place. This happens over and over again.
So the ponit is.. if everyone took their money out, even if it was to transfer it to some kind of 'holding' bank that doens't lend out your money (such banks do exist, by the way), there simply would not be enough money out there. It's just not there.
Cash is a convenience.. and useful.. but we would be kidding ourselves if we thought our society worked on cash.
Even when everyone DID pay with cash.. the economy still does NOT run on cash.
Losing all 'rights' would mean he is not free to do anything with it whatsoever.
As I said:
He is free to sell his code to some company
He is free to issue it under whatever license he wants
He is free to not release it at all
The only thing he cannot do is negate the fact that he released it previously under GPL. That is a rather different story than 'doing whatever he wants with his code'.
Even though you seem to think most licenses allow you to revoke the license.. they are often not legal. Do you honestly think Microsft can say "Nobody is allowed to use Windows anymore, under penalty of law. We are revoking the license?" no. They can't. Because they already GRANTED that license to everyone.
He isn't handcuffed to the GPL version. He can ignore it, not support it, not use it, not distribute it.
You seem to have a narrow view of what kinds of things might be done with code.
Picture a library that does something specific.. say something like.. a new form of video compression.
You come out with a GPL version. Everyone loves it.
Then some company wants to use it in their proprietary product, and doesn't want to be bound by the gpl. You are free to license it to them under whatever terms you want.. you are not bound by the GPL... it's YOUR code.
He Can do whatever he wants with his code! It's HIS!
They *CAN* be placed on books. They just can't be placed on books by having a 'shrink-wrap' agreement on them... which is the REAL problem with software.
It's a good point. Why are there no shrink-wrap licenses on books?
You make several totally wrong statements in your post.
Firstly.. the GPL does not destroy the rights of the individual developer. He still holds the copyright on the code. He has not given that away.
And as the copyright holder, he can still do *whatever he wants* with his code. He is under no obligation to continue distributing it. He can release versions under whatever license he wants. He can sell the code to Microsoft. He can do anything he feels like with it.
In fact.. as the author, you are the ONLY person who can license that software to someone else under other terms. Everyone else is stuck with the GPL.
The only thing the author can't do is revoke the rights he granted others under GPL.
I keep hearing mention of the 'license' not allowin the author to change the license.
(going back to the GPL is allowed by the BSD license).
The author of the software is *NOT IN ANY WAY* bound by the license he chose to release the software under. He's not even bound to give you source under GPL if he distributes binaries. He holds the copyright; the code is not 'licensed' to him... it BELONGS to him.
Yes... if you receive code under the BSD license, you can re-release it yourself under GPL.. that may be true (I have no idea, sounds reasonable)
And Yes... if you receive code under the GPL, you cannot stard re-distributing it under BSD....
But again, the author of said code has no such restrictions.
We all know that cable as a medium has more bandwidth capabilities than telco copper....
His point is he wants an ISP that says
"we'll let the line go as fast as it can, and we'll let you do whatever you want, and we'll bill you for your traffic"
Good points.. and these are both, in typical Gnu fashion, misleading statements (no, this is not a flame, it's the truth).
Because the GPL does not permit me to revoke the rights it grants, I obviously cannot grant someone *exclusive* use if the code, because it's not within my power to revoke the GPL rights I've granted others.
Actually, I *CAN* strike a contract with someone for exclusive use, but I'll end up in court with them because I can't deliver that. Writing this contract, however, is not a violation of the GPL, though it's definately doing a contract in bad faith, etc, etc.
The point is, I am still free to license it to others under whatever terms I want. (I could even license it to them for exclusive use, but that might land me in court, becuase I can't deliver exclusivity)
It would be more plain to say "You can license it under any terms you want to anyone, you are still the owner, but you cannot revoke the rights granted to others via GPL.
As for the second statement:
Read the fine print there...It is making assumptions about what transpired and how.
They are assuming that Y released his v2 code under GPL... and therefore, if X puts it in HIS version, he now has to follow the GPL.
However, if Y simply submits a patch to X saying 'here's a bugfix dude' it's a different story. See the point?
I'm not saying that X owns all submitted code by default.. just that it's not as black and white as the GPL FAQ makes it out to be.
PRetend I had a license that didn't stipulate either way.. say you just saw my code as my buddy, worked on it, and submitted a small bugfix to me. Are you now a co-author? No. It's still my code.
If you wrote half of it... then we would obviously discuss who owned what.
The problem with OSS Projects is nobody acutally discusses the terms of code submission into the project, and poeple submitting code often forget to 'license' their code back to the project.
Remember.. this FAQ is not a real legal opinion...companies have used this sort of 'hole'in the GPL model to their advantage before, and succeeded (I really, really wish I could cite the example, it was on/. a year ago about.. but I really can't remember.. I'm sorry. I'm not making this up)
This is what I don't understand.
By what logic is using unstable for your email server bad?
The only difference with unstable is that newer packages may break dependencies until they are fixed.. that's the only part of it that is 'unstable'
For reliability, it's as stable as anything else.
As for a mail server.. if you aren't securing things by hand, and configuring mail by hand in the first place, you are asking for it regardless of what distribution you are using.
Bob has a killer open source app, released under GPL, but it's not quite done.
Charlie's company is struggling for a simliar app, but is having trouble. Charlie discovere's Bob's project.
Charlie has his lawyers contact Bob to negotiate private licencing of the relevant code. Bob gets rich, Charlie's company prospers.
As for 'which is fairer'... I'm sorry, that totally depends on your personal wants and needs.
Those who willingly release under the BSD licence *KNOW* that a business can take their code and use it, proprietary, without them seeing a dime. I'm sure you won't find people who chose the BSD style license whining about 'not getting paid'
That's what I don't get about these stupid licencing arguments. It's all about what the copyright holder wants to do.. period.
I think that one thing to look at is who holds the rights to GPL code?
Let's say, hypothetically, that I write a functional app, X, and relase it under the GPL. Regardless of the GPL, it's still MY project, and MY application.
Now, let's say you fix a bug in it and send me a patch... in an email like 'Hey.. I fixed such-and-such a bug, here's the code if you want to include it in your tree'.
See the problem? You aren't licensing your code to me under the GPL.. you just gave me a patch, freely, and told me I can 'have' it. So I put it in my software... and again, release an updated version under GPL.
Now compay Z comes along and wants to talk exclusive deal with me for my code, because they don't want to use GPL. I am still 100% free to negotiate with them; I don't have to share anything with you, or even include you in the discussion. It's still my project, and I am not bound by the terms of the GPL.
However.. had you released your patch to me as an updated, GPL version of the code instead of just sending me a patch and saying 'here you go', it would be a different story (or if you just released the patch clearly stating it was under GPL.)
This is something we often don't think about or look at in GPL.. we sort of assume that anyone who contributes anything becomes a co-author.. but that's not necessarily true at all.
Remember, there's more to it than just GPL...
GPL only says what rights you have to use someone elses code.. ownership of additions to your average OSS project is something that needs to be dealt with above and beyond that.
Why?
First, it's certainly not cheap to launch the stuff into the sun (which is harder than you might think)
Secondly... rocketry is dangerous. What happens when the thing explodes in the upper atmosphere? Radioactive waste aerosolized and spread around the globe? Not a really good idea (and probably a primary reason for not doing it)
Economics is not a real science, it is a joke to call it such. I'm not saying economics is not a study, not something real.. but it's not science.
and the Nobel prize in Economics is not really a Nobel prize.
The Nobel prizes are handed out by the Nobel foundation, for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace.
As Economists felt left out, in 1968, the Bank of Sweden instituted a "Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize". Why? So they could hand out a "Nobel prize" in economics. It's still not a REAL Nobel.
First of all... what is a freeloader? Is someone who signs onto napster and downloads, but doens't share anything a freeloader? I think no.. the service does not require them to share anything. And those sharing do not require that others be sharing.
Secondly.. just because the majority wants something does not make it right. This is the reason for, say, the US Constitution.
"Congress shall make no law... etc..." means "No matter how much people bitch whine and scream, you CANNOT make certain laws"
I for one fear the majority. Who says the majority is qualified?
Slashdot Mirror
First.. As everyone always says.. There is no such thing as "X Windows". it's "X" or "The X window system"
Also, X predates microsoft.
ALSO... Windows is NOT a 'generic term for a type of GUI'. It is a specific, trademarked name of a line of operating system products sold by Microsoft.
1) Lindows is also phoenetically similar to Windows, so much that it OBVIOUSLY has something to do with windows (it does, after all)
2) Wind River is NOT similar to windows.
3) Wind River does make an OS, but it's not called 'WindOS'or anything. It's called 'VxWorks'.
There is no solid line between what constitutes conflict. It's bout what a reasonable person would assume if they see it.
And if they see 'Lindows', let's face it.. they may not think it's from microsoft, but they KNOW it has something to do with Windows.. which is the whole point of the name.
I mean, really.. are you telling me it was called Lindows for some reason OTHER than attracting attention due to it's similarity with Windows(tm)
.
And that trademark will never hold up in court, other than to not allow someone ELSE to trademark it.
It's not enforced> Many people, with their own custom kernels, call their kernel 'linux'. Alan could fork to his heart's delight.. Linus could not decide one day that it's not Linux any more, and stop him from using the name. Nor WOULD he, I imagine.
The trademark on Linux only serves to ensure nobody else can trademark it.
I have the feeling it's probably the same up here. After all, the guy did take the warrant to the cops.
Maybe his angle was that he could certainly get the warrant, but just couldn't execute it.
As for citizen's arrest.. same up here. It's on the books (The police really have no more power to arrest someone than the common citizen, technically). You just don't have the training to stand up in court and defend your actions.
Open source licenses do NOT require local changes to be distributed. They only cover under what terms you may distribute..
As for the conflict you see.. there is none.
The original author is NOT required to follow GPL.. he holds copyright. He can do WHATEVER HE WANTS with his code. It's others, who get his code by way of the GPL that must follow it.
Something created with entirely public funds should become public domain, not licensed under any other terms.
I'm not a GPL basher.. but I don't think the GPL is the place for it.
It should become public domain, with absolutely no restrictions attached to it whatsoever.
If someone wants to continue work and GPL it, great... their version would be GPL.
If someone wants to take it and fold it into a proprietary system, that's great too. Companies pay taxes too, you know.
Could be.. I mean, if you WERE distributing mp3's through napster without a contract from the recording company, you would be doing something illegal, right?
These companies are NOT running pirated software. They sent out 700,000 of these letters. They did not send them to 'suspsects'. They sent them to anyone who has a computer.
Copy protection methods cost MONEY to develop. My god.. do you know how much a dongle would drive up the manufacturing cost of each copy of a piece of software? A CD costs a penny to produce. The box, a few more pennies. A dongle? Get real.
And any method they come up with will be broken in a short period of time anyway.. so it's a waste of effort.
Actually... and I have no idea whether this is the same in the US or not...
But technically, if a private citizen (not a cop, I mean) showed up with a warrant, you'd have to let him exercise it, just as if he were a cop.
I know of one person anyway (This was in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) who, years ago when his credit card was being used fraudulently to look at porn, and he tracked it back to a local ISP... he went to the cops. The cops said "We don't really have any idea how to proceed.. sorry, nothing we can do (this was years ago)"
So.. he went to the courthouse, went to a Justice of the Peace, and filed for a search warrant. The Justice said "I don't think I can do that sir (it had never come up before)". The guy cited relevant sections of the law, and the judge politely asked for some time to review it.
The next day, he had a search warrant, to search the logs of the ISP in question to find out who the user was.
Now.. not wanting to piss anyone off, like the cops, he then took the warrant to THEM, and again requested their assistance, as he already had a warrant. They sent a couple guys with him, no problem.
What you say about proof is absolutely what the problem is. It's like the police sending letters to everyone saying "Please prove there is nothing illegal going on in your house", and then getting warrants for everyone who doesn't respond properly.
I like this to the following.
Let's say someone robs a jewelry store.
So now, the jewelry store sends letters to everyone in town saying hey have to open up their house and PROVE they don't have the goods, or they will show up with federal marshals and toss your house.
That's what the BSA is doing. That's how it works. Microsoft does it too. They send you a letter requesting that you voluntarily AUDIT your company to make sure you comply with all their licenses. They offer to send someone to 'assist' if you like. They also remind you of the dire consequences if you refuse.
The one thing, though, is.. how do you think they find out about you? They find out when you actually call to get licensing information, or to buy software.
In fact, I would NOT be surprised if, when you buy it through a VAR, the VAR submits all your information to Microsoft.
So say you buy 50 licenses of Win2k. A year later, your web page says you've grown in size, are shipping more product, whatever. Microsoft checks it's database.. hmm.. you didn't buy more licenses form them. What are the odds that you have 'stolen' their software?
This is one place where Free Software really has an advantage: You don't have to spend the same amount of resources auditing your licensing all the time.
What you say is true. It's the same in the US, and most other countries. (Though I think we use debit more in Canada, but that's another issue)
It's even worse than what you say.. it's not even about cash reserves. Even the numbers don't work out.
Money in the country has not been equal to cash in a long, long time.
Just look how banks work. It's a shame how it's not explained fundamentally in school.
Banks are NOT big vaults that store your money.. they are far, far more involved in the economy than that.
Say you need cash to start a business. You get a loan. The bank borrows this money from the Bank of Canada at the prime interest rate. Then they lend it to you, at their rate.
Then, of course, you buy something with that cash (Say you were loaned $10,000).
Now.. all those whom you paid with that money deposit THEIR money in the bank. Now... you need another $5000. The bank loans you this as well, out of the money that is on deposit from the other people.
So now, you have $5000 in your account (they just gave you a loan)
Collectively, the others have $10000.
So now, there is $15000 in circulation.. but only $10000 was put in in the first place. This happens over and over again.
So the ponit is.. if everyone took their money out, even if it was to transfer it to some kind of 'holding' bank that doens't lend out your money (such banks do exist, by the way), there simply would not be enough money out there. It's just not there.
Cash is a convenience.. and useful.. but we would be kidding ourselves if we thought our society worked on cash.
Even when everyone DID pay with cash.. the economy still does NOT run on cash.
Losing all 'rights' would mean he is not free to do anything with it whatsoever.
As I said:
He is free to sell his code to some company
He is free to issue it under whatever license he wants
He is free to not release it at all
The only thing he cannot do is negate the fact that he released it previously under GPL. That is a rather different story than 'doing whatever he wants with his code'.
Even though you seem to think most licenses allow you to revoke the license.. they are often not legal. Do you honestly think Microsft can say "Nobody is allowed to use Windows anymore, under penalty of law. We are revoking the license?" no. They can't. Because they already GRANTED that license to everyone.
He isn't handcuffed to the GPL version. He can ignore it, not support it, not use it, not distribute it.
You seem to have a narrow view of what kinds of things might be done with code.
Picture a library that does something specific.. say something like.. a new form of video compression.
You come out with a GPL version. Everyone loves it.
Then some company wants to use it in their proprietary product, and doesn't want to be bound by the gpl. You are free to license it to them under whatever terms you want.. you are not bound by the GPL... it's YOUR code.
He Can do whatever he wants with his code! It's HIS!
They *CAN* be placed on books. They just can't be placed on books by having a 'shrink-wrap' agreement on them... which is the REAL problem with software.
It's a good point. Why are there no shrink-wrap licenses on books?
You make several totally wrong statements in your post.
Firstly.. the GPL does not destroy the rights of the individual developer. He still holds the copyright on the code. He has not given that away.
And as the copyright holder, he can still do *whatever he wants* with his code. He is under no obligation to continue distributing it. He can release versions under whatever license he wants. He can sell the code to Microsoft. He can do anything he feels like with it.
In fact.. as the author, you are the ONLY person who can license that software to someone else under other terms. Everyone else is stuck with the GPL.
The only thing the author can't do is revoke the rights he granted others under GPL.
I keep hearing mention of the 'license' not allowin the author to change the license.
(going back to the GPL is allowed by the BSD license).
The author of the software is *NOT IN ANY WAY* bound by the license he chose to release the software under. He's not even bound to give you source under GPL if he distributes binaries. He holds the copyright; the code is not 'licensed' to him... it BELONGS to him.
Yes... if you receive code under the BSD license, you can re-release it yourself under GPL.. that may be true (I have no idea, sounds reasonable)
And Yes... if you receive code under the GPL, you cannot stard re-distributing it under BSD....
But again, the author of said code has no such restrictions.
We all know that cable as a medium has more bandwidth capabilities than telco copper....
His point is he wants an ISP that says
"we'll let the line go as fast as it can, and we'll let you do whatever you want, and we'll bill you for your traffic"
to each his own, but if I ever caught anyone in my company doing any automatic updates of servers from a cron script, I'd be mighty pissed off.
I don't care *HOW* stable it is, you don't upgrade servers automatically. You upgrade them for reasons, knowingly.
You should not rely on apt to fix your security problems.
Good points.. and these are both, in typical Gnu fashion, misleading statements (no, this is not a flame, it's the truth).
.companies have used this sort of 'hole'in the GPL model to their advantage before, and succeeded (I really, really wish I could cite the example, it was on /. a year ago about.. but I really can't remember.. I'm sorry. I'm not making this up)
Because the GPL does not permit me to revoke the rights it grants, I obviously cannot grant someone *exclusive* use if the code, because it's not within my power to revoke the GPL rights I've granted others.
Actually, I *CAN* strike a contract with someone for exclusive use, but I'll end up in court with them because I can't deliver that. Writing this contract, however, is not a violation of the GPL, though it's definately doing a contract in bad faith, etc, etc.
The point is, I am still free to license it to others under whatever terms I want. (I could even license it to them for exclusive use, but that might land me in court, becuase I can't deliver exclusivity)
It would be more plain to say "You can license it under any terms you want to anyone, you are still the owner, but you cannot revoke the rights granted to others via GPL.
As for the second statement:
Read the fine print there...It is making assumptions about what transpired and how.
They are assuming that Y released his v2 code under GPL... and therefore, if X puts it in HIS version, he now has to follow the GPL.
However, if Y simply submits a patch to X saying 'here's a bugfix dude' it's a different story. See the point?
I'm not saying that X owns all submitted code by default.. just that it's not as black and white as the GPL FAQ makes it out to be.
PRetend I had a license that didn't stipulate either way.. say you just saw my code as my buddy, worked on it, and submitted a small bugfix to me. Are you now a co-author? No. It's still my code.
If you wrote half of it... then we would obviously discuss who owned what.
The problem with OSS Projects is nobody acutally discusses the terms of code submission into the project, and poeple submitting code often forget to 'license' their code back to the project.
Remember.. this FAQ is not a real legal opinion..
This is what I don't understand.
By what logic is using unstable for your email server bad?
The only difference with unstable is that newer packages may break dependencies until they are fixed.. that's the only part of it that is 'unstable'
For reliability, it's as stable as anything else.
As for a mail server.. if you aren't securing things by hand, and configuring mail by hand in the first place, you are asking for it regardless of what distribution you are using.
Bob has a killer open source app, released under GPL, but it's not quite done.
Charlie's company is struggling for a simliar app, but is having trouble. Charlie discovere's Bob's project.
Charlie has his lawyers contact Bob to negotiate private licencing of the relevant code. Bob gets rich, Charlie's company prospers.
As for 'which is fairer'... I'm sorry, that totally depends on your personal wants and needs.
Those who willingly release under the BSD licence *KNOW* that a business can take their code and use it, proprietary, without them seeing a dime. I'm sure you won't find people who chose the BSD style license whining about 'not getting paid'
That's what I don't get about these stupid licencing arguments. It's all about what the copyright holder wants to do.. period.
I think that one thing to look at is who holds the rights to GPL code?
Let's say, hypothetically, that I write a functional app, X, and relase it under the GPL. Regardless of the GPL, it's still MY project, and MY application.
Now, let's say you fix a bug in it and send me a patch... in an email like 'Hey.. I fixed such-and-such a bug, here's the code if you want to include it in your tree'.
See the problem? You aren't licensing your code to me under the GPL.. you just gave me a patch, freely, and told me I can 'have' it. So I put it in my software... and again, release an updated version under GPL.
Now compay Z comes along and wants to talk exclusive deal with me for my code, because they don't want to use GPL. I am still 100% free to negotiate with them; I don't have to share anything with you, or even include you in the discussion. It's still my project, and I am not bound by the terms of the GPL.
However.. had you released your patch to me as an updated, GPL version of the code instead of just sending me a patch and saying 'here you go', it would be a different story (or if you just released the patch clearly stating it was under GPL.)
This is something we often don't think about or look at in GPL.. we sort of assume that anyone who contributes anything becomes a co-author.. but that's not necessarily true at all.
Remember, there's more to it than just GPL...
GPL only says what rights you have to use someone elses code.. ownership of additions to your average OSS project is something that needs to be dealt with above and beyond that.
Why?
First, it's certainly not cheap to launch the stuff into the sun (which is harder than you might think)
Secondly... rocketry is dangerous. What happens when the thing explodes in the upper atmosphere? Radioactive waste aerosolized and spread around the globe? Not a really good idea (and probably a primary reason for not doing it)
Economics is not a real science, it is a joke to call it such. I'm not saying economics is not a study, not something real.. but it's not science.
and the Nobel prize in Economics is not really a Nobel prize.
The Nobel prizes are handed out by the Nobel foundation, for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace.
As Economists felt left out, in 1968, the Bank of Sweden instituted a "Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize". Why? So they could hand out a "Nobel prize" in economics. It's still not a REAL Nobel.
Feh.
Several thoughts spring to mind.
First of all... what is a freeloader? Is someone who signs onto napster and downloads, but doens't share anything a freeloader? I think no.. the service does not require them to share anything. And those sharing do not require that others be sharing.
Secondly.. just because the majority wants something does not make it right. This is the reason for, say, the US Constitution.
"Congress shall make no law... etc..." means "No matter how much people bitch whine and scream, you CANNOT make certain laws"
I for one fear the majority. Who says the majority is qualified?