Re: Does the LGPL encourage sharing of code?

Brett Glass wrote:

 >At 10:17 AM 4/15/2002, Roger Fujii wrote:
 >
 >>Tony Lambregts wrote:
 >>
 >>>Brett Glass wrote:
 >>>
 >>>>The purpose of the GPL is to kill commercial software -- and, hence,
 >>>>commerce. And, hence, the software economy.
 >>>>
 >>>The purpose of the GPL is to kill "propritory software" not commercial
 >>>software. Now you may think that the Two are equivilant but you are
 >>>mistaken.
 >>>
 >>They may not be equivalent, but I'm not sure you can make a compelling
 >>case that they are not linked.
 >>
Here is the link: a subset of proprietory software is commercal software
and a subset of commercial software is proprietory.  (a subset balls are
round and a subset of round things are balls) they are linked yes but
they are not equivilant.

 >
 >The GPL zealots misuse the word "proprietary" to conceal the fact that
 >what they seek to destroy is legitimate business -- and people's 
livelihoods.
 >
Are people supposed to assume that I am a zealot now and that I have
this goal of destroying peoples livelihoods.  You have choosen some very
loaded words...

As it has been pointed out before most programmers are not working on
proprietary and commercial software  A very large percenatage of
programmers work for large corporations, their livelihoods are not at
risk at all. Yes the  automobile put the buggy whip manufactures out of
business but it created jobs for automoble mechanics and repair shops. 
Companies that are not prepaired to adapt to changing ecconomic
conditions _will_ fail, that happens.  Henry Ford and others did not
seek to destroy the buggy whip company's and the companies that
surrvived made car seats or other things.  *GPL is an economic reality
and companies that ignore it do so at thier own risk.  There are more
than a few company's that have embraced copyleft and GPL, some of them
will fail and some of them will succed.

I am not a GPL zealot and I know what proprietary means and it is not a
question of semantics.

 >
 >
 >>Actually, in the longer term, it's the people you mention who will be
 >>worse off, as shrink-wrapped products is the area that that is most
 >>vulnerable.
 >>
Just because I can cook my own meals doesn't keep restraunts from making
money,  nor dose the fact I can change my own oil  put  my local garage
out of business,  and the fact I can  legaly download a copy of RedHat
will not put them out of business.  Why is that? It is because they all
provide a service that makes my life easier. If _I_ run into a problem
with installing RedHat most likely I don't need to call anybody but even
I like backup. Software will continue to improve the sky will not fall.

 >>It is quite possible that BeOS might have been able to eek
 >>out a living if it weren't for linux.
 >>
 >
 >BeOS was caught between two predatory entities: Microsoft and the GPL.
 >For this reason, it could not succeed, even though it was superior to 
both
 >Windows and Linux.
 >
In this case I would say you are at least partly  right.  Once again you
interesting use of words makes you loose points. Do you recall a little
program named Geos, It won all kinds of awards for excellence  about ten
or twelve years ago.  (lasted about 6 months). The only reason that
Linux survives in todays marketplace is because people can count on it
not going away, (because it is GPL).


Tony Lambregts