Re: Does the LGPL encourage sharing of code?

On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 13:39, Tony Lambregts wrote:

> 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).

I do not see the license as helping (or hurting) Linux's survival.  The
fact that there is development (and fixing) happening is all people care
about.  Check out the phenomonal growth of FreeBSD.  It uses the BSD
license for the most part, and people are not afraid of it going away.

Heck!  There are many people afraid that Windows will never go away
since it has a lot of development happening on it.  :)

Sean

P.S.  You need to be careful with that delete line macro.  You replied
both to Brett and Roger, buy you only referred to Brett as saying he
wrote it.

P.P.S.  I have a copy of Geos somewhere in my house.  My father wants me
to take his DOS v1.1 manual off his hands.  Ah!  The good, old days. :)
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