RE: GPL and Economics

> > The point is that each transaction on the market limits the possible
> > future choices of people on the market, so it is not truely free in
> > the meaning of a normal free market.
> 
> But that's the point of copyleft!  

Indeed and that is why I don't like it.

> By releasing modified code that
> others have released under the GPL (any copyleft license, as 
> what a lot
> of people state as being xGPL-specific is just basic 
> copyleft) you have
> entered into contracts with all of the previous developers of that
> code.  This is no different from a proprietary vendor who makes use of
> several other proprietary libraries. If they want to change 
> the license
> on their end product to something that is against the terms of their
> contracts to use those libraries, they must contact each 
> library vendor
> to change the contract.

If they want to distribute the libraries certainly.

However the GPL tries to do futher than that and tries
to claim even applications dynamically linked to the library.

Normal proprietory vendors normally doesn't care since the
end user must buy the library anyway in order to use it.

> Both individual contributors and the proprietary vendor above may
> relicense/reuse their own work however they want, but that 
> doesn't give
> them the right to reuse the work of others in violation of 
> the contract
> terms with which they received rights to distribute that work.

Naturally. But it is the viral aspect of the GPL I'm against
not the non-viral part. Normal contract term are usually non-viral
so no problem there.