Re: Economics and the GPL

Sean C. Farley wrote:

>On Sat, 15 Jun 2002 02:30, Francois Gouget wrote:
>
>  
>
>>On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Deven T. Corzine wrote:
>>
>>>To be exacting about this, the GPL is just as "proprietary" as Microsoft's
>>>EULA is.  The proprietor (such as it were) of GPL code is the community of
>>>developers willing to operate under the restrictions of the GPL, rather
>>>than a single legal entity.  In fact, it is the coercion within the GPL
>>>which makes it proprietary -- the BSD and X11 licenses are not proprietary.
>>>      
>>>
>>There you go again completely distorting the meaning of words just to
>>fit your claims.
>>    
>>
>
>I may or may not agree with the coercion word, but his use of
>proprietary appears correct to me.  In fact, I have thought this way
>about the GPL being a community-based proprietor for more than a year.
>
>  
>
The following are links to definintions for proprietary

http://e-comm.webopedia.com/TERM/p/proprietary.html

http://searchsystemsmanagement.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid20_gci214576,00.html

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=proprietary

No one can have exclusive rights to GPL software. This use of the word 
proprietory for something that anyone can buy, sell, or give away just 
drives me crazy. *_Anyone_*  is not group it is all groups (even 
Microsoft can sell GPL software) , and therefore proprietory cannot 
apply.  I can't believe this has to be pointed out.  

Words have definitions for a reason and you can't just arbitrarily 
change that definition. so please just knock it off


Tony Lambregts