Re: Not "Satanism;" realism.

[stan johnson <sjohnson@gwi.net>]

** Reply to note from Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Fri, 01 Jan 1999   
22:37:29 -0700 
 use the  
>code freely released by others, for their own proprietary purposes.   
 
Precisely. In the scientific world, this is standard practice. It's 
also hailed as one of the great benefits of open source. But the GPL 
denies it. 
 
Wrong. In the scientific world, as distinguished from the world of   
invention and marketing, it is not standard practise to incorporate   
other's work in one's own (Watson and Crick being the first example of   
such intellectual thievery I can recall) nor to try to convert freely   
published information into proprietary knowledge. It is true of course   
that all invention in the physical world depends on predecessors, but   
only the new contribution can be held as property. Trying to draw a   
parallel between a purely intellectual creation such as software, and   
the discovery of pre-existing relationships in the natural world is   
delusion. 
 
 What I will not do is what the GPL does: kill developers' markets by  
 releasing open source code, and then not give back to those  
 developers by granting them the right to build on it and make money.   
 This is unethical and unfair, and I won't be a party to it. 
 
So, as must be more than abundantly evident to anyone on the list,   
the crux of the issue is whether OS people who wish to release their   
code under a license which intends to prevent incorporation of their   
product into someone else's secret, for-profit product should be   
tolerated in doing so or not. Clearly you may, and do, release your   
product under a different license; the question is whether others must   
be compelled to follow your choice. I have no doubt whatever that if   
you could outlaw the GPL you would do so. Fortunately, you do not   
have that power. 


-- 
Stan Johnson    TeamOS/2
sjohnson@gwi.net