Re: FLTK? (REALLY OT: licenses)

[Enrico Tassi <gareuselesinge@...>]

On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 04:27:22AM -0700, Vijay Aswadhati wrote:
> > 
> > On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 01:27:55AM -0700, Vijay Aswadhati wrote:
> > > software is not really 'free' as in 'freedom'.
> > 
> > Brr...
> > If you speak of freedom, in the sense of Free Software, and you think
> > GPL software is not Free.. may be you missed something.
> 
> Is that 'Brr...' a restrained 'Grrr' ;-). No I did not miss anything.
> But countless others may have... 

It is a /[GB]rr../ :) no fight :)
(but I think you don't give to the ethical stuff the same importance I do).

> > So maybe you are talking of free beer saying 'free' as in 'freedom'.
> 
> No I am not. Let me see if an analogy helps: GPL is like 'Godfather' - I
> do you a favor and I will want a favor in return later and return you
> 'MUST'.

I believe that a society in which _musts_ are removed would be really
fine, but the real world is really far, especially when there are
some $$ around... Laws are here for that reason I think. I usually find
them odd and intrusive, but since nobody thinks to others when he does
something... they became necessary.

Have you ever heard of GPL projects asked to change to (for exaple)
MIT? I've head (for sure) of at least one. Obviously by someone
interested in using the software commercially (not in being more free to
give back contributes). The odd stuff Is that you can use GPL software
commercially (but you can't negate that right to others).

One time I discussed with a "manager" that was interested in using one
of my projects commercially (and incredibly he contacted us, while he
could use it without even ask us). So I think he is an honest guy.
But the only think he had not clear about GPL was the question:
"Can we have a privative on you software?". He was not interested in
breaking the GPL license, or in not giving us some reward, but in
fighting the competitors.
This sounds fine, for a "manager". But consider the free software (and
even the only tech aspect open source) movement. With free software we
are competing against big fishes (at least for me, on moral things, not
only technical stuff) and you surely agree with me that what make M$
and others dislike Linux is that it works. They like BSD, because it
works. ??$@??@ :-O
The difference for them is that they can't take Linux, make it
better, improve it, sell it... and left all the competitors behind. So it
appears as an useless investment for them and only an enemy.
(obviously big companies are not interested in the freedom of their
users, and enclosing them in and the competitors out is a priority).

 Just for fun: another manager asked us to completely rewrite it
 (exclusively with _python_) sine the GPL was not fine for him :)

I believe that the freedom that MIT and GPL gives to the user is
important (even if they don't understand it).
I write software for fun, and sometimes it works fine. I'll be really
unhappy If I'll find someone that uses a derivate of my software that
negates him the freedoms I wanted. With GPL I hope this is not
possible, with MIT it could happen.

Few days ago I've released under MIT my cURL LUA bindings, since I
wanted to thank the LUA community (and since it was not that big stuff
to keep protected with GLP), but I'll feel really bad if I'll see
someone improve them without giving back to the LUA community.

> We could talk more about it over a 'free' beer if you happen to attend
> the Lua workshop in San Jose.

I'll not be there :( but I'd love to be...
I hope some stuff about the talks will be available online so that I'll
not miss the whole stuff.

ciao
-- 
Enrico Tassi