gpl backlash?

[Forrest J. Cavalier III]

From:             bruce at perens.com
> From: "Forrest J. Cavalier III" <mibsoft at mibsoftware.com>
> > If the application was created without ever using the GPL-ed code, 
> > it is clearly not a derivative work until the end user combines it
> > with the GPL-ed code.
> 
> Right. And if the end-user does the combining, who is responsible?
> Does the developer of the application _cause_ the end-user to combine
> the library with the application? I'd say so, because the application
> contains instructions in the ELF header to link in that library at run-time.
> 

Wow.  I want to understand why you think there is an ethical
problem.  (This thread already concluded that the laws and
maybe even the GPL are inadequate to prevent the ethical
maladies you see.)

I'd rather not touch the browser frame analogy, because while
analogies are a good teaching mechanism to learn about the
unfamilar, they are worthless when trying to discuss ethics
and laws.  "Almost like" is not good enough to discern the
fine points....We are all software developers here, so I
don't think we are discussing the unfamiliar.

Please don't consider any of the questions here an attack on
your views or persuasion to change them.  They are not rhetorical
questions. I really do want to understand the ethics you hold.

Situation:

A developer has created an application which has a market only
because of GPL'ed ("enabling") software.  They never used GPL'ed
code in its development, and the only time a work derived from
GPL is created, is when the end user combines the application
with the enabling software.

We agreed copyright law says the developer has not created a
derivative work.  But you say that the developer has benefitted
from the GPL'ed work UNFAIRLY.  Why?

Situation B:
What if the GPL'ed enabling code was EXPRESSLY created to enable
such commercial applications to be developed?  Is that still
unfair?  Is there still an ethical issue?

Situation C:
What if an application developer decides to GPL part of the 
application which they wrote without any previously GPL'ed software
then releases that portion under the GPL (not the LGPL), and
commercially licenses the other part.  (This is very close to one
open source business model.)  In your ethical view, are they required
to GPL all of it, if any of it was GPL'ed?  (Note that nothing
was previously GPL'ed.)

---------------------------

Is the GPL's main purpose to protect the freedoms of the author
or is it the virus to make more free software by forcing everything
that it ever touches to be free?  

I've always believed (and reading the GPL preamble and learning
of RMS's writings on the subject) that the GPL's main purpose was
about freedom for the authors.  There is language in the GPL
discussing aggregate works, non-derived works, et al, which
could have easily been written differently to promote a purpose
of spreading free software.

Civilization (and commerce in particular) is entirely based on
the availability of interrelated goods and services.  Why do you
think it is unethical to sell products into a market environment which
exists only because of GPL'ed software?  What ethical tenet does
this violate?

There are other licenses (not the GPL) which prohibit any
combination with commercial software, either as an aggregate, or
derived work.  If an author is more concerned with who makes
money, rather than freedom, they should not use the GPL.  Do you
have changes you'd like to see in the GPL to make it meet your
ethics better?

Forrest J. Cavalier III, Mib Software  Voice 570-992-8824 
The Reuse RKT: Efficient awareness for software reuse: Free WWW site
lists over 6000 of the most popular open source libraries, functions,
and applications.  http://www.mibsoftware.com/reuse/