Plan 9 license

[John Cowan]

On Sun, 3 Sep 2000, Angelo Schneider wrote:

> freedom means to be free to do and to let do what you want.
> I do not know of any other definition.

Freedom is freedom to act, or not to act, in a certain way.  What
action, or inaction, of the creator is prevented when I make
unauthorized copies of his works?

> > You're entitled to devise your own moral code, of course.
> > 
> Sure, do you agree or not, would be more interesting to me.

I don't.  It is wrong, but it is not *as* wrong.  It is wrong to
drive at 90 km/hr in a 50 km/hr road, but to claim that this is
as wrong as murder strikes me as absurd.

> I was not talking about that, strange that you draw this from my 
> simple example ;-)

You said "If you invent ... [some]one will build a ship ... if *he*
does not like you, you will never ride in it ...."   This suggests that
there is only one ship-builder.  If there are many, *someone* will
be willing to take your money.

> Most propritary software organizations are on CMM level 1. 

What is "CMM"?  What is "CMM level 1"?

> The same is true for open source software and free software.
> In terms of effort put into the software and return of investment
> most OS and FS software performs very bad. Much more bad then
> most a standard priprietary software house.

That's why so matter of the latter fail to survive, no doubt.

> Most of the business models mentioned there would not work if
> OS or FS would not allready exist.
> They only can work because millions of developer monthes are 
> allready DONE. Most of them unpayd.

Very true.  Most businesses depend to one degree or another on
something already available in the environment.  Timber companies
wouldn't be able to get started if there hadn't been forests that
grew by themselves.

> So the real winners are the compayies which say: "Well, I'm
> smart, I know linux. Lets go and do some consulting."
> (substitute linux with your favorite OS/FS work) And all this
> companies do not pay anything back to anybody. Neither
> the public nor the creator. (Besides paying sales tax)

If we look at pieces of software smaller than a whole operating
system, it often turns out to be true that the person who knows
them best, and can make the most money consulting, *is* the creator.

But in fact companies that make a living consulting on open source
often do quite a bit of payback to the public, in the form of
explicit or implicit support for software creators.

> Of course the real winners are companies which now can sell
> hardware for linux boxes. Those have a benfit in OS development.
> (again substitute 'linux box' for any OS/FS work which can be
> a base for a product on top of it) 

Yes, but the advantage applies equally to all of them.  Hardware
companies benefit when software is a commodity item, and so do
consumers.

> And it even goes farer, now we are close to a change which 
> makes contracts which want the creator to surrender his rights
> void.

Which rights, exactly?  The *droit d'auteur*, or the *droit d'exploitation*?

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan at ccil.org
"[O]n the whole I'd rather make love than shoot guns [...]"
	--Eric Raymond