For Approval: TURKIX PUBLIC LICENSE

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 12:35:39 -0700, David K. Gasaway <dave at gasaway.org>  
wrote:

> Do you mean to say that a service provider cannot charge for a shell  
> account that runs CLI GPL software?  Certainly, it can.

Sure he can. Whether he should be able to might be questioned, but the
philosophical problem is not with using pure GPL programs.

> There are many ways to provide GPL software based services; HTTP access 
> is but one. The point is, this perceived "limitation" of the GPL is 
> actually quite intentional.

It might be, but at least to some GPL-people (including RMS), it can be a
breach of the free software philosophy.

The problem is that you can take a GPL product and enhance it, and then use
it on a server to provide a commercial service *without* giving your  
changes
back to the community.
So, you get all the benefits of using GPL software without having to  
provide
the desired benefits to the free software community. This is counter to the
intent of the GPL.

<URL:http://old.lwn.net/daily/fsf-agpl.php3>

/L
-- 
Lasse R. Nielsen - atwork at infimum.dk
  'Faith without judgement merely degrades the spirit divine'