"Violation"

Mark Koek mark at koek.net
Fri Mar 24 17:35:02 UTC 2000


David Johnson wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 24 Mar 2000, W. Yip wrote:
> 
> > Conventional licenses are more restrictive, while OSS licenses
> > are so permissive, even 'viral', that the license threatens the very
> > foundations of the notion of copyright as property.
> 
> I hope not! If no one owned emacs or gcc, then there would be no one to
> enforce their GPL provisions. Whether or not something is "owned" by an
> individual, a caretaker, a foundation or even a government agency, it
> is still property. If one dislikes information as property, the only
> honest way to go, in my opinion, is public domain.

The GPL is dishonest, then?

RMS dislikes the notion of information as property. Yet he used the
provisions of the intellectual property system to create the GPL, to
promote freedom.

Personally, I like this kind of pragmatic approach. Change the system
from within.


Mark



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