hi,
Prabhu Ramachandran wrote on Thu, Sep 19, 2002 at 11:15:05PM +0530:
prabhu> SK> priorities with various freedoms. Some freedoms need to give
prabhu> SK> way to the others. I love quoting how RMS explained this: "My
prabhu> SK> freedom to swing my arm ends at the point where your nose
prabhu> SK> begins".
prabhu>
prabhu> I dont think that quote is originally RMS's but I dont know the
prabhu> original source either (was it Jefferson?).
No. RMS said this in his visit to chennai at MIT, Chromepet:
http://www.chennailug.org/rms-chennai.txt
Yes, I was quoting it from my memory and hence I interchanged a few
words (intent however remains the same).
prabhu> I pray, how it is that you have such great powers to know what other
prabhu> people see or don't see? Do you think everyone out there is stupid or
prabhu> can't read English? Well you do have a point. Most folks cant read
prabhu> legalese anyway, maybe even the lawyers can't. Maybe thats the whole
prabhu> secret!
I had no intentions of telling that people can't read english or that
people can't read legalese. I was trying to tell that GPL seems
restrictive because it makes sure the freedom goes with the software and
to do this it makes us give way to other less prioritized freedoms. I
had no intentions of telling that non-GPLed free licenses are wrong.
Most of us (including me) use and hail the use of other free licenses.
prabhu> What abuse? They use it and you allow it or disallow it (depending on
prabhu> the license you use). When you choose to be abused its no longer
prabhu> abuse. So whats the big deal? Its just a manifestation of freedom.
I shouldn't have used to word abuse. It was an instinct that made me use
the word. When we look at how BSD itself has been "used" by Apple
inc., it made me use strong words. However had FreeBSD been
licensed under the GPL I'm pretty sure MacOSX wouldn't have had
so many people dangled to it now.
prabhu> SK> We can also find a lot of people who write free software
prabhu> SK> releasing their code under non-GPLed free licenses such as the
prabhu> SK> BSD license giving various reasons:
prabhu>
prabhu> Aha! there you have struck your proverbial fist on my proverbial nose.
prabhu>
prabhu> SK> * Under GPL my software wont develop as fast as it would if
prabhu> SK> I release it under the BSD license * There might be "good"
prabhu>
prabhu> Which is possible, mind you.
Agreed. BSD lets _anyone_ develop / add features to your code. That
might be, ummm... in my view *evil* proprietary software companies too
;) I'm not against people making money or using non-free software to get
their job done (if they have all that money). The main intent of this
thread was to ask if ILUGC should encourage the use of non-free
softwares by giving demos of such software.
prabhu> Its usually not fame. Its just that there is a good chance that
prabhu> better software will be available.
Considering RMS's vision of giving freedom to all people, we would
definitely note that when all people are free from the hands of
proprietary software all of them would be working on free softwares and
we would all have good quality free softwares. I would again like to
quote RMS's speech at chennai:
"The important thing is to spread freedom to as many people as possible
and ultimately to everyone. Thats the goal thats worth striving for. We
have to remember that goal. because the most important thing for
reaching a distant goal is to remember the goal. if you forget where
you've headed you're going to end-up somewhere else! and is idealism
really impractical? Not at all. If you are a distant goal, there are
only two ways to reach it. one of them is to have a lot of money. and
the other is idealism. because idealism will enable you to keep on going
until you get there, otherwise you'd just give it up. so we don't have a
lot of money. so we have to have this idealism instead. there's nothing
more practical like idealism. The GNU system and the GNU/Linux variants
are our idealism made real. But, very few people are saying this to the
users of GNU/Linux"
When all people write free softwares we will have good quality free
softwares. and it _would_ be possible to have a lot of quality code
coming out of free softwares.
prabhu> SK> I want my software to be "famous".
prabhu>
prabhu> Ofcourse I do. I write software so that its used well. Not so that
prabhu> its languishing in some idealistic tower of some apparently pure
prabhu> license. I do what I think is best for the community. In my case
prabhu> MayaVi would not have been possible but for Python and VTK, which are
prabhu> both licensed under a BSD style license.
hehe.. I never even realised / thought about mayavi when I was posting
the previous mail. :D (and I never knew prabhu would take it to himself
:D)
prabhu> SK> software isn't abused. By all this I'm not trying to
prabhu> SK> discourage the use of other free software licenses. My humble
prabhu>
prabhu> In case you didn't notice, you just did.
Oh I did?
prabhu> There are other licenses that let you share and enjoy as much if not
prabhu> more freedom. Please keep that in mind.
I hate repeating the same thing again and again. other free softwares
licenses are good too and there has been a lot of contribution to the
society from those softwares which were released under non-GPLed
licenses. Anything that is free is good. But its just that it would be
better if it assured the freedom. I was just trying to tell that GPL is
a way to protect the freedom that your free software offers someone.
prabhu> Because we are ILUGC and not FSF.
Do you remember what ILUGC's index page reads?
<quote>
We are a heterogeneous group of computer users from the South
Indian city of Chennai (formerly, Madras), united in our use and support
of Free Software in general and the GNU/Linux operating system in
particular
</quote>
Probably I have been in this group without knowing that we not only
support the use of free softwares but also non-free softwares. (thats as
good as saying we are Chennai ALL software users group?) Does the index
page need a change?
Never did I say, in any of my posts, that we shouldn't feature free
softwares like *BSD or cygwin. It has always been a nice thing about
ILUGC because we have never stuck ourselves to one particular OS or
distro or whatever.
prabhu> Finally, please consider reading this article.
prabhu>
prabhu> http://www.softpanorama.org/Copyright/License_classification/index.shtml
prabhu>
prabhu> Vikram mailed me this URL and I read most of it. Its a very nice
prabhu> article and makes some very interesting points.
Yes it did and I happened to know a lot of things. :)
prabhu> Eats first, morals after.
prabhu> -- Bertolt Brecht, "The Threepenny Opera"
WOW! I'm going to steal your food next ;)
-Suraj
PS: Its fun for me too to be flaming but then in the larger interest of
the members here I would stop responding to this thread. Primarily
because I, probably by a mistake, thought ILUGC wants to support free
softwares and that it wouldn't make sense if it supports non-free
softwares too. *shrug* so, do I conclude that ILUGC would support
non-free softwares?
--
+----------------------------------------------<suraj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>--+
| What worth are our still senses, lest they bow |
| in reverence, guided by the adorable |
| (prayer - 9), Thirukkural |
+--<http://www.symonds.net/~suraj/>------------------------------------+
