Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Scott Moore
Date : Fri Aug 26 2005 05:06 pm

Randy Howard wrote:

> 
> FWIW, I have worked on open source projects, and don't have a 
> problem with them either.  I simply don't see it as an "us 
> versus them" problem.  The Stallman crowd wants to make (almost 
> literally) a holy war out of it.

Thats pretty much the purpose. There is no fundamental conflict
between openware, freeware and paidware. In fact, all seem to have
found their place, each has value. Mr. Stallman has seen software as
a fundamentally different ground, and believes that it needs to
be treated differently. The point being that the freeware/openware
movement was tolerant of paidware, and that hasn't been advancing
Mr. Stallman's cause. So, predictably, Stallman then attacked
the freeware/openware movements as not being on the "right" side
either.

There is no fundamental conflict between paidware and openware/freeware,
since entities producing paidware have sufficient protection of law for
their purpose, and openware/freeware have sufficient protection of
law for their purpose (including the GNU and BSD licenses).

Even the avowed purpose of the GNU organization (listed on their
web site) of removing the need to have paid software at all is
covered under the current laws, since (as the GNU site and Mr.
Stallman claims) the availability of openware/freeware should
drive paidware to extinction.

With all of this, why is it necessary for Mr. Stallman, and his
followers to assert that the system will not be correct until paidware
is abolished? Its a good question, and I suspect the answer lies in
the history of socialist systems and capitalist systems living
side by side. For example, people occasionally avoid socialized
medicine in countries where that is the law by obtaining care in
neighboring countries. Government monopolies set up here such as
the telephone company have massive defections when people are offered
a choice (as is in fact happening now).

Stallman's goal was not, and is not, to provide an alternative to
paid software. It is to eliminate paid software, or association with it
(what Stallman has referred to as the "taint" of paid software). It
is not enough that paid software and open/freeware exist side by
side, or even that the "superiority" of open/freeware drive out
paidware. Rather, paidware must be eliminated at all costs.

This, I believe, goes a long way to explain why Stallman followers
must state their case in strong moral terms. To them, its a revolution,
not a state of being.

.