Re: GNU License, Again

[David Kastrup]

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org> writes:

>    The _growth_ and evolution of this pool is important: stagnation is
>    not going to cut it much in a rapidly evolving landscape.
>
> It is important, but not the goal of the GPL and never was.

Again, your views clash with that of the actual author of the GPL,
even though you feel qualified for some reason to speak for him.

Let us read what he himself has to say about that:

<URL:http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/pragmatic.html>

    My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal:
    spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free
    software to spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids
    cooperation, and thus make our society better.

    That's the basic reason why the GNU General Public License is
    written the way it is--as a copyleft. All code added to a
    GPL-covered program must be free software, even if it is put in a
    separate file. I make my code available for use in free software,
    and not for use in proprietary software, in order to encourage
    other people who write software to make it free as well. I figure
    that since proprietary software developers use copyright to stop
    us from sharing, we cooperators can use copyright to give other
    cooperators an advantage of their own: they can use our code.

Is this not rather clearly expressed?  Why do you feel that you are
better qualified to state Stallman's views than Stallman himself?

I don't question your loyalty to Stallman, but you are not doing him a
favor by making a spectacle of yourself and the GNU project by
misrepresenting his views, even if it may be done in good faith.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum