[CREATE] food for thought about the general public's perception

[Yuval Levy]

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoToolsNG/message/33466

there is a whole story in the thread for those who want to spend the 
time to read it.

Summary: the usual thug shout out loudest that open source is the root 
cause of all problems. even driven in a corner he is still unrepentant. 
And nobody was trying to preach Freedom there.

Participation in Open Source can be explained in many ways. For some it 
is idealism, social engagement, community. For others it is ego-centric 
self-interest. And for many it is somewhere in between. Left and right 
are part of the whole political spectrum, in Open Source like in art and 
in real life. And where left and right can't cooperate the system is 
guaranteed to breakdown.

In terms of real and perceived Freedom, I personally find more Freedom 
in BSD than in GPL; and in public domain more than in BSD. YMMV. It is 
also not the most important criteria to me when choosing which software 
to use; or which one to contribute to. I'm pragmatic and relaxed about 
the choice of license and have contributed to GPL and BSD projects with 
equal passion.

What I can not live with (and where I quickly become dogmatic) is 
disrespect for intellectual property / licensing terms. And this is a 
real concern I have with the general public. I've seen GPL violations; 
CC violations; (C) violations; and all of them are equally unacceptable 
to me no matter if the concerned party is a Free or proprietary creator.

Yuv