[Clipart] [OT] PD and Software

[Jonathan Phillips]

Yeah, more restrictive licenses exist because of closed copyright law.
The GPL is very much the protective license for intellectual property
and provides a mechanism in our society which allows the hegemony of
individuality to prevail over public growth....

I still vote for PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Jon


On Tue, 2004-04-13 at 11:52, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> cws456456 at aol.com wrote:
> 
> > Can Software be released to the Public Domain?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > If so, wouldn't that be the most "free" and "open" way to release it?
> 
> A lot of people would agree with you, a lot of people would disagree.
> 
> This goes back to the old question, "which is the most free society, the one 
> that gives you the most freedoms, or the ones that has rules designed to 
> protect your freedom?".
> 
> People in the first group generally tend to prefer licenses like BSD, MIT, 
> and X11.  These licenses essentially ammount to "you can do anything you 
> want with this".  In practice, they are as good as Public Domain.
> 
> People in the latter group prefer more restrictive licenses like the GPL, 
> LGPL (and perhaps SISSL).  These licenses have more restrictions, as they 
> are intended to promote and encourage the existence of free software.
> 
> > I think that woudl clear up a lot of the GPL, LGPL, BSD, QRS, TUV, WTH,
>  > CWS, BOB etc etc ad nuseum...  debates.
> 
> Almost all those debates essentially come down to the question above.
> 
> > Just pure and simple. No one could say that it is "non-free".
>  > No one could ever call it closed.
> 
> True, and no one does.  They *are* free, and they are not closed.
> 
> 
> > Wouldn't that be great?
> 
> Microsoft certainly loves it.  They are very fond of grabbing other people's 
> works, inserting it in Windows and calling it an "innovation".  In some 
> cases (e.g. Kerberos) they will then proceed to change the protocols in a 
> propietary secret way.  Then use your own work to compete against you, push 
> you out of the market, and then use your work as another tool to lock-in 
> customers (Kerberos).
> 
> Notice, Microsoft doesn't have a problem with open source.  They have been 
> using it for years.  It is the GPL they don't like.  Because the GPL is the 
> one license that doesn't permit them to take an unfair advantage of other 
> people's work and then claim they did it.
> 
> The first group likes it better that way, the second group does not.  Again, 
> it comes down to how you answer the question I posed above.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
-- 

Jon Phillips
Graduate Researcher
Visual Arts Department

PO BOX 948667
LA JOLLA, CA 
92037
USA

cell.858.361.2811
jon at rejon.org
http://www.rejon.org