[Discuss] OSS licenses (was Home NAS redux)

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

> From: Mark Woodward [mailto:markw at mohawksoft.com]
> 
> The freedom to deny freedom is NOT a freedom. By combining the FREE
> software with NON-FREE software you can create NON-FREE software. This
> does not protect FREE software.

This is not a freedom of denying freedom.  It does not deny any freedom - Any 3rd party recipient of the non-free software can still obtain the free software.


> It is your right to create non-free software. It is your time and effort
> i.e. "personal capital." No one who supports freedom would deny you
> that, and I myself make my living doing so.  However, taking someone
> else's "personal capital" which you acquired exercising your freedoms,
> modifying it it and then denying anyone the same freedoms for the whole

It is impossible for anybody to download free software, modify it, distribute it, and in doing so, prevent me from obtaining the original free software.  They can only prevent recipients from obtaining the parts that they themselves contributed.


> the freedom to deny freedom is not a freedom.

Quit saying that, because there has not yet been any situation described where anybody has the power to deny anybody else's freedom.  It sounds like an extremist chest-thumping rhetoric.