[Discuss] Why use Linux?

[richard.pieri at gmail.com (Richard Pieri)]

Robert Krawitz wrote:
> Actually, I'd say that if anything the GPL is weighted toward
> users-as-developers -- ensuring that users can be developers
> themselves.

At the expense of the original developers.

Try this on for size (this also addresses Mark's point and the other 
Mark's failure to read all the words). Say I write a POP3 library for 
GNU Emacs. Say that instead of signing over the rights to the FSF I 
instead decide to sell it under the GPL. You buy my library. The terms 
of the GPL require me to provide you with the source code, which I do. 
You then turn around and sell that same code on the open market.

This is Mark's point: the GPL does not allow me to reserve exclusive 
sales rights. That would be more restrictive than the GPL itself and 
therefore is not permitted by the GPL.

This is tangentially my point: you as a non-developer end user get to 
profit from my work with minimal or no effort of your own.

It doesn't matter what you say. What matters is the terms of the license 
and the protections those terms afford. The terms of the GPL have always 
been heavily weighted against commercial developers of all sorts and not 
just the proprietary ones.

-- 
Rich P.