Shawn K. Quinn Wrote:

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> You know, it's fine if you hate the GPL. But I'll be damned if I just

> sit here and let you spread outright Goddamned *lies* about the free

> software movement and the people that represent it.

GPL is just a license, hate is a too strong word for it.

We usually prefer to point out that it is not free (enough).
There are people that represent the free software movement, and

there are people that take the words of the GNU project and twist

the meanings to suit themselves.
This is what Nick illustrated, and quite nicely, I think.
> I'm not cheap. I'm not greedy. All I am after, is the freedom to use my

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> computer the way I want to without Microsoft, Apple, Google, AOL, Adobe,

> Real, or other large companies being able to step in and say "no you

> can't do that, it's not in our (financial) best interests to let you".

> For me, it's always been about freedom. I would think for most of the

> free software movement that truly knows what's going on, it *is* about

> freedom.

Why take it so personally. It is not GPL or GNU that is being attacked here.

There are always those that are misled or even malicious in every community.

Sometimes it is just a lack of knowledge, or being overeager to achieve the

goals. Such problems should be pointed out so that they can be fixed.
What surprises me the most is the resistance from the community to recognize

that something they did was wrong. There seems to be a lack of independent

thought, most people are blindly repeating each other without forming an

opinion

themselves.
Those people that care about freedom and open source and GNU is supposed

to be

an intelligent, open minded, community right? Otherwise they would just use

Windows or whatever.
> While it may be seen as distateful to make modifications to BSD-licensed

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> code, and place those modifications under the GPL or a similar "share

> alike" license, based upon what I understand of copyright law, it's

> perfectly legal. Even though BSD-style licenses are compatible with the

> GPL, there are perfectly acceptable social goals achieved only by

> releasing under the GPL or a similar license.

You are talking about derivative works here. Not every modification is

considered original and comprehensive enough to deserve its own copyright.
Otherwise, it would be just a matter of re-arranging and splitting code,

renaming functions and variables, and there, you have a BSD licensed gcc

(bcc?)
Think about it ...
Can
--

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.

But, in practice, there is.