On May 14, 8:04 am, Ethan Furman <et...@stoneleaf.us> wrote: > Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> You've never had to recode something because it was nominally available >> under a proprietary licence that you (or your client) was unwilling to >> use? Lucky you! > Steven, did you actually read what he wrote? If you did, why would you > say something so stupid? Well, in Steven's defense, my literal words "... labor that could have been spent elsewhere if someone else had done something differently. The only time that comes into play in my programming life is when I have to recode something that is nominally available under the GPL..." could easily be taken to mean that I have never had to recode something that was under a proprietary license. In truth most of what any of us write is probably very similar to stuff that others have written, so taken in a very literal sense, yes, obviously, there are several times that I have had to recode proprietary software. But I was responding to Brendan's "broken window" analogy, and, rightly or wrongly, I *assumed* he was only referring to software that was free *at one time* but then was somehow taken out of the commons. To my knowledge, I've never recoded such software, and to the extent that anybody might be suggesting that *all* software belongs in an easily-accessible commons and that nobody should ever have to recode anything -- well, I could probably be seduced by the Utopian vision, but I strongly reject that the sort of rights-pooling mandated by the GPL is the single way to get there. If everybody believes in the Utopian vision, the GPL is rendered unnecessary, and to the extent that some people *really* don't believe in the Utopian vision, the wording of the GPL makes a gentle transition from proprietary to free difficult for programmers with feet in both camps. However, the GPL *does* provide a core focal point for the actual Utopian vision itself, and this does serve a useful purpose. Personally, I think we are gradually lurching towards the Utopian vision, and probably at a faster pace than if we only had the GPL or if we only had permissive licenses. I think even RMS believes this; as a matter of practicality he will suggest the LGPL or even permissive licensing under some circumstances. Regards, Pat -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
