4 ms·

Your recollection is off, majorly. I'd recommend looking up the origins of the FSF/GPL/Copyleft. The entire movement essentially got started because Stallman ga

Your recollection is off, majorly. I'd recommend looking up the origins of the FSF/GPL/Copyleft. The entire movement essentially got started because Stallman gave Symbolics his (public domain) Lisp interpreter, then Symbolics improved it but refused to share the improvements. "No restrictions" has never been the goal and to claim that they're egoistic hypocrites who are just scared for their own livelihood because of this is just an absurd strawman.

lispm 5y ago
Stallman did not gave Symbolics his Lisp interpreter. Symbolics had a license for MIT's Lisp system.
- ImprobableTruth 5y ago
  I've admittedly based that on what a FSF advocate told me and googling it seemed to support it. If you have some source that indicates this is wrong/biased, feel free to link it. Anyway, that still wouldn't change that the FSF and Copyleft are explicitly anti-proprietary, not intending to be 'no restrictions'.
  - lispm 5y ago
    https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_symbolicsLenseSignedPressReleaseOct1980_58825 https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_symbolicsLenseSignedPr...
ThrowawayR2 5y ago
> "I'd recommend looking up the origins of the FSF/GPL/Copyleft. " Are you sure you're in a position to be saying things like that? The closed source Xerox printer driver incident is generally viewed as the origin of RMS's thinking on Free Software, not the Symbolics incident. And, as others have pointed out, you were mistaken even on the particulars of that. As for Free Software not being about no restrictions, may I remind you of the four freedoms that are at the heart of the Free Software philosophy? Copilot runs afoul of none of them and I would go so far as to say that Copilot is an embodiment of 1 through 3. "A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: - The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this." Again, the GPL is a tool to achieve the Free Software philosophy, not the end goal.
- icebraining 5y ago
  But software built from source copied using Copilot is not guaranteed to preserve those freedoms to its users. Which is the whole point of the GPL - preserving these freedoms to subsequent users, as a chain.

lispm 5y ago

Stallman did not gave Symbolics his Lisp interpreter. Symbolics had a license for MIT's Lisp system.

ImprobableTruth 5y ago
I've admittedly based that on what a FSF advocate told me and googling it seemed to support it. If you have some source that indicates this is wrong/biased, feel free to link it. Anyway, that still wouldn't change that the FSF and Copyleft are explicitly anti-proprietary, not intending to be 'no restrictions'.
- lispm 5y ago
  https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_symbolicsLenseSignedPressReleaseOct1980_58825 https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_symbolicsLenseSignedPr...

ThrowawayR2 5y ago

> "I'd recommend looking up the origins of the FSF/GPL/Copyleft. " Are you sure you're in a position to be saying things like that? The closed source Xerox printer driver incident is generally viewed as the origin of RMS's thinking on Free Software, not the Symbolics incident. And, as others have pointed out, you were mistaken even on the particulars of that. As for Free Software not being about no restrictions, may I remind you of the four freedoms that are at the heart of the Free Software philosophy? Copilot runs afoul of none of them and I would go so far as to say that Copilot is an embodiment of 1 through 3. "A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms: - The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this." Again, the GPL is a tool to achieve the Free Software philosophy, not the end goal.

icebraining 5y ago
But software built from source copied using Copilot is not guaranteed to preserve those freedoms to its users. Which is the whole point of the GPL - preserving these freedoms to subsequent users, as a chain.