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No my entire argument depends on the FACT that GPL preserves end user rights which end users are not entitled to with permissive code and are not given with pro

No my entire argument depends on the FACT that GPL preserves end user rights which end users are not entitled to with permissive code and are not given with proprietary code. All your attempts to evade this point shows that you have no interest in any honest conversation. This is not about end user choice, this is about end user rights. With GPL licenced code end users have the _right_ to the source code which created the _actual_ binary they recieve. They don't have to demand the source code, but it is their right, they don't have to examine, modify, run a resulting binary of their own, but it is their right. These rights are NOT preserved with permissive licencing, and they are NOT granted by proprietary code. You try to muddy the waters by saying that 'users' don't have to use proprietary code unless they want to, but again developers doesn't have to use GPL licenced code so that doesn't have anything to do with this at all. Whenever you want to use someone else's code you are subject to their conditions, you sure see nothing wrong with setting conditions for using proprietary code (users can always say no), so by what logic do you think developers should not be allowed to set GPL conditions for their code? Your communist rant makes you sound like some crazy right-wing extremist, you want to have the right to use other people's code in your proprietary projects, but the notion of other developers instead wanting access to code used in conjunction with theirs in return somehow strikes you as some oppressive communist scheme??? Seriously??? You seem to think open source developers somehow owe you code to use in a proprietary fashion, and if they don't provide it under such conditions they are 'communists who wants to control other people's code'. I can't quite understand people like you.

pbsdp 13y ago
> I can't quite understand people like you. That's because you've pretty substantially misinterpreted what I said. I don't think "developers somehow owe you code to use in a proprietary fashion" -- developers are free to place any licensing restrictions they want on their work. What I do think is that the GPL is paternalistic, communistic, and intellectually dishonest. Here's why: - Once open sourced, your code stays open sourced forever. There's no way to "un-opensource" code, and users can make use of it, forever. - If users want the source code to the tools they use, they are absolutely free to only use binaries from people that provide the source code. If they don't want the code, they don't have to. Ergo, users already have the "rights" and/or "freedoms" you're pretending to gift to them. QED. What the GPL actually does is create a quid-pro-quo communist common ownership of the means of production (code) between developers. This has nothing to do with "rights" of end-users, and everything to do with restricting the rights of developers should they choose to participate in the GPL ecosystem. There's nothing wrong with that system (other than it being unworkable and viral and restrictive, but there's no law against being obtuse), but it is intellectually dishonest to claim some sort of moral or ethical high ground. The GPL is a simple mechanism to restrict what other people do with the code they write in exchange for using your code, not about "four freedoms" or "user rights". The parallel's to Marxist Philosophy ought to be pretty obvious in the aptly titled "Why Software Should Not Have Owners" essay from RMS: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html

pbsdp 13y ago

> I can't quite understand people like you. That's because you've pretty substantially misinterpreted what I said. I don't think "developers somehow owe you code to use in a proprietary fashion" -- developers are free to place any licensing restrictions they want on their work. What I do think is that the GPL is paternalistic, communistic, and intellectually dishonest. Here's why: - Once open sourced, your code stays open sourced forever. There's no way to "un-opensource" code, and users can make use of it, forever. - If users want the source code to the tools they use, they are absolutely free to only use binaries from people that provide the source code. If they don't want the code, they don't have to. Ergo, users already have the "rights" and/or "freedoms" you're pretending to gift to them. QED. What the GPL actually does is create a quid-pro-quo communist common ownership of the means of production (code) between developers. This has nothing to do with "rights" of end-users, and everything to do with restricting the rights of developers should they choose to participate in the GPL ecosystem. There's nothing wrong with that system (other than it being unworkable and viral and restrictive, but there's no law against being obtuse), but it is intellectually dishonest to claim some sort of moral or ethical high ground. The GPL is a simple mechanism to restrict what other people do with the code they write in exchange for using your code, not about "four freedoms" or "user rights". The parallel's to Marxist Philosophy ought to be pretty obvious in the aptly titled "Why Software Should Not Have Owners" essay from RMS: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html