4 ms·
For good or ill, GPL reflects RMS' personality, in much the same way start-ups reflect their founder's personality. GPL is a polemical, political statement, not
by startingup 17y ago
For good or ill, GPL reflects RMS' personality, in much the same way start-ups reflect their founder's personality. GPL is a polemical, political statement, not just a software license. That reflects the fact that RMS is a moral philosopher, not just a programmer.
This is not to say that we should judge GPL by RMS' personality - GPL, just like companies people create, will stand on its own; all I am saying is that GPL is strongly influenced by the personality of its creator.
- ErrantX 17y agoAgreed. Stallman strongly believes stuff should be free (not a bad atitude) and so the GPL tends to force things to be free in sequence. Personally I find the GPL distasteful; because it locks you in. Frustrating (and I cant help feeling causes substantial code duplication for some projects that dont want to use GPL code) (disclaimer; Im not personally a fan of Stallman, so I might be a bit biased over it)
- jm4 17y agoPersonally I find the GPL distasteful; because it locks you in. Frustrating (and I cant help feeling causes substantial code duplication for some projects that dont want to use GPL code) That's probably true of any license based on philosophy. People who don't agree may be inclined to reinvent the wheel just to put it under a license they do believe in.
- xiaoma 17y ago"Personally I find the GPL distasteful; because it locks you in. Frustrating (and I cant help feeling causes substantial code duplication for some projects that dont want to use GPL code)" Were there any licenses prior to the GPL that didn't do that? Surely you couldn't just take a piece of IBM or AT&T's code and put it into your programs with no strings attached. That era was before my time, so please educate me if I'm mistaken.
- ErrantX 17y agowell it's before mine too so I have no idea :)