[Liverpool] OtherOS-on-Linux or Linux-on-OtherOS? was "Multi-Boot Query"

[Daniel Hulme]

On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 01:27:59PM +0000, Simon Johnson wrote:
> because they think it restricts freedom. However, this is quite an ironic
> position. You see, copyright is *about* freedom. If copyright did not exist
> there would be nothing to stop Microsoft lifting code from the Linux kernel
> and shipping it in their product. The GPL *requires* the existence of
> copyright in order to prevent this.

> Microsoft or GNU could exist. It's pretty impressive that two diametrically
> opposed organisations can rely on the same legal principles for their
> existance.

I think you misunderstand the FSF's position. They oppose copyright
because it creates my right to control distribution of my work, by
forbidding everyone else on the planet to do things that do not affect
me and that I wouldn't know about without being told.

For the FSF, GPL is a tool for encouraging people to not use copyright,
by giving them the incentive of being able to use all of the existing
GPLed code. GPL creates a in-group of people who can freely distribute
and modify the group's software, and the way to get into the group is to
turn your back on copyright, to choose to respect the freedom-to-share
of others within the group by not asserting that your freedom-to-control
takes priority.

Is this idea of creating a commune that will eventually encompass
everything at all plausible? Do the GNU project's policies align
sensibly with the FSF's core philosophy, and the philosophy of
free-software users and contributors at large? Has Richard Stallman
completely lost it in the last few years? These are all big questions I
don't have an answer for, and perhaps they are too big for this list;
but it seems to me that brushing the FSF aside because of a
misunderstanding about what they are trying to achieve does an important
and reputable campaigning organisation a grave disservice.

-- 
"So long  as we  avoid  accepting  as true  what is  not so,  and always
preserve the right order of deduction  of one thing from another,  there
can be nothing  too remote to be reached in the end,  or too well hidden
to be discovered."   --  Descartes, 269 years before Kurt Gödel was born
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