[Sussex] Sun, licenses, etc..

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff

On Wed, Apr 06, 2005 at 11:39:47AM +0100, Geoffrey J. Teale wrote:
> 
> So.. Mr. Schwartz at Sun has criticised the GPL:
> 
> http://news.com.com/Sun+criticizes+popular+open-source+license/2100-7344_3-5656047.html?tag=nefd.top

Thanks for the pointer - I hadn't seen that elsewhere and it is worth a
read.
 
> .. the isn't surprising given that Sun basically want to have the
> marketing advantage of saying it's "Open Source" without having to
> really be F/OSS.  A point Dobbo has made many times :-)

Wow! Someone noticed. ;-)

> What worries me here is that many people seem to be adverse to the
> very principals that the community is founded on but want to use the
> "reflected glory" of those principals to allow them to subvert the
> market.  
> 
> Thoughts?

Yesterday Geoff accused me of wanting my cake and eating it.  And in
some respects he is right, I do want to live in a perfect world, or as
perfect as we can make it.  But I am prepared to pay the price.  I give
back freely because I've already gotten so much more.

No one in the F/OSS community as given more than a small a fraction of
what they have received in return, no one.  Schwartz argues that the
GPL demands a price for using it's source, and he is right, it does.
But it demands the same price of us all.  It treats us all as equals.

If I read Schwartz's comments correctly he would rather that the IT 
technology be given more as charity.  But charity is never given
from one equal to another, the giver has to have more.  I can't think
(here and now) of any instance when charity hasn't maintained the
dominance of the giver over the receiver.

The GPL, by demanding the same price of all, treats us all as equals,
it treats us all with the same respect.  I do not think this is true
of the CDDL, which does treat the original copyright holder as different.
The GPL achieves in simple terms an equality and fairness that even the
great America, which pumps out all that propaganda on being "the land of
the free", as yet to achieve.

Steve