[Sussex] Sun, licenses, etc..

[Geoffrey J. Teale]

Steve Dobson <steve at dobson.org> writes:

> Geoff

Steve *tugs on forelock*

--- %<---- 
>> .. 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. ;-)

I read as well as write you know :-)  General speaking I think I might
be a mainframe - my I/O is often a lot faster than my processing :-)

> 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.  

Just to be clear I'll point out that I'd never say that it was bad to want what you
wanted, just that it wasn't possible.

> 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.

Well, it almost treats us as equals.  The author of a work can still
do some other things that subsequent users cannot, but that's again
the real nature of law (and very useful in some cases).

> 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.

It's notable that Sun's attitude toward the GPL, while never
particular friendly, has definitely hardened in the months since the
struck a multi-million dollar bargain with another software vendor how
they had previously been locked in legal combat with.  I'll leave you
to fill in the blanks there, but I hear Washington is a lovely state
for a June visit :-)

> 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.

Here, here! (or is that, "hear, hear", I've never really been sure).

-- 
Geoff Teale
CMed Technology            -   gteale at cmedresearch.com
Free Software Foundation   -   tealeg at member.fsf.org