[Sussex] Sun, licenses, etc..

[Stephen Williams]

On Wed, 2005-04-06 at 13:32 +0100, Geoffrey J. Teale wrote:
> 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).

The latter usage is correct.

> 
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