[FSF India] Open $ource is as dangerous as M$ (if not more)

[Khuzaima A. Lakdawala]

Kalyan Varma <kalyan@exocore.com> writes:

> On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Vivekananda Prabhu wrote:
> 
> > Some of them go to the length of saying developers
> > Read companies) should have the freedom to choose
> > whichever licences they wish to (Notably Tim O'Reilly
> > & seconded by Eric S. Raymond).Extending this argument
> > even M$ Closed source/Shared Source licences are also
> > OK for them. Isn't it?
> 
> You are contradicting yourself. Where the hell is my freedom if I cant
> choose the license I want.

That is a very naive (and dangerously misleading) interpretation of
the word "freedom" propagated by the Open Source camp. In effect, you
are accepting a definition of "freedom" formulated by people who
themselves don't care about freedom :) Now *there's* your
contradiction!

Any freedom, the exercising of which takes away the freedom of others is
no freedom at all.

When a developer chooses to publish his (original) software under a
non-copyleft license, he consciously accepts that someone down the
line is sooner or later going to lose one or more of the four basic
freedoms of Free Software.

On the other hand, for an end user with no interest in further
development and publishing of the software in question, a non-copyleft
but GPL-compatible Free Software license is perfectly fine.

>                            I agree GPL is a good thing, but you cant
> go around forcing people to use GPL. Its their choice.

The Free Software movement can only advocate the use of particular
licenses; it cannot *force* anybody; it does not have the *power* to
force. Unless, of course, you are basing your work on a previously GPL'd
work in which case you are bound by the "laws of freedom." The word
"force" does not apply here. You are under moral and legal obligations
to pass on the same freedoms that you received.

> mind others using their code , then what the hell is your problem ?
> lets say I write a appilication. I really dont give a damn what license
> it is under. All I care is that my appilication works.When I use Linux
> I dont use it coz it is under GPL. I use it coz its the technology that I
> like.

I sincerely hope that this mailing list plays some part, however
small, in changing this view of yours.

-- 
Khuzaima A. Lakdawala