The Industry choice

[Paul Rubin]

"Rob Emmons" <rmemmons at member.fsf.org> writes:
> Me personally, I believe in free software, but always talk about open
> source.  My answer regarding forcing people to share -- I like the GPL 
> -- and I am perfectly happy to have anyone who does not like the GPL 
> not to use any GPLed software.  I don't feel compelled to share.

I'd go further.  It's not possible to force anyone to share, but the
GPL aims to remove software from a system that instead aims to force
people NOT to share.  As the MPAA knows, people do want to share, and
forcing them not to do so is impossible without turning the world into
a police state.  Maybe if Python were GPL, then Bulba wouldn't use it,
but since it's not GPL, some people find themselves much less willing
to contribute to it than if it were GPL.  (I myself contribute bug
reports and maybe small patches, but resist larger projects since
there are GPL'd things that I can do instead).  So catering to the
wishes of Bulba and Microsoft may actually be impeding Python
development.  Yes, there are some people selfless enough to do long
and difficult unpaid software tasks so that Bulba and Bill G can get
richer by stopping people from sharing it, but others of us only want
to do unpaid programming if we can make sure that the results stay
available for sharing.