Fedora Desktop future- RedHat moves

[Les Mikesell]

Alan Cox wrote:
>>   However, that is not why a lot of open source software is written, and 
>> a lot that was originally written without such restrictions has 
>> subsequently had the viral GPL applied.
> 
> Actually people have spent time working out where the code came from
> (usually for marketing reasons so they can claim ther company produced
> more than rivals!). There is very little code that has gone from other
> free licences to GPL (and where it has you can always take the original).

What?  Perl, X, OpenOffice, tar don't qualify as 'very little' and 
there's probably a lot more.   I though a lot of the original linux 
drivers were scalped from the *bsd versions too, with the obvious 
refusal to share subsequent improvements.  It's odd that you'd bring up 
the 'you can always take the orginal' argument since exactly the same 
applies to any reason you might think the GPL needs its restrictions.

> In each case where code has become GPL it has been *in accordance with the
> original licence*.

Yes, it is technically legal to take unrestricted free code and apply 
the GPL restrictions, but there can't be any moral justification for 
doing that, especially when you then threaten to sue anyone who would 
try to repeat that process with different restrictions.

> Most GPL code has spent its entire existance being GPL code.

Except for the exceptions..

> Even more
> positively the amount of GPL and other free licenced code continues to
> grown rapidly and it seems exponentially (although clearly that cannot
> continue forever!)

Yes, it spreads like a virus as it takes away additional contributors 
choices of how their own work can be licensed...  But, since it can't 
ever provide functionality covered by patented code much of the 
development effort is simply a dead end.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com