Re: GPL and commercial Forths

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From	Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: GPL and commercial Forths
Date	Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:12:43 +0100
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Rod Pemberton wrote:
>> Because without the GPL, there is nothing to stop somone from
>> taking free software, extending it, and making it proprietary.
> 
> That's freedom too ...

Well, is it freedom when people are allowed to enslave other people?  Is 
it freedom to take away rights from other people?

> Here, think about this:
> 
> If a company can make some changes to a piece of software that started
> out as FOSS, and that piece of software allows them to hire and employ
> a thousand programmers or a thousand stock brokers or a thousand
> engineers for at least a decade.

Well, why on earth do you need to make that software proprietary to do 
so?  This is a non-conclusive argument.  You could argue that slavery is 
necessary, because then a company can enslave a thousand stock brokers 
or whatever, and that would be a great benefit to society (no big bonus 
needed for them), and of course the enslaved stock brokers should 
realize that their personal freedom is much less important than the 
greater good.

Oops, I've heard these arguments before.  I can assure you, they came 
from communist or fashist leaders.

Companies have taken FOSS software, and make profit, even though it 
stays FOSS.  Some of them use the in-house clause (which only works, 
because employees are slaves), so they don't have to re-share.

> Constraints are only *less* restrictive from a socialist perspective
> ... I.e., *everyone* owns the rights to *everything* produced by
> others.

You really don't understand.  If I own a tangible thing, let's say my 
bike, it is by nature of the thing an exclusive ownership - there is 
only one bike, and only one person can ride it at a time.  If I give it 
to you, I don't have it any longer.  The economic term for this is 
"rivalrous good".

This is not true for software.  If I give you Gforth, I still have 
Gforth myself.  We both have it.  We both can modify it, and 
redistribute it.  Everybody on earth can have it at the same time, 
without conflict.  The economic term for this is "non-rivalrous good".  
We need artificial limitations like copyrights or patents, which forbit 
other people to do things with their own property, to make software, 
art, music, movies, etc. to appear to be rivalrous goods, which they 
aren't.

> Don't you live in a capitalist society?  Most of the world does or
> will.

No, actually, I don't want to live in a truely capitalistic society.  
This is a dogmatic society where money (and big bosses) is king, and 
people are enslaved by companies.  I really don't understand why 
corporatism (that's what it really is) is such a good idea.  I know 
pretty well why communism isn't a good idea, since I've enough 
connections to China, and that was a huge experiment field for communist 
ideas.

The main conclusion there is that people like to work on their own 
premises, and not on collectivized ones.  Now, the collective, that was 
a village, i.e. some hundred people who knew each others well and were 
often related with each others, so it really shouldn't be that hard to 
make this work - but it didn't.

So, what is a corporation for the employees?  A collective.  You don't 
own the results of your work, they are owned by the company.  People do 
not naturally like to work in such an environment.  Companies often 
behave in many ways like (real) communist collectives, they have 
dictatorical hierarchies, they try to enforce rules through punishment, 
they make three- or five-years plans (which never work out), etc.

There is a natural necessity for that, that's called the "economy of 
scale".  Many things can't be done by individuals.  Or loosely coupled 
teams.  However, we know, software can be done that way.  That's why 
open source can produce big software (which needs a larger team to be 
successful), because even though every player works on his own, they 
have to make their work available to others.

So if you don't recall much free software in the pre-GPL days, it's 
because the GPL wasn't there, and most public domain software then was 
done by individuals or very small teams, who often quickly abandoned 
their work.  The volksForth team had abandoned their work to me, and I 
first made it commercial (since I was young, and didn't understand), but 
soon I released most of it (modified) again under GPL, that's what's now 
Gforth.

The exception were university works, which is where we have the 
BSDL/MITL from.  The contributors in fact also did quickly abandon their 
work, because they were students, but the project as a hole lived on.

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://bernd-paysan.de/

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GPL and commercial Forths Brad <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2011-12-29 09:30 -0800
  Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2011-12-29 10:34 -0800
    Re: GPL and commercial Forths Brad <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2011-12-29 10:50 -0800
      Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2011-12-29 12:11 -0800
      Re: GPL and commercial Forths "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2011-12-29 17:58 -0500
        Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2011-12-29 16:26 -0800
          Re: GPL and commercial Forths "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2011-12-30 13:40 -0500
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2011-12-30 15:21 -0800
              Re: GPL and commercial Forths "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2011-12-31 05:51 -0500
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2011-12-31 10:48 -0800
        Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2011-12-30 04:35 -0600
          Re: GPL and commercial Forths "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2011-12-30 13:41 -0500
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2011-12-30 22:12 +0100
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths Brad <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2011-12-30 13:58 -0800
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2011-12-30 17:03 -0600
              Re: GPL and commercial Forths "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2011-12-31 21:10 -0500
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-01 05:21 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201201.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-01-02 00:45 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-01 17:59 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-01 16:23 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-02 01:27 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-01 18:35 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-01-02 10:47 +0000
          Re: GPL and commercial Forths Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201201.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-01-01 19:03 +0100
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-01 21:19 +0100
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-01 17:35 -0600
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-01 16:36 -0800
              Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-02 14:18 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-05 05:14 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-05 19:16 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-05 14:09 -0800
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths Brad <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2012-01-01 17:37 -0800
    Re: GPL and commercial Forths Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2011-12-30 11:15 +0000
      Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2011-12-30 09:56 -0800
  Re: GPL and commercial Forths cas_news@strotmann.de (Carsten Strotmann (Usenet)) - 2011-12-29 19:44 +0100
    Re: GPL and commercial Forths anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2011-12-30 12:51 +0000
      Re: GPL and commercial Forths Brad <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2011-12-30 07:55 -0800
        Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2011-12-30 10:48 -0800
        Re: GPL and commercial Forths anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2011-12-31 13:49 +0000
      Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-03 13:21 +0000
        Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-03 05:53 -0800
          Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-03 16:41 +0000
  Re: GPL and commercial Forths Brad <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2011-12-29 11:04 -0800
  Re: GPL and commercial Forths anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2011-12-30 12:44 +0000
  Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-01 10:12 +0000
    Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-01 15:34 +0100
      Re: GPL and commercial Forths "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-01-01 08:50 -1000
        Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-01 13:13 -0800
      Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-02 10:46 +0000
        Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-02 14:17 -0800
          Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-03 12:39 +0000
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-03 05:43 -0800
        Re: GPL and commercial Forths Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-01-03 11:53 +0000
          Re: GPL and commercial Forths cas_news@strotmann.de (Carsten Strotmann (Usenet)) - 2012-01-03 13:23 +0100
          Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-03 13:06 +0000
            Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-03 06:14 -0800
              Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-03 15:53 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-03 09:19 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-03 09:46 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-03 15:12 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-04 03:43 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-03 22:53 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-06 07:30 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-06 14:19 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-06 16:06 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-06 10:26 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-06 22:16 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-08 07:18 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-08 07:16 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-06 07:33 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-06 08:12 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-08 09:02 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-08 07:23 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-08 14:07 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-08 08:32 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-08 08:36 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-08 07:46 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-08 08:23 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-08 17:07 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-08 10:48 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-08 11:10 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-09 11:01 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Brad <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2012-01-10 17:26 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-11 03:00 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-01-11 12:10 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-11 13:21 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-11 05:57 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-11 16:17 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-11 09:21 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-11 16:35 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-01-11 11:01 -0600
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-11 18:55 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Brad <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2012-01-13 07:56 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-13 08:42 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-01-13 19:20 +0100
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-13 14:01 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Arnold Doray <invalid@invalid.com> - 2012-01-14 03:37 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-01-14 11:57 +0000
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-01-11 09:32 -0800
                Re: GPL and commercial Forths Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-01-09 01:58 +0000
          Re: GPL and commercial Forths anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-01-03 16:09 +0000

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