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Re: GPL traitor !


From: amicus_curious
Subject: Re: GPL traitor !
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:59:11 -0400


"Rjack" <user@example.net> wrote in message 5qmdnY4dP90tMWXUnZ2dnUVZ_t2dnZ2d@giganews.com">news:5qmdnY4dP90tMWXUnZ2dnUVZ_t2dnZ2d@giganews.com...
Matt Assay of C-Net fame and one of cyberworld's *biggest* supporters
of the GPL is bailing out like he's Arlen Specter's campaign manager:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10229817-16.html
"I have spent years advocating the GNU General Public License as the
optimal open-source license for commercial open source. Roughly nine
years after I first became a fan of the GPL, I think I've been wrong.

My admiration for the GPL mostly stemmed from its ability to mimic,
but then invert, proprietary licensing. The GPL is like opening a
cannister of radioactive waste: while your competitors can touch it,
you're dead certain that they won't."

I have read the blogs from this sunshine boy on occasion and this is the first time that I could agree. Perhaps there is a sane person inside every FOSS fan just waiting for the inevitable to occur and release its soul.

I note, too, the rather sane words of Raymond and Thorvalds. Linus was always, I admit, a sane individual, but he was also the banner boy for the crazies, so his reputation was tarnished in many places.

I have on previous occasions asserted that the GPL protects nothing and challenged the COLA fans to provide a scenario wherein anyone could actually take an open source code base and make it proprietary to the detriment of the FOSS community or even to the advantage of the person "stealing" the open source code. I received nothing comprehensible in return, just the normal blather from the unthinking chorus of fools who are mostly just proud of their ability to "plonk" anything difficult to answer.


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