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(OffTopic,) Gnu-Environment restrictions (was Re: Question )


From: L A Walsh
Subject: (OffTopic,) Gnu-Environment restrictions (was Re: Question )
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2017 13:24:01 -0700
User-agent: Thunderbird

Bob Proulx wrote:
Robert Elz wrote:
But any restrictions on the recipient mean that the software is not
really free, and that includes nonsense like requiring users to
redistribute the sources to anyone who wants it.  That's not
freedom, that's an obligation (serfdom - you have to do my work for
me.)

That is simply nonsense.
---
   [This is a "devil's advocate" type piece, please don't
think it implies any personally held beliefs.  :-) ]

   Not really -- if one first examines the nature of 'freedom'.
I.e. what are we free to do?  Can we flap our arms and fly like
a bird?  Not in our "reality".  In every environment there are
restrictions imposed by the nature of the environment.  Often,
but not always, these are called "natural laws".  They are
conditions which everyone accepts as "natural" and are almost
never referred to as "restrictions".

   If one looks at the nature of any environment, one can see
that all environments that are describable have a set of "natural
laws" that are required for that environment to exist.

   The GNU license provides for a slightly modified reality
that allows for SW to be "free" under many conventional definitions,
however, the Gnu environment, like any environment has its own
set of "natural laws" that are needed for the it to exist.

   The Gnu environments or "realities" allow freedom within
their environment.  Does that mean they are absolutely without
restriction?  No -- but I'd argue that any shared-reality must
have restrictions for the reality to exist.  In that respect,
there is "freedom" within the Gnu environment that isn't available
in the conventional environment with the trade-off that one
accepts the Gnu-environmental "boundaries" just as such boundaries
exist in conventional "environments" (or realities).  It would
would be subjective to define one reality as more or less free
than any other environment -- they are really, just "different".

:-)

-l




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