Subject: Re: OT - programming logflash Re: [lojban] Logflash

From: "Robert J. Chassell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 06:49:29 -0400 (EDT)

>> The GPL is viral in a very virulent and obnoxious way.

Not true: it is a vacination.

The GPL prevents someone else from taking your code, making a bug fix
or enhancement and then preventing *you* from using that bug fix or
enhancement. That's right, without the GPL, you can be forbidden from
using a bug fix or enhancement to your own code.

Of course, if you like to be prevented from using fixes or
improvements to your own work, then go ahead, let yourself 
get ripped off.

The people who find the GPL `virulent and obnoxious' are those who
find it forbids them from stealing. Thieves hate good locks.

Welcome to the world of US lawyers. 

(And unfortunately, in this regard, .ca is a signator to the same
treaties as the US.)

The GPL permits you and others to 
copy, study, modify, and redistribute code.
It forbids you to forbid, 
and it forbids others from forbidding you or others 
to copy, study, modify, and redistribute.

-- 
Robert J. Chassell [email-masked]
How a copyright license shapes software technology:
http://www.teak.cc/Shaping-speech.html