Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!uhccux!julian
From: julian@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Julian Cowley)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: The GNU Public License
Message-ID: <4526@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Date: 8 Aug 89 03:58:41 GMT
References:  <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <1811@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> <419@ontek.UUCP>
Organization: University of Hawaii at Manoa
Lines: 36

In article <419@ontek.UUCP> john@ontek.UUCP (John Stanley) writes:
>In article <1811@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>, gl8f@astsun8.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes:
>> 
>> FSF will not kill the computer industry. And why is this in comp.misc
>> anyway? Intellectual property rights sounds more like a topic for
>
>It is in comp.misc because the place it really belongs (i.e gnu.misc.discuss)
>has been declared off-limits to this sort of discussion.  I think that sort of
>tells you just how open anyone at FSF is going to be to criticism of or
>commentary about the various GNU ideas they have.

This is being debated in gnu.misc.discuss right now.  The
problem is that nobody knows who wrote the newsgroup charter
that appeared in news.announce.newusers (including RMS), so the
policy could easily change.  I myself hope that they relax the
charter to the point where statements like the above can't be
made.

>What people seem to be complaining about is that they cannot use
>a set of tools intended to promote the free distribution of information to keep
>information secret.  Sorry about that, folks.  Free means FREE.

It will be a while, if ever, before society becomes ready to
support GNU politics as a normal way of making a living.  I
haven't seen many people bring up the fact that the GNU
Manifesto depends upon things like software tax in order to fund
programmers.  Obviously, society isn't set up this way, but it
could be, depending on where these debates go.

In the meantime, however, there is nothing stopping anyone from
enjoying useful tools that can be obtained for free.

julian@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu
uunet!nosc!humu!uhccux!julian
julian@uhccux.bitnet
University of Hawaii at Manoa