Re: GPL violation ?

[Larry Hall <cygwin-lh at cygwin dot com>]

At 05:53 PM 5/7/2004, you wrote:
>Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please@cygwin.com> writes:
>
>> As I am sure you know, mentioning the GPL always starts a Rube
>> Goldberg reaction of interpretation from would-be lawyers, zealots,
>> or people who are unsatisfied with following the rules and assume
>> they should have more rights to the software than the owners of the
>> software intend to provide.
>
>Good point.  If only everybody had the same charming personality as
>you, we would not have such problems.  What a shame!  Maybe someday...
>
>Personally, I always follow the rules.  I just think it is idiotic to
>enforce them on some poor academic distributing unmodified binaries
>whose source is widely available.
>
>On the other hand, if some corporation is making money distributing
>GPL'd code without source, they should clearly be nailed to the wall.
>Here's wishing the best to Red Hat's lawyers.


Then your gripe is with the GPL.  The point is, whether you agree with 
all the tenants of the license or not, you cannot selectively apply it
based on your own interpretation or preferences.  Doing so renders the 
license unenforceable for every situation, because the license doesn't 
discriminate.  That's why people on this list make the efforts they do to
make sure everyone complies.  We choose to honor the license as it was 
written since that's the only way the license is valid.  Some might 
find the realities of this to be "mean" but that's not the intent really,
FWIW.



--
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
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