Re: freedom

[Fabrice Rossi <rossi at ufrmd dot dauphine dot fr>]

Gangolf Jobb wrote:

>  >I'm working for an university, which is therefore (by French law) the
>  >owner of my work. As I don't want to argue with the Head of my
>  >university, I've done all my work on GSL on my spare time, on my own
>  >computer (except for sending patches from my university email
>  >account).
>
> that's the way it works! thinking about a problem in your institute all
> the day while you are getting paid from public money, and then typing it
> into your computer at home. that's theft. how much spare time do you
> have, anyway? is that enough to work on such a large project? i doubt ..
>
> of course, everybody can decide about his own software, but this does
> not seem to be the case here.
>
> possibly, the head of your university would have chosen a more
> reasonable license than the gpl.


So GSL authors (including myself) are thieves? Is that your point? Just 
for the record, you might not know that since 1981 the legal working 
time in France is 39 hours a week, which leaves my a LOT of spare time 
(actually, it is right now 35 hours a week, even more free time!). 
Moreover, as you really do not seem to know anything about the way 
french laws are organised (well, I don't know either how german laws are 
organised), let me clarify some points. In France, a researcher of a 
public institute is the owner of his idea, even if they take written 
form (such as a book, an article, etc.). There are only two kinds of 
thing that belong to the state: patterns and software. So even if I was 
thinking all the day (what a ridiculous claim) on my part of the GSL, as 
long as I do my job correctly and I don't implement a line of code 
during my work hours, my university has no claim on my code.

So now, after calling us thieves, copyleft-communists (which is OK for 
me but seems to be an insult for you), fanatics, and so on, it is time 
for you to leave forever this list which is intended to peaceful 
technical discussion between GSL developers and users.

I apologize to other readers. I realize that I should have refrain 
myself from answering to this kind of things, but unlike Brian and 
others, I'm not very gifted for not responding to agressive postings. 
They are of course right, I guess I received here a nice lesson.

Fabrice Rossi