war

[Gangolf Jobb]

hi folks, what's up? still angry? actually, i am not that a bad guy as 
you might think. i have even apologized myself ...

here is a typical FSF supporter opinion:

 >In a free market if you have two systems that do the same: one
 >free, the other restricted, only the  free will survive. Free
 >software is a construction that accumulate over time. GPL is
 >the rock over that.
 >
 >Each penny used from government or donations of programer time
 >contribute for the accumulation.
 >
 >It is a superior model and the only one that will survive in the long
 >time. It is based on the power of cooperation  and free will.
 >
 >The other model requires policial forces to impose the no copy, >requires
 >a lot of public funds to control.  Is a no bussines model. It is a tax
 >model for using the computer.
 >
 >Commercial softwares moves in the level of necesities, free soft moves
 >in a superior level, the level of joy.
 >
 >So we are in a war, only the fittest will survive.

obviously, some of you are at war, but isn't a war the must stupid thing 
one can do? have a look at the world outside your computers!

let me clarify something: darwin's famous "survival of the fittest" 
refers to evolution, not war. as a biologist i can tell you, that 
evolution will certainly not end up with one species surviving all the 
other species (be it an organism or some flavour of software license).

one reason is that organisms usually depend on each other. another 
reason is that evolution is constantly generating new species. every 
species has its specific place in the world and will survive as long
it can find suitable conditions to do so, its "ecological niche". 
competing species are normaly trying to adapt themselves to different 
nieches,which is giving both the possibility to survive, they are 
usually not starting wars (humans are an exception here). "fitness" 
means here the ability to adapt to a new environment, and not the 
ability to kill and extinct the other species. that's a common 
misunderstanding. so be careful when citing darwin!

nobody can predict a soon "endsieg" of gpl'd software. to me it seems 
more probable, that we will have both gpl'd AND commercial software
next to each other during the next hundred years or so, and in the long 
run we are all dead, anyway. moreover, i do not see any necessity for a 
war. both models have advantages and disadvantages.

FSF's war fantasies are for me one more reason for disliking it.

let me become more particular:

say my project is consisting of two programs A and B. A is something i 
am planning to make an open source project soon, while B is the 
commercial part. i would like to link the gsl into part A, but part B is 
essentialy depending on part A. now gpl is forcing me to put B under gpl 
too because A must be under gpl. on the other hand, there is no chance 
to sell B if it is gpl'd (and i do no longer want to discuss about that 
with you!), so you will understand that i can not contribute A even if i 
wanted.

i feel that changing to the lgpl would significantly improve the gsl. 
consequently, this is the right place to talk about it.

- gangolf