ESR: "We Don't Need the GPL Anymore"

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Tony Godshall (togo@of.net):

> > http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/30/esr_interview.html
> 
> I think he's full of crap.  What about you?

It can be taken either as a serious opinion about real-world licence
mechanics, or as flamebait.  Practically all commentators have elected
to do the former.

Main point follows.

Eric:  "People who do what the GPL tries to prevent (e.g., closed source
forks of open source projects) wind up injuring only themselves."


Back in 1999, I wrote a piece about open-source forks and why they are
not something to be feared, called Fear of Forking
(http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html).  As
annotated in the referenced corrected version on my Web site, it included
this footnote:

  Staff at my former firm changed the subtitle for their version to "How
  the GPL Keeps Linux Unified and Strong" and wrote three different,
  replacement introductory paragraphs, for the version published at their
  Web site.

  I generally like what they wrote, but -- in those three new paragraphs
  and the new subtitle -- they did inadvertently make the piece seem a bit
  of an advertisement and ideological argument for (specifically) the GNU
  GPL, which was not my intention. The BSD crowd would argue that although
  BSD licensing does allow proprietary code forks, those tend to be
  temporary and/or lose momentum because they cease to fully benefit from
  the exchange of code and information in the larger BSD community. I
  would strongly agree. History seems to support their claim.


I might want to write to all the people flaming Eric for the cited
interview, and tell them I feel left out.