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

[Michael K. Edwards]

On 7/14/05, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> Quoting Ross Boylan (RossBoylan@stanfordalumni.org):
> > Others have already pointed out that this kind of market-oriented
> > logic is not the only justification for GPL anyway.
> 
> Again, hypothetical people seeking reasonable discussion rather than
> flamewars would probably have touched on and politely acknowledged that
> point in passing.

It's kind of the sort of thing I take as read on a Debian mailing
list.  :-)  But yes, one of the best features of the GPL is that it
facilitates the sharing of both ideas that work and expression that
gets them right.  Some of us don't _want_ to spend our time
reinventing wheels even if we could get paid to do so.  And as far as
I am concerned it should be mandatory for all publicly funded work, if
it is released at all, to be offered to the public under terms that
permit its incorporation into GPL works, with the GPL itself being the
right answer more often than not.

On the other hand, some people profess to choose the GPL out of
hostility to commercial software publishers and the wish to deny the
right to build on their work on any terms other than the GPL's; and
that's a sort of "non-market-oriented" goal that I don't share, and on
which I think a reasonable legal system should frown.  US appellate
courts have fairly consistently frowned on "market-oriented" attempts
to leverage the copyright monopoly to erect a barrier to
interoperability (see discussion in Lexmark), and I don't see why they
would or should tolerate the equivalent in the GPL FAQ's FUD about
dynamic linking.

I'm not seeking a flamewar with that comment or with my previous
assessment of ESR's piece; nor do I really care what peculiar things
BAD subscribers believe about "the copyright statute".  It just
interested me to see the whole "what happens when the GPL finally
collides with legal reality" thing spilling over here.

Cheers,
- Michael