>>> [T]his [opinion] is Gnu Public Virus nonsense,
>> I don't see why you drag the GPL into this.
> Because it's the GPL attitude.  You "owe" it to the world to produce
> software communism.

It's *part of* the GPL attitude.

Calling it "nonsense"...well, it makes sense to me.  It appears to make
sense to you too, since you argue based on an apparently moderately
good understanding of it.  (You *disagree with it*, it appears, but
that doesn't make it nonsense.)

> I know Stallman got burned on a project, but his overreaction, and
> yours, are -- as cures -- possibly worse than the disease.

On what grounds do you think my position is a reaction, much less an
overreaction?

> The day we say software has NO commercial value, NO valid commercial
> potential, it is by definition the same sort of hobby as collecting
> dirt or producing air.

And your point is?

>>> Perhaps his license agreement is somehow onerous, but this is the
>>> wrong atttitude.
(You think it's wrong.  I don't.)
>>> He's entitled to his work, and to copyright it if he wants to.
>> Oh, certainly he's entitled to it, at least under most current legal
>> systems.  I just find it, as I said, a pity that he exercises that
>> right [as he does].
> It may not occur to you yet, but people have the right to spend their
> time as they please,

It may surprise you to learn that I already know this - for suitable
values of "right", such as "legal right", and with suitable
restrictions on how broad "as they please" is.  (Nobody has a right to
spend hir time sleeping in your house without your permission, to pick
a simple example.)

> and a right to get what return on that time they deem fit.

This is not true.  If I spemd my time playing my piano, that's my
right.  If I deem it fit that my return for that time should be, say,
$50/hr, I do *not* have a right to get that.  The right I *do* have is
the right to stop playing my piano unless and until I get that.

> If Greg's copyright is somehow onerous, it is precisely the
> Foundation's right to pass on his code.

Something we agree on.

> But, also, it is his equal right, considering that we all still have
> to work for a living, and it takes most of us most of our time, to
> have SOME kind of recognition of his effort.

No.  He has no right to any kind of recognition for his effort, any
more than I do for my efforts to, say, get the local traffic laws
enforced where I live.  The right he does have is the right to stop
exerting that effort if he doesn't get what he deems sufficient return.

What I find a pity is that he draws that line where and as he does.

> My objection to your remark is that you imply that he is being
> selfish by wanting to retain the rights to his own work.

He more than wants to retain the rights to his work.  He wants to use
those rights to get a particular form of return for his work.

> Any system that does not recognise intellectual or other capital
> property is, by definition, outright communism.

This is hardly the place to debate the definition of communism.
Whether or not any particular definition applies is, as far as I can
tell, irrelevant; an idea should be judged on its merits, not on how
good a fit it is to some definition of a particular emotionally charged
term.

I don't think that in this discussion I've advocated abolishing
intellectual property.  (I don't think I've *ever* advocated abolishing
non-intellectual property; throwing "or other capital" in there is
completely unjustified.)  I don't think I've said Greg Woods shouldn't
have the legal right to do what he's doing (at least not in this
thread; in the past, elsewhere, I've said things that would imply
that).  I merely said that I find it a pity he's exercising it.

> I think you will find little sympathy in the NetBSD community for
> your proposal that this is how all of us should be asking.

I don't believe I made any such proposal.  If you disagree, I would
like to see the quote.

> By the way, how is HURD?

I have no idea.

As I explained, I do not support the GPL.  Surely the deduction that I
am not involved in the HURD project is one that you are capable of
making even in the emotionally charged state you appear to be in.
However, since you appear unwilling or unable to make it: I am not
involved with the FSF or any of its projects, except as an end-user of
gcc, and that in spite of rather than because of the GPL.

					der Mouse

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