Howdy!

"Andrew C. Greenberg" <werdna at mucow.com> wrote:
> On Friday, November 2, 2001, at 05:29  AM, goran.hultgren at bluefish.se 
> wrote:
> 
> >>  The fact that I can't incorporate a GPL program in Squeak
> >> proves the point.
> >
> > Well. It proves to me that SqueakL is not GPL compatible.
> > It doesn't prove to me that GPL is "not free".
> 
> Q.E.D.

:-) Hardly.

> There is nothing about Squeak making it non-interoperable with GPL 
> software apart from the legal limitations imposed upon the use of GPL.  
> I cannot use Squeak, an open source, readily available software program 
> that any person can use for most any purpose without constraint, with 
> any GPL code.  Which is the "free software?"  By any definition of the 
> word "free," at least one proffered outside the FSF website, the answer 
> to reasonable people must be clear.  GPL is constrained, not free.  I 
> can't use.  It is not free.

Again, whether GPL is "free" using the definition in Webster has nothing
to do
with the analogy at hand. The analogy was comparing GPL with "the old
Soviet" and
that was what made me react (more below on that).

> Goran, here, simply defines "free" to mean "subject to GPL," and then 
> announces his conclusions therefrom.  I think this putative retort 
> proves my point more clearly than anything I might have written.

Nope, I haven't tried to define the word "free" - you have. This whole
discussion about the words "free"
and "freedom" is something that you are pushing at, not me.

I just meant IMO that the fact you can not incorporate a GPL program in
Squeak
does not prove that GPL is "not free". To me it just "proves" exactly
that you can not
incorporate GPL software in Squeak. (Just to make sure: It doesn't prove
that there is
anything really "wrong" with SqueakL NOR that GPL is "free" in the
Webster meaning.)

But even so - I don't really care whether GPL is "free" according to
Webster or such because:

1. The word "free" is so full of meanings in different languages,
countries, cultures and contexts
that it is more or less impossible to "agree" on a definition.

2. Even if there was a single definition available it still IMHO should
not be applied to "things" but to
"beings with choices" (humans typically). Being free is having the
capability of different choices and
a piece of software can't thus be free because it is not capable of
choice. Again IMHO.

And thus I agree fully with you that the word "free" as being used by
FSF can be argued in many ways.
But I state this once more - my posting was about the analogy not about
whether GPL is "free".

> P.S.: It isn't just Squeak-L -- this applies to ANY MONOLITHIC IMAGE 
> LATE-BOUND SOFTWARE.  Unless the software is relicensable under GPL, 
> then the software cannot be used or distributed with GPL software.  
> Whatever this is, it is not freedom.

Well, you keep insisting the the only freedom worth anything is the one
without constraints.
Being provocative: Is the US a free country? Are there no constraints in
the US?

BTW, I think this one was dropped on the floor, I wrote:
>> Smalltalk coders.  And, in practice, it is impossible to renegotiate a 
>> significant term for a proprietary license.
>
>What did you mean by that? "significant term"? My swedish english parser
>didn't
>grok that part. :-)

Ok, back to the analogy. First I would like to say that criticizing an
analogy is very hard because
they can't really be "totally wrong" that I actually wrote. We can
always find some little thing that makes
an analogy valid. For example (being highly provocative to prove it
further):

"The US is like Iran - both countries have the death penalty and even
executes people who were
under 18 years-old at the time they committed their crimes."

(http://www.derechos.org/dp/ - I have NOT scrutinized this site that
much)

Now - would you consider that the analogy is ok? I would consider it to
be logically correct but highly misguiding
since there are sooo many other differences. So just finding a few
commons does not make a good analogy IMHO.

Ok, so the GPL was compared with "the old Soviet":
> It seems to me that the GPL is roughly equivalent to the old Soviet Union
> ("Anything not forbidden is mandatory")

Given the common that Soviet was indeed a highly constrained society and
that GPL has 12 terms of use
concerning copying/modification/distribution, yes - it sure looks like
GPL is like the Soviet! ;-)

Wait a minute... that implies that Sweden is also like Soviet - we
probably have more constraints in our legal system
than say Zimababwe (just a guess)?

Anyway, instead of repeating good arguments I give you a bunch of links
to good stuff:

In the link below - search down for "Dave Finton" and his comment - a
good one I think, and then search ahead for
"Choose GPL if you want to make some money" - clearly an argument
AGAINST calling GPL "communism" wouldn't you say? :-)

You can also read "James Henstridge's" reply called "Freedom issues".
http://linuxtoday.com/stories/6641_flat.html

This one also sums up a few things rather neatly:
http://www.freelists.org/archives/technocracy/08-2000/msg00003.html

Anyway, the discussion is interesting but I think I will try to let it
go because it takes up too much of my time - I was chopping wood this
weekend and this thread was bugging me like hell - I just couldn't stop
thinking about it! Truly annoying actually.

But if Andrew or anyone wants to continue it is fine by me, I appreciate
that Andrew took time to discuss it.

regards, Göran