On Thursday, November 1, 2001, at 12:31  PM, Ed Heil wrote:

> The only thing the GPL prevents you from doing is *LIMITING OTHER
> PEOPLE'S ABILITY TO USE AND MODIFY THE SOFTWARE*.

Patently false.  GPL is full of limitations, obvious on the face of the 
license.  Significantly, perhaps ironically, as an example, GPL prevents 
me from using and modifying GPL'd software with Squeak and distributing 
the result.

I feel so free.  Not.

> It's equivalent to a philosophical argument over which country is more
> free -- a country which has laws against slavery, or a country which
> has no laws against slavery?  The latter is more limiting, but the
> former, many would say, is "freer."

And others complain about the references to socialism!   In the war of 
analogies, I abstain -- each has so many holes as to defy reasonable 
discussion, particularly with a true believer.  This one (the analogy, 
of course, not my honorable colleague the true believer) is a joke.

Quite frankly, the proposition suggesting that Smalltalkers who import 
GPL code into the monolithic image of an open source system are engaging 
in conduct credibly analogous to slavery needs greater support before it 
can be taken seriously.

But let's assume he is right.  Let's take as true the proposition that 
GPL is "freer" or more free than a license that says you can do anything 
you want with the software except make me liable for your screwing 
something up or pretending I didn't have a hand in writing it.  Let's 
assume that I am a code-slaver dedicated to back-ending all GPL code to 
make it available for incorporation into Windows XP v.2, by placing it 
into a monolithic image and distributing the code.

Weird, but let's go with it.

It is RMS and the GPL true believers here who have adopted and are 
defending to the end of the earth the proposition that their software, 
that their notion of the word "free" is correct, and that nothing else 
is free software,

By changing from an absolute to a relative posture, it is the GPL crew 
who has now conceded the point.  GPL is not free, in any English 
language sense of the word.  That this is so is apparent, we can't even 
use the code in connection with Squeak.

> Sorry to bring yet another "government analogy" into play.  I agree
> that the initial government analogy wasn't particularly useful.  I
> just find attacks on the GPL as not being "really free" because it
> doesn't allow you to remove people's freedom to use and modify the
> software by slapping a proprietary license on it to be sophistical.

Straw man.  The argument is that GPL isn't free because I cannot use it 
FOR ANY PURPOSE, PROPRIETARY OR OTHERWISE, with Squeak and distribute 
the result.  GPL impedes monolithic image-based software, such as a 
Smalltalk system, when ANY CODE AT ALL in the image is not 
"GPL-compatible," whatever that means in a given week.

> But as I said before, the GPL is really designed for c/unixlike
> code, and its application to something like a Smalltalk image is
> problematic;

Because it is not free.

> that's a known issue to the FSF and something they want
> to try to fix in a future version.

Just listen to yourself.  You argue at the same time:

	1. GPL is freer, hence free.
	2. We know GPL doesn't permit certain reasonable uses, such as 
mixed use with Smalltalk code, and that's a problem we hope they will 
fix.

My argument seems much simpler:

	1. GPL doesn't permit certain reasonable uses, such as mixed use 
with Smalltalk code, hence
	2. GPL is not free

The proposed --forgive me, I think its ludicrous-- comparison with 
slavery is inapposite.  Slavery isn't a reasonable use, and permitting 
Smalltalk code in Squeak to call a GPL'd method isn't Slavery.

Moreover, there is almost zero likelihood that the GPL will be changed 
to accomodate Smalltalk and monolithic images:  RMS told me he doesn't 
see it as a problem.  The next version of the GPL as presently drafted 
is even worse with respect to this problem than the existing license.

> You're quite right that the GPL is all about trying to bring about
> a world of non-proprietary software, and if you do not share that
> vision, you should not be using the license.

The mistaken assumption here is the proposition that only GPL can be 
deemed non-proprietary.  Clearly Squeak is non-proprietary in every 
meaningful sense (using the meaning of the word, which I acknowledge may 
be different from the FSF definition-of-the-week).  Many open-source 
products may be likewise deemed non-proprietary, though they don't have 
GPL licenses and may have incompatible licenses.

GPL is not about making a world of non-proprietary software, but for 
defining a narrow, proper subset of such code, and making the world 
comply with that narrow, proper subset.  The problem with GPL is not 
that it isn't viral, we know that it is, but that it is viral in a 
manner that requires changing to GPL.  It is TOO restrictive, too 
constraining, and not free enough.

An aside for those who criticize the allusions to socialism.  Read the 
quoted sentence above, and think it through.  In the face of the 
relativistic quibbling about which is "freeer," consider which analogy 
is more apt:

	1. Squeak is analogous to slavery; or

	2. "trying to bring about a world of non-proprietary software" is 
analogous to socialism

I do this not to suggest that either analogy is terribly useful, but to 
ask true believers to step back and actually think about what they are 
saying.

The problem with GPL is not whether or not it is free, but whether it is 
useful.  The problem with GPL is that for software founded on a 
late-bound monolithic image, it is not useful.

Regardless of ideological propositions, GPL is useless for monolithic 
image worlds.  If GPL insisted that GPL software must not co-exist on 
the same operating system as non-GPL software on Unix, it would have 
quickly become irrelevant.  For precisely that reason, GPL is irrelevant 
to the world of Smalltalk, at least for so long as we retain the notion 
of an image.