> The only thing the GPL prevents you from doing is *LIMITING OTHER
> PEOPLE'S ABILITY TO USE AND MODIFY THE SOFTWARE*.
>
> 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."
>
> So I'm not so much saying you're wrong here as that a strong argument
> can be made either way because the question is in itself paradoxical.
>
> 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.
>
> 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; that's a known issue to the FSF and something they want
> to try to fix in a future version.  I do not know whether they will
> succeed.  Perhaps the GPL will never be the "right" license for
> Squeak.  But it doesn't sound like a GPL-compatible one will be
> impossible if Apple allows it.
>
> 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 Reason I like the GPL is that it forces a level playing field.

	If I write a piece of software, and release to the masses under the BSD 
license, someone else could DL it, make changes, and charge for it, and I'd 
never see a red cent from them. Plus once they do this, it causes a fork in 
the software, 

	If I do it under the GPL, if they charge for it, I still may not see any 
money, but at least I can see the code. The GPL also prevents vendors from 
locking consumers in by providing propietary mods, the single most virulent 
thing that causes problems in the sw industry.

	The GPL forces fairness, it makes everyone share their trucks in the sandbox.

	No one liked the greedy kid in the sandbox when you were 4.

	Why should you like him in the software world?  ;)

	

	Daniel Joyce