Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!odi!benson From: benson@odi.com (Benson I. Margulies) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: Questions about "Free Software Foundation" (long) Message-ID: <1989Oct2.151317.3789@odi.com> Date: 2 Oct 89 15:13:17 GMT References: <6602@thor.acc.stolaf.edu> <110004@gore.com> <2247@munnari.oz.au> <6702@thor.acc.stolaf.edu> Reply-To: benson@odi.com (Benson I. Margulies) Organization: Object Design Inc., Burlington, MA Lines: 27 This conversation should serve as a warning to potential FSF software users. Its quite typical. The FSF hangs a legal bowl of sphagetti off of their source. Individuals, some of them trained lawyers, read this item and find that it is at best ambiguous, and at worst seems to impose all sorts of impossible conditions. Querying the FSF on this point gets a progression of results: 1) we see no problem here. The Man Himself (stallman) has said many times that his intention is to permit commercial use. 2) Oh, a statement in email of our intentions isn't good enough for you? You want some accompanying document to the copyleft, or an improvement? Well, even if there were a problem here, we aren't interested in solving it, because it would just be facilitating "software hoarding." 3) personal flames and attacks on the luckless soul who dared to raise the question. Note that the "intentions" of the FSF aren't the only relevant intentions. The copyleft, as the originator of this chain, potentially grants all kinds of rights to all sorts of others. One of them might decide to be a nuisance. -- Benson I. Margulies