Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?

[amicus_curious]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message 
news:zPuCk.1506$qY6.309@fe091.usenetserver.com...
> amicus_curious wrote:
> > Has anyone ever tried to do that?  I cannot find any such case.
>
> Well, they're either obeying the license and then the whole
> project is under the GPL, or they're stealing and therefore
> keeping it secret. So it's hard to say one way or the other.
>
> > The Busy Box stuff seems to be a silly egomaniac effort to get casual 
> > users to pay some homage to the author
>
> The authors licensed their code in a specific way. Your ad
> hominem attacks against their character notwithstanding,
> people who wish to copy and distribute that code may do so
> only according to that license. Additionally, your
> characterization of, for example, router manufacturers as
> "casual users" is ludicrous.

I don't think that you have a correct understanding of "ad hominem" here. 
If I said that your arguments were nonsense because you are an uneducated 
fool and in the pay of the FSF, that would be ad hominem.  If I say that 
Richard Stallman is a fat, unkempt fool whose very appearance is repugnant, 
that would just be derision or disparagement.  Saying the Busy Box authors 
are egomaniacs is just belittling and I would continue to say that they do 
deserve the label.  The FSF in the guise of Moglen and some others are just 
picking nits in safe areas where there is really no issue or any effective 
resistance.  Of late, the only resistance offered was by Verizon who were 
freely given a dismissal with predjudice which, in effect, is a license to 
distribute the busy box code without bothering with the source distribution 
although I am sure they don't care to do so anyway.  Verizon, like Davy 
Crockett before them, just "grinned them down" and they ran off to find 
someone else to play with.

You would have to connect up your statement as to how ludicrous "casual 
users" could be and why.

> > spending a lot of time and money to just look foolish
>
> Since each action has resulted in GPL violations being repaired,
> I reject the notion that they look foolish. Whether or not these
> actions cost them money depends on the private details of the
> settlements they reach, to which neither you nor I are privy.
>
> > it is also easily avoided and not necessary for any situation
>
> By all means, people who do not wish to honor the license should
> be encouraged to avoid using the software.

A little short sighted there, I think.  The objective of the open source 
community is to get everyone using the same thing and periodically improving 
on it in order to make progress.  Denying someone the opportunity to make 
progress due to their unwillingness to fully disclose the improvement robs 
those who could benefit beyond the improver's fees of the differential 
benefit to be obtained.  That is "throwing the baby out with the bath water" 
in terms of folk lore and generally considered to be a mistake.  I don't 
know why you would advocate such nonsense.