www/philosophy why-copyleft.html

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       17/12/11 03:22:44

Modified files:
        philosophy     : why-copyleft.html 

Log message:
        Add examples of programs whose failure to be copylefted has permitted
        great harm.
        Minor clarifications elsewhere.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/why-copyleft.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.36&r2=1.37

Patches:
Index: why-copyleft.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/why-copyleft.html,v
retrieving revision 1.36
retrieving revision 1.37
diff -u -b -r1.36 -r1.37
--- why-copyleft.html   12 Apr 2014 12:40:49 -0000      1.36
+++ why-copyleft.html   11 Dec 2017 08:22:43 -0000      1.37
@@ -31,23 +31,43 @@
 </p>
 
 <p>
-Humility is abnegating your own self interest, but you and the one who
-uses your code are not the only ones affected by your choice of which
-free software license to use for your code.  Someone who uses your
-code in a nonfree program is trying to deny freedom to others, and if
-you let him do it, you're failing to defend their freedom.  When it
-comes to defending the freedom of others, to lie down and do nothing
-is an act of weakness, not humility.
+Humility is disregarding your own self-interest, but the interest you
+abandon when you don't copyleft your code is much bigger than your
+own.  Someone who uses your code in a nonfree program is denying
+freedom to others, so if you allow that, you're failing to defend
+those people's freedom.  When it comes to defending everyone's
+freedom, to lie down and do nothing is an act of weakness, not
+humility.
 </p>
 
 <p>
-Releasing your code under one of the BSD licenses, or some other
-permissive non-copyleft license, is not doing wrong; the program is
-still free software, and still a contribution to our community.  But
-it is weak, and in most cases it is not the best way to promote users'
-freedom to share and change software.
+Releasing your code under <a href="/licenses/bsd.html"> one of the BSD
+licenses</a>, or some other lax, permissive license, is not doing
+wrong; the program is still free software, and still a contribution to
+our community.  But it is weak, and in most cases it is not the best
+way to promote users' freedom to share and change software.
 </p>
 
+<p>
+Here are specific examples of nonfree versions of free programs
+that have done major harm to the free world.</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Those who released LLVL under a non-copyleft
+license <a 
href="https://www.anandtech.com/show/5238/nvidia-releases-cuda-41-cuda-goes-llvm-and-open-source-kind-of";>enabled
+nVidia to release a high-quality nonfree compiler</a> for its GPUs,
+while keeping its instruction set secret.  This is why we can't write
+a free compiler for that platform.  The nonfree adaptation of LLVM is
+all there is for those machines, and (without a big reverse
+engineering job) all there ever will be.
+<li>
+Intel uses
+<a 
href="http://www.tomshardware.com/news/google-removing-minix-management-engine-intel,35876.html";>a
+proprietary version of the MINIX system</a>, which is free but not
+copylefted, in the Management Engine back hole in its modern
+processors.
+</ul>
+
 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
 <div id="footer">
@@ -105,7 +125,7 @@
 
 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2014/04/12 12:40:49 $
+$Date: 2017/12/11 08:22:43 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>