Re: GNU licenses

[mike4ty4]

David Kastrup wrote:
> mike4ty4@yahoo.com writes:
>
> > John Hasler wrote:
> >> David Kastrup writes:
> >> > But the one thing that you can't do is take his material and do with
> >> > it as you like without heeding its license.
> >>
> >> mike4ty4 writes:
> >> > But why forbid it?
> >>
> >> To increase the amount of Free software in the world.  You may
> >> choose not to participate.
> >>
> >
> > Well, I can make both free and non-free software, at least I should
> > be able to.
>
> You are.  You just can't use free software of the GPL variety for
> making non-free software.
>

Yep.

> > I guess that means just to steer clear of GNU code for the non-free
> > projects.
>
> Certainly.
>

Yep.

> > Which raises another question: What happens if I learn something
> > from the GNU software, like a "trick" or a more efficient way of
> > programming some algorithm? If I use that METHOD/KNOWLEDGE even if
> > not the ORIGINAL CODE does this mean I have to GNU?
>
> Copyright concerns a particular expression, not the idea behind it.
> Restricting access to ideas is the area of patents, not copyright.
>
> In order to be sure that no copyrightable expression from a good idea
> remains, large companies employ a "cleanroom" tactic: one team
> analyses the copyrighted code, and then writes a specification for it.
> A different team without access to the original code then rewrites the
> code from specification.  If the whole is done in a well-documented
> way, it is likely to hold up in court.
>

And what about an individual, not a multi-employee big fat corporation?

> >> > why do you want to make other people's code free as a "price" for
> >> > using "free" code?
> >>
> >> Why do you want to make people give you money as a "price" for
> >> using your code?
> >
> > Because I need the money, for one. One can't do much without money.
>
> Well, so why do you want to make money off the work of others without
> recompensating them?  You are free to write to the copyright holders
> of the GPLed software and negotiate a different license, and pay for
> that privilege.
>

Of course it's totally up them (the owner) whether or not I have to pay
for
that privilege. Also, since I'd be starting from very little money,
would they
let me pay for it over time using the income I get from the program?
Just
out of curiosity, if you made a GPL program and I wanted to use a bit
of
code in a for-profit program (I'm not a big company though), would you
want me to pay money up front or could I pay it off with the income I
get?

> -- 
> David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum