Klaus Schilling wrote:
John Tapsell writes:
On Thu, 10 May 2001, you wrote:
On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 09:56:24AM +0200, Stefan Meretz wrote:
Is there a copyleft license preventing from making money with free software?
No.
But you can always write one :)
No, you can't, because the software would not be free if its license prevented that.
Let's do it.
Draft:
This material is hereby released to the public. It is not allowed to be profitting from this material by selling it's use or the material itself, not profiting in monetary systems, or via services, unrelated deals or other. This includes the original creator of the material: he too must not profit from it, other than in the joy that others use his creation. It is not allowed to sell this material in any shape or form. It is not allowed to enclose it as gratis with something that /is/ soled, even if that something is a vital part of it, a medium, an extra, or if this material is presented as an extra, or a gift.
This material is given away freely by it's maker(s) in the hope it will bring joy to those who like to use it. Nobody should ever be forced to use this material, against it's own will because this will bring sadness to it's makers and they deserve no such fait.
Modifications on this material should also be released to the public, if not the actual modified material itself because it is logistically impossible (a modified building can't be shiped to every university that teaches building buildings), then as much information that exists or is produceable must be released to recreate it elsewhere, either by the normal ways information is enchanged, or by making the modified material available for inspection and learning, so it's can goodies can multiply itself. When it is possible to multiply the actual modified material by copying (software), or reproducing it with aids that come close (photographing a painting/sculptere/device/etc) that should be the prefered way of action.
There will be ownership and ownership cannot be taken away other than by the will of the owner to do so. But the owner will not be the owner of the information about the material he modified, if he/she is not the original creator of the material, because if he is, he/she has sovereignty over his/her creation because it would not exist if it was not for him/she.
It is hoped that this licence will not be diverted from it's true spirit, which is giving for the joy of giving alone.
Jos --
josX wrote:
Klaus Schilling wrote:
John Tapsell writes:
On Thu, 10 May 2001, you wrote:
On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 09:56:24AM +0200, Stefan Meretz wrote:
Is there a copyleft license preventing from making money with free software?
No.
But you can always write one :)
No, you can't, because the software would not be free if its license prevented that.
Let's do it.
Draft:
This material is hereby released to the public. It is not allowed to be profitting from this material by selling it's use or the material
[...] If Apache had this licence, could I take money for website hosting? If gcc had this licence, could I ever take money for any program I write? If people liked the program, how would I afford to burn as many cd's as people want? How would I afford to buy webspace to let others download the program? Would I have to write proprietary closed-source software to earn the money I need for this "hobby"? -- Reinhard Müller BYTEWISE Software GmbH A-6890 Lustenau, Enga 2 Tel +43 (5577) 89877-0 Fax +43 (5577) 89877-66 http://www.bytewise.at
Hi all,
On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 04:00:23PM +0200, Reinhard Müller wrote:
josX wrote:
Draft:
This material is hereby released to the public. It is not allowed to be profitting from this material by selling it's use or the material
[...]
Would I have to write proprietary closed-source software to earn the money I need for this "hobby"?
And that's why this whole thing will lead to nothing. If you are not willing or not able or too "realistic" to actively consider some ideas that sound utopian, why all this fuss? Why do you take on all this trouble defending and furthering free software if all you can think about in the end is "earn the money"?
Even if some of Jos' remarks are, well, written in anger, I strongly support his basic views.
Regards Lutz
On Thu, 10 May 2001, Lutz Horn wrote:
Hi all,
Even if some of Jos' remarks are, well, written in anger, I strongly support his basic views.
I think YHBT?, HAND!
read you soon, Kim Bruning
YHBT: You Have Been Trolled HAND: Have A Nice Day
beware of green creatures who live under bridges.
On Thu, 10 May 2001, josX wrote:
Klaus Schilling wrote:
John Tapsell writes:
On Thu, 10 May 2001, you wrote:
On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 09:56:24AM +0200, Stefan Meretz wrote:
Is there a copyleft license preventing from making money with free software?
No.
But you can always write one :)
No, you can't, because the software would not be free if its license prevented that.
Let's do it.
Draft:
This material is hereby released to the public. It is not allowed to be profitting from this material by selling it's use or the material itself, not profiting in monetary systems, or via services, unrelated deals or other. This includes the original creator of the material: he too must not profit from it, other than in the joy that others use his creation. It is not allowed to sell this material in any shape or form. It is not allowed to enclose it as gratis with something that /is/ soled, even if that something is a vital part of it, a medium, an extra, or if this material is presented as an extra, or a gift.
I see the concept.
There's the problem that if you disallow the possibility of distributing any given material with something that is sold, anything that is sold, then you disallow the possibility of its inclusion in magazine cover CDs and so on. Not everybody has a friend with a T1 and a CD burner... so how can they enjoy your software?
Speaking for myself, my rather grandiose view of free software includes the idea that, knight-on-white-charger style, it can help save the world from the evils of proprietary file formats, restrictive licencing, and the disappearance of the concept of Fair Use. For this to occur, it has to be available as widely as possible and as cheaply as possible. Put quotes around the melodrama if you like ;-)
[A side note on restrictive licencing: I was amused to note the other day that, re. the 2600 court case (the DeCSS DVD-decryption case), on hearing the defence's suggestion that restricting access to the DeCSS code restricted somebody with legal ownership of a DVD from making fair use of it ie. watching it, copying scraps of it for film review purposes, the judge replied- "Have we ever said as to fair use that you not only get to make fair use of the copyrighted work, but you get to make your fair use in the most technologically modern way?" The implication being that one should be content with whatever forms of 'fair use' that the industry chooses to allow... The whole DVD mess seems a wonderful demonstration of the materialisation of RMS's fears]
A second point is that as a community, we would all suffer if companies were restricted from making a profit using our software as end users, since they would be forced to use another solution... A third, related point is a philosophical one; ideally, we 'ought' to be thinking as a community (imho). Not "It comes from /me/, it's /mine/" but "It comes from /us/, it's /ours/!" The implication being that if it's ours we can darn well use it, and sell support for it as well... making a profit from selling the product itself is an extension of the same thinking. Essential, as I think RMS might say, is that restrictions on distribution and modification of a program can only interfere with its use.[1]
Consider the GNU/Linux penguin. If the original logo had been released under this licence, we'd not be wearing our penguin t-shirts [2] today. We'd be thinking, damn, nobody's allowed to design a penguin t-shirt unless they make /sure/ they break even or make a loss, ergo very few people are going to do it... OK, that's a daft example but you see the point.
So if you go in the direction of total non-profit, you risk the possibility of your software being (as with proprietary software, only for the opposite motivation!) too restrictively licenced to be distributed other than online, and not everywhere online at that. Most free servers have business models, serve advertising, etc. They'd be unable to host your software. Which would be a little ironic, really... making your software less free by forcing non-profit.
I do think the GPL as it is intended to work (I don't know if it's been tested in the UK yet ;-) is /very/ well thought out from the point of view of maximising the distribution and use of free-as-in-speech software...
On the other hand, perhaps there are times when the non-profit issue really outweighs the distribution problem.
em
// OLDSIG "All bad art is the result of good intentions." - Oscar Wilde
/* START NEWSIG */ Processor: (n.) a device for converting sense to nonsense at the speed of electricity, or (rarely) the reverse. - Tonkin's First Computer Dictionary
[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html [2] Qui? Moi? T-shirt obsessed? ;-)