Re: [ox-en] Re: "At Cost"
- From: "Patrick Anderson" <agnucius gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:36:50 -0600
Patrick Anderson wrote:
The great Saint IGNUcius implemented the GNU GPL over his *own*
property(1).
Stefan Seefeld wrote:
As long as they live up (or down, rather) to their own model, they are
right.
Are you saying the GNU GPL is unimportant to the current and future
health of the Free Software movement except only as a psychological
carrot?
If so, I don't understand why or even how you could make such a claim
since the license is a legally binding constraint that disallows trade
(sharing or selling) of the commodity (object code) unless the virtual
capital (source code) is made available "at cost" to the consumer (end
user) of that product.
Free Software could never have achieved the commercial stance it has
without such a trade agreement because the Capitalists would continue
to splinter the community by building on the work of others while
removing freedom from those new users such as happens with the BSD
style (non-copyleft) licenses.
The GNU GPL allows owners (Copyright holders) to *perpetuate* freedom.
But, for most of us, life is much richer than what can be captured in
such a model. There are things that can't be expressed in those 'property'
terms. The fact that the GPL works by using a legal artifact of the modern
capitalist society does in fact not prove that there is nothing beyond it.
I'm not trying to say there is nothing beyond it.
I agree (if this is what you are saying) that people are basically
good, and that many people release software in freedom just because
they want to be nice.
But being nice is no defense. The GNU GPL does not interfere with
good intentions while also insuring bad intentions (removing user
freedoms) cannot be carried out by those that hate freedom (those
intending to perpetuate profit).
The GNU GPL is a semi-permeable cell membrane that only allows entry
to those that respect the freedom of all current and future users,
while stopping those that would try to remove any of those freedoms.
The GNU GPL is a protective coating that goes unnoticed (is not "in
the way") until someone disallows access to the virtual Means of
Production (the source code) in an attempt to subjugate others for the
purpose of increasing and/or perpetuating profit.
Why is it so distasteful to imagine that same pattern expanded to the
tangible sphere - so that users/consumers gain "at cost" access to the
"Physical Sources" (the material Means of Production) for any product
who's owners have applied an analogous contract?
Sincerely,
Patrick
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