[MPlayer-users] What is it: http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/homepage/

[Arnd Marijnissen]

On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, Jamil Buchalla Neto wrote:

> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html &
>  http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-2.96.html if you still have questions or problems]
>
> I see GPL like communism.
> Not the communism implemented in Russia because that's not the real one
> that was created by Karl Marx.
>
> The Karl Marx idea of communism is the best for a perfect world but the
> problem is that we are not in a perfect world.
> That's the same from GPL, it was created to a perfect world where GREED
> doesn't exist.
>
> The BSD kind of license that allows proprietary code to coexist with the
> open code is the one that fits into our world.
> I just felt like I needed to make this comment and sorry if it looks
> stupid or something like that.
> Also I'm sorry if I used bad expressions but english is not my natural
> language and It's been a while since I used my english.
>
Hmm.. I think that the GPL exists exactly because greed exists in the
world. Communism had no protection against the abuse of people that wanted
to take advantage of it, except by controlling and checking _everyone_..
which turned communism into a totalitarian system under which everyone was
controlled by someone else.. etc.

The nice thing about the GPL, in this respect is that nobody is _forcing_
you to use GPL'ed code. There's tons of other software out there and if
you cant find what you need, you can _always_ start from scratch and build
a project under your own favorite license.
If you _do_ however choose to use the GPL for your code, it gives you the
opportunity to re-use other GPL-code in your projects/programs and keep
yourself from having to "re-invent the wheel".
It also avoids the situation of people feeling they did "everything for
nothing" when some commercial company decides to integrate a large Open
Source project into their own projects and choose to not give anything
back (no appreciation, no mention in the credits, no bug-fixes of
improvements) to the people who put their effort into the original project
in the first place.

GPL'ed code does _not_ forbid you using binary-only DLL's or other non-gpl
stuff in conjunction, though, as long as you provide a clear enough
abstraction between what's under the GPL and what isnt (build "*.so"'s
out of them.. for example).

In other words... if you want to write software based on the GPL, you've
_consciously_ made the choice to release any works based on it under the
GPL aswell. If you dont want that, dont use GPL'ed code!.. Write your
own!.. Start fresh!.. Nobody's twisting your arm, you know ? ;)

(btw: i do not think RMS is a god, but some of his ideas are quite
reasonable... apart from that.. he's a religious nutcase ;)

-- 
 JustaRMS