Daemon News: The GPL vs. Capitalism | Linux Today

Daemon News: The GPL vs. Capitalism

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Jun 6, 1999

“… the Restrictively Unrestrictive: The GPL License in
Software Development
article that appeared on the Daemon News
previously. While this article clearly had a good intent and, as
stated, reflected only the personal views of one BSD developer, it
was clear to me that it didn’t go far enough in explaining the
evilness of the GPL license.”

“The GPL license offers a very beautiful dream, free,
unrestricted access to software for the people of the world. No
doubt this would be great, free technology for people in the third
world countries (including me) and no more gigantic monopolistic
companies telling you where to go today. I also believed in that
dream…”

“I personally think that Richard Stallman is a good person but
he is confused…”

“when I saw it and it was clear to me what people that adopted
the GPL were doing to the other people. I was aghast. It was not
communism or socialism, this was simply and plainly
anticapitalism…”

“If you don’t want money from your code, that’s OK, but by
releasing software under the GPL you are forcing other software
writers to use the same poverty license even if they add
significant features to your code.”

Complete
story
.

Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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