Editor’s Note: This is a response to Dave Winer of Userland
concerning Python licensing issues. You can read the original post
at UserLand.
By Richard Stallman
David Winer is passionate in his disgust for me and my work; so
much so that he does not limit himself to rebuking me for the
things I have done. He feels entitled to imagine other things he
would disapprove of, and attack me for them too.
In his column on September 8, he notes that he tells Guido van
Rossum, “Don’t give in to Stallman.” From the context, it is clear
Winer imagines that I am asking–or rather, demanding–that Python
be released under the GPL and only the GPL.
As Guido can confirm, that is not the case. I have been pushing
for the license of Python to be compatible with the GPL, so that it
can be linked with GPL-covered programs as well as with other
programs.
If the Python license is incompatible with the most popular free
software license, that creates a major practical problem for the
community. Given the importance of this problem, all my efforts in
talking with the Python developers have been aimed at solving it,
at trying to propose some solution that they will accept. This
isn’t easy, and I am not going to make it harder by asking them for
something else in addition.
Winer’s description of my goals is equally inaccurate. I am not
opposed to commercial software. When companies contribute to the
Free World by developing free commercial software, I say more power
to them. I started a free software business myself in 1985, selling
tapes of GNU Emacs; I dropped it when the FSF took over selling
these tapes.
What I disapprove of is non-free software–never mind whether it
is commercial or noncommercial. But even I sometimes choose a
license that permits a library to be used in non-free software (see
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html).
The idea of the GNU GPL is to establish certain liberties for
everyone, and defend them as much as possible from anything that
might take them away. We believe in two-way cooperation, and we
invite everyone to join, but we do not invite people to exploit us
by putting our code into non-free programs.
One thing in Winer’s article is accurate: my philosophy is NOT
open source. I have been standing firm for the philosophy of the
Free Software Movement since 1984. The Open Source Movement,
founded in 1998, has a less firm stand. I am not going to join
them; I am going to keep standing firm.
But although I do not agree with or speak for the Open Source
Movement, I have seen what they say, and I know that Winer
misrepresents them when he invokes their name for his opposition to
copyleft.
I believe that software users are entitled to certain liberties,
to share and change software. I wrote the GNU GPL to defend those
liberties. But there are some kinds of liberty I do not agree with.
Taking liberty with the truth is not a good thing.
Copyright 2000 Richard Stallman
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