Re: gEDA-user: strange build failure

[al davis <ad106@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 17:03, Evan Lavelle wrote:
> If you want to share knowledge, and you have the courage of
> your convictions, then you give it away, *no* strings
> attached. That's what universities are for. If I write a book
> on a technical subject, then that's precisely what I do.

Really????

Can you give us a pointer to a book you have written and given 
away with no strings attached?

Can you give us a pointer to a large project that you did 
yourself at your own expense and gave away with no strings 
attached?  That someone else attached strings, made a big 
profit from, and gave you none?  That brought a lawsuit against 
you for IP theft, when they in fact took from you?

Why do you complain about a "share and share alike" arrangement, 
when you seem to have no objection to really oppressive 
restrictions of proprietary software and contaminated 
standards?

You miss a key point in comparing GPL to a patent.  With GPL, 
you actually need to deliberately copy to infringe.  Studying 
it, learning from it, and re-implementing is legal and done 
often.  With a patent, it is considered to be infringing if you 
accidentally do something in a similar way, even with no 
knowledge of existence of the patent, even if the owner of the 
patent took from you.

Can you give us an example of some work you did, perhaps thought 
it was nothing special, but someone several years later got a 
patent on essentially the same work, that today would prevent 
you from using your own work?  

Why does it matter so much to you?  What do you personally have 
at stake?  Why can't you just use it and say thanks?

I do agree with you on one point, I think, that you implied but 
did not explicitly say:  Government funded work should be 
placed in the public domain, which will allow derivative works 
of all kinds, including GPL, proprietary, and public domain.


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