Re: Switching to the OSL License, in a dual way.

From: Leandro Guimarães Faria Corsetti Dutra (lgcdutra@terra.com.br)
Date: Thu Jul 24 2003 - 17:24:48 EST


On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:57:44 -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:

> A clone is illegal because you'd have to reverse engineer to do the clone
> and reverse engineering is allowed for the purpose of interoperability,
> not for the purpose of making a clone.

        First, you are too US-centric.

        Second, if this is only what is allowed, then we are living in
a kind of a surreptitious world police state. Not a free world by any
means. In this circumstances, I will consider any clone attempt a
honourable act of civil disobedience necessary for the long-term
survival of humankind, barring the Second Coming.

        Now, your interpretations of others' words are certainly
self-serving. If I define a clone as a workalike, one has to do no
reverse engineering. It would suffice to do the same tasks, and use
your own interoperability stuff to get data back and forth.

> Given that, you can see why some people are disgusted that RMS would
> suggest it is OK to clone BK. At that point, it becomes a statement of
> "it's OK to do illegal stuff if you are making GPLed software".

        Not only self-serving, but libellous. With each word you
expose even more the evil.

> Hardly the sort of thing you want on record in a public forum from a
> free software leader when people are starting to question whether or
> not the free software they have is actually legal.

        Even if I can't agree him on political or moral subjects, in
this instance RMS acted exactly as I expected, and I praise him for
it. I hope he's proud for it, but not proud enough as to damage his
philosophy even more.

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