[belorn]

You seem so confused, and you seem so angry at the world.

The goal that RMS has been striving for are: The users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.

When people create proprietary software, then that is counter to RMS goal. proprietary software denies the user under threat of lawsuit the freedom to copy, distribute, study, change and improve (and at times run) the software.

BSD or MIT provides software to anyone, including people who use it for good, and people who use it for bad. When it comes to defending the freedom of others, it simply lie down and provided software indiscriminately.

To compare it to an similar goal, non-profit aid organizations try to provided money to extremely poor people. Their goal is to help people not starve to death and help improve their lives. However, they do not want their money to go to criminals, thieves, and drug cartels as that would hurt their overarching goal. Doing nothing, i.e giving money indiscriminately, would be an act of weakness. The act however of giving money to poor would still not be "wrong".

It is not wrong to indiscriminately give money to poor, but it is not the best way. It can even hurt the overarching goal of improving peoples lives.

(That you are shamelessly misrepresenting someone else opinion is a problem. I am deeply sorry for you and I hope you can find help.)

[stephenr]

> You seem so confused, and you seem so angry at the world.

I'm neither of those things. I've commented on one very specific topic - RMS/etc and their cult-like dedication to anti-developer, anti-corporate software licences.

My comments on this have not varied, so I don't know why you think I'm confused.

This issue is also a tiny fraction of what makes up the world, and while this issue concerns me, I'm hardly angry about it. Even if I were, how does that equate to "angry with the world"?

> The goal that RMS has been striving for are: The users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.

I'm well aware of his stated goals.

> BSD or MIT provides software to anyone, including people who use it for good, and people who use it for bad.

"use it for bad" - if the thing they want to do is so bad, why would they be bothered about breaking a license in the first place? Let's come back tot hat later.

> non-profit aid organizations try to provided money to extremely poor people. Their goal is to help people not starve to death and help improve their lives. However, they do not want their money to go to criminals, thieves, and drug cartels as that would hurt their overarching goal.

Ok so first off. You just compared a HUGE community of software developers who use BSD/MIT licences, to drug cartels and thieves. Seriously? Besides the ridiculousness of the comparison, its downright fucking insulting.

A better comparison would be a charity run by a church group, that puts its idealogical belief system before the goal of raising more money for the poor. This actually happened in Australia a few years ago. Basically, the Salvation Army complained because a song given freely by a comedian for a Christmas CD (to generate funds for them to use to, you know, help the poor) makes lighthearted jokes about christianity (i.e. saying he doesn't believe jesus is magical).

This is no different than RMS (through the GPL) alienating hundreds if not thousands of companies who are willing to contribute to open source efforts, but also expect to be able to viably sell a product based on said code.

RMS goal is explicitly not "better code". If I wrote a 100% compatible alternative to GCC tomorrow, that produced 500% more efficient binaries, with a 200% speed increase in compile time, but released it under the BSD license, RMS would say "we can't use this" - not because its not better. Because someone else might ALSO take that product, package it up somehow, and make money from people willing to pay for it. Does that other product prevent him from using the original? No. Does it prevent me, the original author from using, improving, or even making money from the original product? No.

I'm not telling you that you shouldn't use the GPL license. Not at all. If you feel its right for you do that. I'm saying don't get on some high fucking horse telling people who choose not to use GPL, that what they're doing is "wrong" (either directly or indirectly, or via comparison to thieves, drug cartels and other criminals) because it doesn't fit with your specific ideology.

[belorn]

I know that reading skills are sometimes low, but seriously, you should try reread what I wrote.

> Ok so first off. You just compared a HUGE community of software developers who use BSD/MIT licences, to drug cartels and thieves

No, I described the BSD/MIT community as one that indiscriminately gives (in the comparison, people who give indiscriminately money to poor people who ask). Which then comes back to you being confused. If you are not confused, I can not see how you so completely misunderstood it.

> If I wrote a 100% compatible alternative to GCC tomorrow, that produced 500% more efficient binaries, with a 200% speed increase in compile time, but released it under the BSD license

If I gave 500% more money to people in need than the red cross, but gave it indiscriminately to anyone who ask, would that improve peoples life? Army lords that recruits child armies would be happy to get some of that money, as would drug cartels. Terrorist also. But 500% is a bigger number than 100% and I am not preventing the original target of helping poor people. Poor people in need, terrorists and drug cartels alike get money! Win-Win right?

Last: I'm not telling you that you should use the GPL. Not at all. If you feel BSD/MIT is right for you do that. I'm saying don't get on some high fucking horse telling people who choose not to use BSD, that what they're doing is "wrong" because it doesn't fit with your specific ideology.

[stephenr]

> you should try reread what I wrote

you know you are right. Absolutely, you weren't comparing those who provide code under non-GPL licenses to cartels and thieves.

You were, and are comparing companies and individuals make 100% legal use of code that is released under a software license you happen to disagree with, to cartels, thieves and apparently now terrorists.

That's so much better.

> Last: I'm not telling you that you should use the GPL

RMS/etc is telling everyone loud and clear that non-GPL code is "wrong", hence those using a BSD/MIT license are wrong-doers.

Again, so much better.

[belorn]

  "Releasing your code under one of the BSD licenses,
  or some other permissive non-copyleft license,
  is not doing wrong*"

When you can find a quote that contradicts that, you can claim that RMS/etc is telling everyone that non-gpl code is wrong. Until then, you can keep repeating this falsehood and I will keep looking at you as if you were a crazy person.

[stephenr]

> The only code that helps us and not our adversaries is copylefted code.

[belorn]

The free software movement was created to stop the proprietary software model. It is the reason the movement was created.

For profit companies are created in order to create profit. Environmentalism was created to regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment. Police was created to stop criminals.

Organizations has goals, and they want to achieve them. Permissive license both helps the free software movement, but also makes their goal harder to achieve, thus they favor Copyleft licenses which only helps the free software movement. It doesn't make permissive bad, wrong, evil or any other labels like that. It simply is not as good as copyleft for achieving the free software movements goal.

In what way is this surprising?