-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday 11. June 2002 21:49, Wolfgang Thaller wrote:
I'm being provocative, I know. I'm not trying to insult though, just to encourage a creative discussion.
Me too. But I've never seen a flame war on any haskell list, so I trust that no one will be insulted if we present our differing opinions in a strong way. We'll just have to take this discussion elsewhere (where?) in case it starts to generate too much noise on this list. This list shouldn't become "glasgow-haskell-politics", after all.
I do think this list is the right place, but political discussions tend to become pointless once every party has decided never to accept others' opinions. That deadlock state must be avoided. --- cut here if you aren't interested in political rants ---
:) The question here is, are you (plural) really trying to write Free
Software or just giving something away now, which will be closed and hogged later?
They probably don't want to restrict people's freedom to create non-free versions. At least that would be my motive. My main problem with the GPL is that if my code is placed under GPL, it is misused as a political tool
I agree (at least in part), I myself don't particularly like being part in political swordsmanship.
to enforce a rather extreme vision - a world _without_ proprietary software. While it is a "valid" viewpoint, it's far too extreme for me - I _want_ to write proprietary software. Let's suppose that Microsoft decides that it's time to integrate a proprietary version of GHC into Visual Studio...
This is the interesting part. Can Microsoft (or whoever!) make money without closing future development of GHC? At least they can "integrate" it into Visual Studio or whatever IDE, because there is no need to "integrate". The IDE should be decoupled from the compiler. If that's not possible, there's a design flaw in the system. I want to make my position towards the GPL clear. I don't want GHC to be licensed under GPL. _Personally_ I don't care about licenses, I dislike such legalism. But I care about the availability of software. I believe free software improves the world. Put short, I'd like GHC to stay free. I'd like the GHC source to remain available, and the developers to remain reachable, touchable. Basically I want the GHC development process to work in the open same way as it does now. If someone can make that promise to me I will be satisfied.
and suppose that the current main GHC developers will work on the non-free version. Is that a problem? No. It would generate enough additional interest in Haskell to keep up development on the free version.
I would still find it very sad, because I would like everyone to have access to the best GHC possible. That goal will either not be reached, or much effort will be duplicated.
Let's suppose on the other hand, that the main GHC developers decide to release the next version of GHC and its libraries under GPL. That would mean that it cannot be used to create proprietary software, or to create software that doesn't include a political manifesto by RMS. I doubt that there will be enough talented people available to develop a non-GPLed free version of GHC in parallel. It would destroy any hope of widespread use of Haskell in the "real world".
As stated above, I'd just like a promise that future work on GHC will remain free and open.
Anybody writing truly Free Software should have no problem with it, while any non-free efforts are left out.
I feel that Truly Free Software doesn't leave anyone out.
Very well.
I feel that Truly Free Software doesn't force anyone to distribute political manifestoes that he/she doesn't necessarily agree with.
OK.
I feel that Truly Free Software doesn't impose silly restrictions on static vs dynamic linking (as the LGPL does).
Technicalities, right!
I believe that Truly Free Software shouldn't have a license that could be classified as a (admittedly relatively benign) computer virus.
:) Interesting.
The current license leaves the most freedom to everyone. That includes things that some of us would not like to happen - but why give up freedom just because some "bad guys" might come along and do something that some (not all) "good guys" don't like?
Because the only freedom I'd like sacrificed is that of turning a great free GHC into an at least initially great non-free GHC. Right, existing versions of GHC will remain free, but they will become outdated. The world will suffer a loss if there is no longer a free top-of-the-line Haskell compiler.
I have that fear, and I'd be really happy if someone could relieve me of it.
And while you're at it, you could relieve me of my fear that the official GHC distribution could switch to a GNU license...
I hope to have relieved you of the fear that I want the GHC distribution to switch to a GNU license. My fear remains. NB: I personally enjoy source marked as "An ye harm none, do what ye will".
I'll admit here (for the sake of honesty) that `grep microsoft ghc/README` adds to the effect.
It might be scary at first, but it actually has helped improve my opinion of Microsoft a lot over the course of the last year :-). After all, Microsoft already has made a donation to the free software community. I wouldn't have expected that...
What are you refering to? Regards, Sven Moritz -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE9BmoXBz8tX8KX/qsRAlQ6AJ9vlh216Wk/3DPD0wG/r5SSnuV1VwCfTrso hDtGErvaG/Wu5bs0rxIJYjI= =JnCD -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----