[Kde-pim] Thread termination

[Rudolf Germer]

Christian Weilbach wrote:

> Am Sonntag 24 Juni 2007 schrieb Daniel Molkentin:
> > Am Sonntag 24 Juni 2007 schrieb Rudolf Germer:

[...]
> > > Coders get the money for _their_ code. They don't get it for GNU code
> > > because the GNU one is free anyway. So why should they _have to_ give
> > > back code? They do it anyway - if they want! That's what I call freedom.
> > > Millions of users and companies won't give back a single line of code.
>
> And that's why I don't care about Windows users. I don't think that competing
> with the Windows Desktop will help us a lot.

That's another story. There also are millions of Linux and KDE users
who won't help you. They just use *your* code and won't give back
anything. Millions! I already wrote that, see above.

> > > Why should programmers be forced to do that?
>
> Because it is my code that I contribute and I want it to be used freely.

Then why do you want to tie strong GPL conditions to your code? That's
not "free" in my opinion. Maybe Richard Stallman will call it "free".
If he does, he may also call murder "reduction of our population".

> I want my time to be useful to people who also share their time with
> the community and don't get their money from my time.

Why would you want that? Is it evil to make money? Is it evil to write
software? GPL folks always tell that users can make money with *support*
for GPL software. That would be fine. So it's o.k. for companies to
use your code (and giving anything back) and to make paid support
for your software but it's *evil* to make money when a programmer
just uses your code to make a cool application? Most of the people
who are reading this are programmers. Using the GPL just makes
programmers potentially hurt programmers. The ones who are potentially
able to help developing free/open source software.

Besides that: Nobody will make money with your software, Christian.
There's a difference between *your* GPL'ed software and a *different*
application who just *uses* your GPL library. Your library will still
be "free". If someone writes an application using your software, he
just holds a copyright for *his* part.

> GPL is about copyleft not copyright.

Copyleft is just like "Make GNU software. Make more GNU software".

> Without that you wouldn't even have ten percent the free software we
> have today.

That has nothing to do with GPL but with open source in general. Before
the GPL arised, public domain was very popular. Today other licenses
(BSD, MIT) and many applications using other licenses (X11, Ruby ...)
are also very popular. The GPL license is not a precondition for
voluntary work.

[...]
> P.S.: You know that Richard Stallman and the FSF made free software possible
> since more than 30 years, Rudolf? I don't think you will develop for free
> software in more than 30 years, if this is your opinion.

You know that there was free/open source software *before* Richard
Stallman invented the GPL, Christian? And there still is and will be
unless we all think that GPL is a good idea. In my opinion Richard
Stallman's fantasies are dangerous for programmers.

RG
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