[Tfug] GPL Worthless?

Zack Breckenridge zbrdge at gmail.com
Sat Sep 8 16:49:45 MST 2012


Don,

I think much of this boils down to some basic social issues. Ignore the
"technical" question of what license X does for you and think about these
(very cynical) statements:

1) Most people in our modern, global society are motivated purely by profit

2) Most people don't want to share their "intellectual property". They want
the power and profit that comes from controlling it (kinda the same as
number one I guess)

3) Most people (and corporations) are lazy and least effort is the rule
rather than the exception. In fact, it is a *goal*

In other words, it's mostly a "people problem", albeit one that might be
solvable with Mathematics and Algorithms... It just *hasn't* yet, that I
know of anyway, and if it has, that solution certainly is not being sold to
consumers.

Your examples of hiding code in reprogrammable firmware and honoring a
license only in spirit is, as you said, *20th* century developed and now
*21st* century commonplace. (Note: Ken Thompson's "Reflections on Trusting
Trust" -- 1984)

Yes in an absolute sense, the GPL (and every other free software license
too) is indeed worthless today, and for that matter so is the money you pay
company X to secure your copy of product Y.

In terms of both security and quality, I think the future of both "free"
and commercial software (and hardware) is basically this:

If you want the job done right, do it yourself. Oh, and good luck with that.

Now I'm going to going to turn my frown upside down pull some weeds too :)
Hopefully I'll get rained on.

- Zack B.
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