GPL: why Eric Raymond is wrong

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 30 April 2009 05:42

Business IT - Technology

Twelve years ago, Bruce Perens, who was then leader of the Debian GNU/Linux project, drafted the Debian free software guidelines as part of the project's social contract.
A year later, he proposed the same guidelines as the Open Source Definition (OSD), primarily meant to remove some ambiguity from the term free software and make it more understandable to the business community.

The confusion arose because people could not comprehend how something which was described as free could be sold. They interpreted the term free only in terms of price, not in terms of freedom.

Perens and Eric Raymond co-founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI), which was meant to help in building the community and education. The OSD was then made part of the OSI.

Open source was embraced by businesses as a development method which could lead to profit; the prime reason why such a term was embraced was because many people were frustrated by the inability to sell what was considered superior software.

Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, and creator of the General Public Licence, used the term free software to push his belief that software should give the user four rights: freedom to run the program for any purpose; to study the source code and then change it if one wishes; freedom to help one's neighbour and freedom to re-distribute the software.

But these rights have often got in the way of businesses doing deals. The GPL has been the object of much fear, uncertainty and doubt, with people describing it as "viral".

In what is reminiscent of what was gone through when the OSD was released 10 years go, Raymond has come out with a short article detailing why he thinks there is an economic case against the GPL.

I will just touch on one or two of the arguments he advances; you, dear reader, read his little article and conclude whether he is talking sense or not.

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