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-<!-- This is the second edition of Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman.
-
-Free Software Foundation
-
-51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
-
-Boston, MA 02110-1335
-Copyright C 2002, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire book are permitted
-worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is
-preserved. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations
-of this book from the original English into another language provided
-the translation has been approved by the Free Software Foundation and
-the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all
-copies.
-
-ISBN 978-0-9831592-0-9
-Cover design by Rob Myers.
-
-Cover photograph by Peter Hinely.
- -->
-
-
- <a name="Copyleft_003a-Pragmatic-Idealism">
- </a>
- <h1 class="chapter">
- 22. Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism
- </h1>
- <a name="index-copyleft-_0028see-also-copyright_0029-5">
- </a>
- <p>
- Every decision a person makes stems from the person’s values and
-goals. People can have many different goals and values; fame, profit,
-love, survival, fun, and freedom, are just some of the goals that a
-good person might have. When the goal is a matter of principle, we
-call that idealism.
- </p>
- <p>
- My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading
-freedom and cooperation. I want
-to encourage free software to
-spread, replacing proprietary software that forbids cooperation,
-and thus make our society better.
- </p>
- <p>
- That’s the basic reason why the GNU General Public License is written
-the way it is—as a copyleft.
-All code added to a GPL-covered program
-must be free software, even if it is put in a separate file. I make
-my code available for use in free software, and not for use in
-proprietary software, in order to encourage other people who write
-software to make it free as well. I figure that since proprietary
-software developers use copyright to stop us from sharing, we
-cooperators can use copyright to give other cooperators an advantage
-of their own: they can use our code.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not everyone who uses the GNU GPL has this goal. Many years ago, a
-friend of mine was asked to rerelease a copylefted program under
-noncopyleft terms, and he responded more or less like this: “Sometimes I work on free software, and sometimes I work on proprietary software—but when I work on proprietary software, I expect to get
- <em>
- paid.
- </em>
- ”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was willing to share his work with a community that shares
-software, but saw no reason to give a handout to a business making
-products that would be off-limits to our community. His goal was
-different from mine, but he decided that the GNU GPL was useful for
-his goal too.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not
-enough—you need to choose a method that works to achieve the
-goal. In other words, you need to be “pragmatic.” Is the
-GPL pragmatic? Let’s look at its results.
- </p>
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GCC-3">
- </a>
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GNU-C_002b_002b-compiler-1">
- </a>
- <p>
- Consider GNU C++. Why do we have a free C++ compiler? Only because
-the GNU GPL said it had to be free. GNU C++ was developed by an
-industry consortium,
- <a name="index-MCC">
- </a>
- MCC, starting from the
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GNU-C-compiler-_0028see-also-GNU_002c-GCC_0029-4">
- </a>
- GNU C compiler. MCC
-normally makes its work as proprietary as can be. But they made the
-C++ front end free software, because the GNU GPL said that was the
-only way they could release it. The C++ front end included many new
-files, but since they were meant to be linked with GCC, the GPL
-did apply to them. The benefit to our community is evident.
- </p>
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GNU-Objective-C">
- </a>
- <p>
- Consider GNU Objective C.
- <a name="index-NeXT">
- </a>
- NeXT initially wanted to make this front
-end proprietary; they proposed to release it as ‘
- <tt>
- .o
- </tt>
- ’ files,
-and let users link them with the rest of GCC, thinking this might be a
-way around the GPL’s requirements. But our lawyer said that this
-would not evade the requirements, that it was not allowed. And so
-they made the Objective C front end free software.
- </p>
- <p>
- Those examples happened years ago, but the GNU GPL continues
-to bring us more free software.
- </p>
- <a name="index-LGPL_002c-and-GNU-libraries-1">
- </a>
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GNU-libraries-1">
- </a>
- <a name="index-libraries-_0028comp_002e_0029_002c-GNU-2">
- </a>
- <p>
- Many GNU libraries are covered by the GNU Lesser General Public
-License, but not all. One GNU library which is covered by the
-ordinary GNU GPL is
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GNU-Readline-1">
- </a>
- <a name="index-Readline-_0028see-also-both-libraries-_0028comp_002e_0029-and-GNU_0029">
- </a>
- Readline, which implements command-line editing.
-I once found out about a nonfree program which was designed
-to use Readline, and told the developer this was not allowed. He
-could have taken command-line editing out of the program, but what he
-actually did was rerelease it under the GPL. Now it is free software.
- </p>
- <p>
- The programmers who write improvements to GCC (or
- <a name="index-Emacs_002c-GNU-6">
- </a>
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GNU-Emacs-6">
- </a>
- Emacs, or
- <a name="index-BASH-_0028Bourne-Again-Shell_0029_002c-GNU-3">
- </a>
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GNU-BASH-_0028Bourne-Again-Shell_0029-3">
- </a>
- Bash, or
-Linux, or any GPL-covered program) are often employed by companies or
-universities. When the programmer wants to return his improvements to
-the community, and see his code in the next release, the boss may say,
-“Hold on there—your code belongs to us! We don’t want to
-share it; we have decided to turn your improved version into a
-proprietary software product.”
- <a name="index-GNU_002c-GCC-4">
- </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- Here the GNU GPL comes to the rescue. The programmer shows the boss
-that this proprietary software product would be copyright
-infringement, and the boss realizes that he has only two choices:
-release the new code as free software, or not at all. Almost always
-he lets the programmer do as he intended all along, and the code goes
-into the next release.
- </p>
- <a name="index-GPL-4">
- </a>
- <p>
- The GNU GPL is not Mr. Nice Guy. It says no to some of
-the things that people sometimes want to do. There are users who say
-that this is a bad thing—that the GPL “excludes”
-some proprietary software developers who “need to be brought
-into the free software community.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But we are not excluding them from our community; they are choosing
-not to enter. Their decision to make software proprietary is a
-decision to stay out of our community. Being in our community means
-joining in cooperation with us; we cannot “bring them into our
-community” if they don’t want to join.
- </p>
- <p>
- What we
- <em>
- can
- </em>
- do is offer them an inducement to join. The GNU
-GPL is designed to make an inducement from our existing software:
-“If you will make your software free, you can use this
-code.” Of course, it won’t win ’em all, but it wins some of the
-time.
- </p>
- <p>
- Proprietary software development does not contribute to our community,
-but its developers often want handouts from us. Free software users
-can offer free software developers strokes for the
-ego—recognition and gratitude—but it can be very tempting
-when a business tells you, “Just let us put your package in our
-proprietary program, and your program will be used by many thousands
-of people!” The temptation can be powerful, but in the long run
-we are all better off if we resist it.
- </p>
- <p>
- The temptation and pressure are harder to recognize when they come
-indirectly, through free software organizations that have adopted a
-policy of catering to proprietary software. The
- <a name="index-X-Consortium-_0028see-also-Open-Group_002c-its-successor_0029-2">
- </a>
- X Consortium (and its
-successor, the
- <a name="index-Open-Group-_0028see-also-X-Consortium_002c-its-precursor_0029">
- </a>
- Open Group) offers an example: funded by companies that
-made proprietary software, they strived for a decade to persuade
-programmers not to use copyleft. When the Open Group tried to make
- <a name="index-X11R6_002e4">
- </a>
- X11R6.4 nonfree software, those
-of us who had resisted that pressure were glad that we did.
- </p>
- <p>
- In September 1998, several months after X11R6.4 was released with
-nonfree distribution terms, the Open Group reversed its decision and
-rereleased it under the same noncopyleft free software license that
-was used for X11R6.3. Thank you, Open Group—but this subsequent
-reversal does not invalidate the conclusions we draw from the fact
-that adding the restrictions was
- <em>
- possible.
- </em>
- <a name="index-Open-Group-_0028see-also-X-Consortium_002c-its-precursor_0029-1">
- </a>
- </p>
- <a name="index-call-to-action_002c-use-copyleft">
- </a>
- <p>
- Pragmatically speaking, thinking about greater long-term goals will
-strengthen your will to resist this pressure. If you focus your mind
-on the freedom and community that you can build by staying firm, you
-will find the strength to do it. “Stand for something, or you
-will fall for anything.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And if cynics ridicule freedom, ridicule community…if
-“hard-nosed realists” say that profit is the only
-ideal…just ignore them, and use copyleft all the same.
- <a name="index-copyleft-_0028see-also-copyright_0029-6">
- </a>
- </p>
-