- cross-posted to:
- foss@beehaw.org
- opensource
- cross-posted to:
- foss@beehaw.org
- opensource
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.”
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.
Amen.
The webpage doesn’t indicate the original date of publishing
The Wayback Machine’s earliest capture is from 2000 and the text references an event from 1998, so that helps narrow it down a little.