Re: Linux stifles innovation...

Augustin Vidovic (vido@ldh.org)
Thu, 22 Feb 2001 08:17:20 +0900


On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 03:00:26PM -0800, Dr. Kelsey Hudson wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, Augustin Vidovic wrote:
>
> > 1- GPL code is the opposite of crap
>
> By saying this, you are implying that all pieces of code released under
> the GPL are 'good' pieces of code.

If you want to rephrase it like that, ok, but then you must not forget
why these pieces of code are 'good' : because everybody have access to the
source code and may debug or improve it as needed.

To the contrary, the commercially distributed closed software may be
nicely coded (sometimes), but how can you know ? You don't have acess to
the source code. All you can do if you want to modify it is to disassemble
it. In some countries this solution is even illegal.

That's why a GPLed piece of code, whatever ugly it may look, is far better,
because you have the _liberty_ to modify it. That's the exact contrary of
crap, because there is no reason to throw it into the trashcan. A GPLed
code has the potential of living as long asd there exists a need to ru it.
A closed code can live only on one architecture, and thus is doomed to
the dumpster.

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