But you're not helping those causes [LWN.net]

But you're not helping those causes

Posted Jan 27, 2014 19:58 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: But you're not helping those causes by coriordan
Parent article: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

And what dragged me into this discussion was people expressing the sentiment that Google should not be contributing their code to LLVM/Clang. Why shouldn't they? It's their code!

And Google has never been particularly enamoured with copyleft.

Especially when a certain person expressed the desire for one free software program to triumph over another! :-) As I said, I'm no fan of monoculture. You only have to witness my diatribes about the brokenness of First Normal Form to know that !!! :-)

Cheers,
Wol

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If they want to own it, they can keep it.

Posted Jan 28, 2014 3:58 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> contributing their code to LLVM/Clang. Why shouldn't they? It's their code!

The point was if they want to help free software, they should contribute to copylefted projects. You're saying everyone should stand idly by while Google does whatever they want with "their" code. That's a recipe for failure.

Like any push for social change, getting to a society where computer users have freedom and control of their computers involves direct action (writing our own code), lobbying our governments, and pressuring companies.

> It's their code!

I don't agree. If they want to own it, they can keep it to themselves. Same for music, same for food.

Years ago, food was sold without the ingredients being listed on the wrapper. When food labeling was proposed, the food industry complained, "It's our food!", but governments decided that when you distribute food, you have responsabilities. It's no longer "your" food, it's food that's circulating in society.

I view software (and cultural works) similarly.