[OSM-legal-talk] PD vs SA: The eternal battle

[Richard Fairhurst]

Rob Myers wrote:

> I am not going to argue against the power of community, but Apple and
> bus companies and J. Random Enclosurer are not in the "community" as
> socially rather than legally constituted.

See, this is what I dislike - correction, this is one of several  
things I dislike - about share-alike and, in particular, the  
Stallmanite view of things. It's enormously, enormously insular.

Stallmanites are not interested in "freedom for all", they're  
interested in "freedom for people like me", with the proviso, of  
course, that you are free to become like them (have no kids and live  
cheaply, right?). Almost as if to reinforce it, they capitalise the F  
in freedom; it's no longer a global, multifaceted concept, it's a  
narrowly-focused proper noun, a brand-name almost. And you're doing  
the same here - painting people who are different to you as  
"Enclosurers" who shouldn't be given any slack, because they're Not  
Like You.

Meanwhile Apple, of course, are about the only people who have taken  
an open-source operating system and made something with it that normal  
people can use. That, I would submit, is an equally worthwhile form of  
freedom in itself - freedom to use a computer to do stuff without  
having to be an übergeek.

Who says Apple are not in the community? Who defines what the community is?

</rant>

Of course, none of us are ever going to agree on any of this. :)

cheers
Richard