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Comment by monochr | Hacker News Reader

"I honestly don't think it's simple. How can I possibly use GPL code to reduce anyone's freedom? By creating some derivative work? By doing so, I have not diminished your access to anything that already exists!"

Suppose you were a farmer that left town for a week or two. In that time I came in, fed your chickens and then took all the resulting eggs.

How can the above be theft? I haven't diminished your access to anything you already owned!

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It's not theft because you can copy the "chickens" in this case.

I think the example appears to be in support of GPL. The farmer here compares to whoever releases GPL code and who feeds the chickens are the users of the GPL code. Am I wrong?

Great analogy.

I have to avoid GPL and LGPL code like the plague because I have to release close-sourced commercial software for my employer, and look for BSD licensed code for my own software because I have to eat.

In the GNU narrative, you are the bad guy.

You are depriving your users of freedom by releasing closed-source software.

I have heard Stallman literally say that stealing food is bad, but working on proprietary software is worse.

It's an interesting statement to make! I think both GPL and non-GPL have their merits and good/bad points, but I have worked hard on something and don't want to give it away. Stallman would likely steal the bread that I had taken to put on my table then.

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