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New I can think of one reason
It would mean that people with websites that have programs developed using gpl tools would stop using them if they didn't want to share sources. For some people, there are very good reasons to want that. In the long run, it would damage the spread of free software.

Furthermore, those tools' source is shared with the person who is using it; to website's owner and/or developer. The people using the website itself are not using the tool; they're using the website; while some of the output they get may have been generated by an open source tool, the overall organisation of that output is outside the tools' purview.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton                            jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca]                   [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada               [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
New That argument is not new
It was used against the GPL back when the GPL first came out. RMS wasn't convinced by it then, why would he be convinced by it now?

Besides you're way overestimating the impact. Take a GPLed tool like emacs. If you write code with emacs, the code that you've written is yours and you can do with it what you want. Likewise if you write a website with emacs, by no stretch of the imagination can that website be viewed as a public performance of emacs. Therefore you'd be unaffected by the change.

However if you were using, say, a GPLed library for dealing with XMLhttpd requests, then the public website which is delivering data to clients using that library might be considered a public performance of that library. (This is assuming that a court rules that this is public performance, which is a question that no court as yet has considered.) And then you might have extra clauses to consider.

Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New RMS is far crazier than that.
I seem to recall original interpretation of the GPL, as applied to GCC, was that everything produced using GCC was GPL.
New He was probably right
The GPL says:

The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

It is very easy for the output of a compiler to be a work based on the compiler under copyright law. For a trivial example, it could just insert a copyrighted poem into the final work. For a more realistic example, suppose that it inserted a section of code that tested the type of CPU and dynamically turned on/off specific optimizations or workarounds.

The result is that there are specific kinds of optimizations that the GCC maintainers will not even consider because they would make the output of GCC a derivative work of GCC and trigger the GPL.

Personally I wish that they added them anyways and had a compiler switch that you could use to turn them on. On my Debian system, I don't mind if all of the GPLed utilities are compiled in a way that makes them faster but derivative works of GCC.

Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New (Un)intended consequences
Suppose the FSF gets a case into court arguing that serving up a website constitutes public performance, so that they can enforce the terms of the GPL against the site host. Suppose a judge accepts the argument and the FSF prevails.

Presto, Microsoft owns all websites hosted on IIS. Now whose license do you like better? And what do you think of UCITA?
===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
New That could bring up an interesting possibility.
If website is done right, most - if not all - of what a company would like to keep "proprietary" is technically data and not actually part of the codebase. If a new GPL starts encouraging people to release their website code, those who've been faking it with hard-coded data (for instance) will find themselves at a competetive disadvantage.

Wade.

Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
 
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please

-- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne.

New That entirely depends on what your website does
For instance what Google would like to keep proprietary really isn't the data that they deliver.

Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
New I hadn't thought of that.

Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
 
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please

-- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne.

     Hints about the GPL v3 - (ben_tilly) - (15)
         Wouldn't that also apply to non-OSS licenses? - (drewk) - (4)
             Yes - (ben_tilly) - (3)
                 Sounds like the real choice in licensing is simplicity - (drewk) - (2)
                     BSD is simpler - (ben_tilly) - (1)
                         Hate to say this, but ... - (drewk)
         That would conflict with Freedom 0. - (ubernostrum) - (9)
             Why wouldn't he? - (ben_tilly) - (8)
                 I can think of one reason - (jake123) - (7)
                     That argument is not new - (ben_tilly)
                     RMS is far crazier than that. - (broomberg) - (2)
                         He was probably right - (ben_tilly) - (1)
                             (Un)intended consequences - (drewk)
                     That could bring up an interesting possibility. - (static) - (2)
                         That entirely depends on what your website does - (ben_tilly) - (1)
                             I hadn't thought of that. -NT - (static)

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