So many people have gotten the ideas of Free Software confused with commerce. It is a commonly held belief that software released until the GPL cannot be sold. First off, there is nothing in the GPL license that talks about selling. And more importantly I think few authors of GPL software would want to prohibit people selling the software that they write. I am here to say quite directly: please sell the GPL software that I write! Please take it, use it, improve it, make a profit on it! All I ask are the terms that are in the GPL: that you contribute you distribute the source code and you contribute back improvements to me so I can include them.

While I happily accept payment for working on software, I also feel it is important that people are not required to hire me to work on the software that I wrote. If someone wants to pay someone to make improvements to Firmata, I will happily take on the job. But if someone is better situated to do the work, then hire them instead. For example, a competent person who can work in the same room as you is worth more than the expert you have to talk to via email.

The world is not a black and white place, that is for sure. There is little that is simple in it. If you want to do good in the world, sometimes it might be beneficial to be a little less good for a while. Google’s actions in China could be such a case. A few years ago, they made a deal with the Chinese government that they would remove links to websites that the Chinese government has blocked. In exchange, Google could run their operations within China. This is obvious not a good thing, and many argue (me included) that this violated Google’s motto, Don’t Be Evil. Now they say they will again show the blocked links, and are threatening to pull out of China altogether. So it seems that their early deal with the devil perhaps has given them more leverage to bring attention to the actions of China. So that could be using a bad, but perhaps not evil, action to affect a greater change. On the other hand, it could just be that Google’s business isn’t going well in China and they were going to shut it down anyway, so they might as well cash in on the good PR and potential moral credibility boost. Or something else.

It is interesting to contrast actions like these to the more pure actions of someone like Richard M. Stallman (RMS). If you look at both what he says about Free Software and how strictly he acts upon those works, it is really quite incredible. Outside of Free Software, he may be morally dubious, I just don’t know at all. But looking at Free Software, it looks to me quite clear that RMS has been quite strictly adherent to his words, and we can now see that this has been quite amazingly successful, even against some pretty hefty foes.

Somewhere in all this in a balance. We need the people out there who are unwilling to compromise their morals even a bit to keep the issues clear and the goals focused. Having people who believe in that strict word, yet can contribute one step at a time, can be a net positive effect if said people stay focused on the true goals. Many people use proprietary software while espousing Free Software. As long as the goal remains the ever expansion of Free Software, that’s a net positive. When people settle on the status quo, then the lack of focus results in a lesser or negative result.

It is amazing to watch all the financial wheeling and dealing continue on, even after this insanity has caused the biggest economic collapse since the great depression. The big Obama bailout has kept all these wheelers and dealers in business, hardly feeling any repercussions at all. I just saw a good example of this in the NY Times today, in an article called For Savers, It Was Hardly a Lost Decade. The basic premise of the article does hit it right on the nose: if you put away $1000 a month and invest it conservatively, you will do well. And it does lay out the bleak truth that many if not most investors would have been better off if they had just stuck their money in the bank 10 years ago.