Is the GPL Really Declining?

Re:Is the GPL Really Declining? by Latty on Thursday May 04, 2017 @12:58PM (#14266496)

I'd argue that being dogmatic is a subset of being religious, and the superset of the term "religious" is applicable to the analogy at hand.

Of course, if you have a more favourable view of religion than me, you might disagree.

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Re:Is the GPL Really Declining? by pythonaut_16 on Thursday May 04, 2017 @01:42PM (#14266949)

I think there's a subtle difference. While dogmatic is often used when in context of religions it's not exclusively related to religion.

Google's definitions of religion:

>the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

>a particular system of faith and worship

>a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance

and of dogmatic:

>inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true

I think the most precise use of religion is in connection with faith or a core belief system and lifestyle (which some open source advocates certainly fit), while strong positions in a particular topic or narrow scope, e.g. the GPL, tend to be better described as dogmatic.

Which, reading back to the parent comment and the scope of the thread, I guess either could be used fairly appropriately.

A better place of where I think dogmatic would be the preferred wording would be in reference to tabs vs. spaces or vim vs emacs.

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