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I suggest gaining some experience in free open-source software development. Goto high-priority projects assisted by GNU, or goto Savannah. Get an IRC account at FreeNode and meet other hackers.

Then, I suggest investing about $400 per year on a Safari subscription. This is a site where you can legally read O'Reilly IT e-books. It will come handy if you have a PDA, like HTC Universal with a 3G broadband connection for reading Safari while you commute (note: Here in Europe we commute by taking a taxi, riding a bus, or using a train, if you are in North America most probably you won't be able to use a PDA during commuting as you ought to drive, unless you are in New York City where mass transit is similar to Europe).

Finally, focus on the fundamentals. What's a queue and how it differs from an array? What is a relation? What is a finite state machine? What is a Turing machine, and what is a hypercube?

Armed with the fundamentals, assisted by a good e-books site like Safari, and practising on open-source projects, you will become a hacker in no time.

A caveat: Try to understand what kind of company your employer is. Do they pass the Joel Test? Do they have good Management and do they use Software Engineering methodologies, and if not why not? Many companies are just hiring a bunch of underpaid engineers, put them in a noisy environment, and tell them to write code all day. This is a recipe for bugs! Good companies act on bugs proactively, via test-driven development, etc.

Another important thing you must achieve is the state of flow, coding in the zone, or hack-mode. It is, in fact, more important to be able to achieve flow easily rather than have advanced degrees in computers.

No, that's not all I'm saying. I don't think it's fair to the topic to condense one's thoughts to sound bites (where one is inevitably constrained to repeating the same cliches which give power to the status quo).

I appreciate it when open source minded hackers deliver free software to people, and I am grateful when open source advocates stand with the free software community pushing for no software patents and no DRM. We need more social solidarity to make better lives for ourselves, and I'm grateful that the free software movement argues for increased social solidarity. But when you say "the Open crowd is paving the way to the Free approach" you wouldn't know that to look at the chosen audio and video formats. Not one of the alternatives provided can be played on a completely free software system for many users around the world saddled with governments who adopt software patents.

Far more credit is due to the free software movement than the open source movement has made it acceptable to say aloud. The free software movement was working on and distributing eminently practical free software before the open source movement existed. Some of the software worked on then is still critically important today (such as GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection, initially written by RMS who initially called it the GNU C Compiler). Today, the important license work on the most widely used licenses (GNU GPL, GNU LGPL, and GNU FDL) isn't being done by the Open Source Initiative, it's being done by the Free Software Foundation including RMS, who is credited as the chief author of GPLv3. GPLv3 represents the first GPL that anyone in the open source movement has ever participated in because the two prior versions predate the OSI and the open source movement.

I've written more on the topic of free software and open source, so I won't repeat it here except to say that I am reminded of RMS' response to a questioner at FISL7 (quoted at the previous link) and how "open source" became a useless phrase, according to Eben Moglen.

Here's your quote: FSF president and founder Richard Stallman said, "I think Sun has contributed more than any other company to the free software community in the form of software. It shows leadership. It's an example I hope others will follow."

http://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-welcomes-gpl-java.html

When you have a milti-million dollar agreement to support your product as a virtualization platform you do. Patents and copyright are not the same thing.

Where did this even come from?

"MS "allowing" Novell to use their patents for the time being doesn't mean MS agreed to the GPL in any way, shape or form."

From the GPL: "For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have." (source: fsf)

Any special rights granted to Novell for adding office compatibility would be transfered to the recipient of the code. MS and Novell spent months hashing over the GPL before announcing this deal and MS rubber stamped it. If MS is unhappy with the fact that Novell releases under GPL it is a little late to complain about it now.

"And we all know OSS devs have limitless money to spend to fight MS. I guess in your mind everyone sued by the RIAA got what was coming to them, too."

Newsflash: Legal cases like this are rarely fought by hobbyist devs. In a legal attack on OO.o, MS would probably find themselves up against IBM, Sun, RH, the EU and probably judge Jackson.

And again, it was the fucking ruling of the courts that MS better document their office formats so that others could more easily implement them, how can you logically believe for a second the courts would let MS would get away with attacking someone in court for doing it in the first place??

Here is a secret: The patent portion of the deal was mostly about MS protecting themselves from Novell's portfolio, not the reverse.

Isn't this one of the reasons why the FSF requires all contributors to assign their copyrights to the FSF explicitly? I believe this puts the responsibility onto the authors, and not the FSF, to make sure they have the right to contribute.

More info here.

Great question. Hope you get moderated up to +5 instantly on that one.

1. The tech community can offer their services as technical consultants to the lawyers and individuals who are fighting these cases, preferably on a reduced fee or pro bono basis. There is a great need for people who can testify and advise about numerous issues that come up in these cases, such as, just to name a few, (a) hard drive forensics issues, (b) IP addresses and the like, (c) file sharing software, (d) the significance of metadata and hash marks, and (e) the unreliability of proprietary software that has never been peer reviewed as a basis for a lawsuit... i.e. all the issues on which the RIAA are trying to mislead the judges.

2. All tech companies who make profits from the internet should be organizing, and contributing financially to, legal defense funds to assist the RIAA defendants. Right now the only fund I know of that is currently operational is the RIAA legal defense fund operated by "Defective by Design".

3. All tech companies should urge their industry trade associations to be assisting the RIAA defendants financially.

4. Everybody, tech community or not, should be writing to their federal congresspeople about this situation and urging legislation to curb the tide of litigation against ordinary working people.

If you are impressed with what the Free Software Foundation has done for people's freedom, think that the work they are doing on the GPL3 is important and want to show your support financially, you might like to donate to or join either the FSF or its sister organisations.

To read about joining please follow these links:

• Associate membership with FSF
• Fellow membership with FSF Europe
• Associate membership with FSF India

Do your homework.

The FSF is the Free Software Foundation, and the owner of the majority of the copyrights on GNU software and the stuff in lots of Linux distributions. It isn't some nebulous movement.

Yes, Novell can do all they want with the OLD code as long as they respect the copyrights. Novell does not have the resources to maintain GPLv2 versions of everything that moves to v3. The point of GNU/Linux is that the community does a lot of the work, not just one company. Novell can't replace that and if they tried, would rapidly fall behind and into the dustbin.

I can't see any way of creating a definition that would have a chance in hell of ever being anything but ambiguous and self-contradictory.

That's because being ambiguous and self-contradictory is its purpose.

We appreciate your concern and the fact that you took the time to write us. To address the issues you've raised:

• There was an announcement about Java posted within two days of Sun's announcement.
• We will be adjusting our priority project list as soon as details and for Sun's release are clear. We always work hard to publicize our work, especially since we are actually involved in all of these issues.

I was gonna prefix this by saying, "Not to be pedantic", but then I realized we were talking about FSF terminology here, so f**k it.
really he should have said:

GNU/Linux infringes on our patents.

While most fsf pedantry is a little over the top, this one I happen to agree with, "Intellectual property" is not a useful term. In general when I hear someone use the term "IP", it means that they don't believe that their "IP" is protected under patent, copyright, or trademark law, but they wish that it was protected under some other fictitious law, and the are trying to BS other people into believing them.

I was gonna prefix this by saying, "Not to be pedantic", but then I realized we were talking about FSF terminology here, so f**k it.
really he should have said:

GNU/Linux infringes on our patents.

While most fsf pedantry is a little over the top, this one I happen to agree with, "Intellectual property" is not a useful term. In general when I hear someone use the term "IP", it means that they don't believe that their "IP" is protected under patent, copyright, or trademark law, but they wish that it was protected under some other fictitious law, and the are trying to BS other people into believing them.

Wow, I would really like to see some evidence of that. As it stands, it's just an absurd claim with no support.

I put the "wild" preface there for a reason. The FSF is a great organization, but sometimes they are a bit nutty. Eben has some heavy insight into things from a legal and IBM perspective, and is tied directly to important figures in these matters. He likely heard a rumor or two and pieced it together as something far larger than it was. I have no sources other than what I heard at that meeting.

The Free Software Foundation has made no announcements on either of these developments.

So what? Dovecot is a really cool GPL-ed POP/IMAP server, and I don't recall the FSF making any announcement when it was released. Nor do I recall the FSF making any announcement when many other things were released under the GPL. It's not necessary because the GPL speaks for itself.

Solaris is based on System V Unix from AT&T, not on BSD. Yes, Solaris 1.x (a/k/a SunOS 4.x) was based on BSD, but it was pretty much totally rewritten before Solaris 2.x

My bad, I got it backwards (which is odd, since I'm a Solaris admin). That was added as an afterthought.

They absolutely need to agree to a license (not sign a contract) to use the software. The terms of the license say that you have the traditional rights granted by copyright (which means you're not allowed to copy someone else's original work), but that *if* you comply with the terms of the license, they'll grant you the right to redistribute, modify, etc.

One of the conditions in the terms of the license is that you aren't allowed to *change* the terms of the license in a number of ways. If you do, then those rights are rescinded, and you go back to only having the rights granted under copyright law (which means, you have to ask my permission to do anything with it).

You said (in part):

"...If the licenser wasn't making an exclusive agreement with you and gave you redistribution rights, then I've done nothing wrong, you've done nothing wrong and I'm in no way bound by any contract you might have with the licenser..."

You're bound by the terms of the license that the software is distributed under. The person who distributed the software to you did so with the knowledge that there were certain things that had to be done to be in compliance with the license. One of those things is to make sure that the license is distributed with the software, so that it's clear what's allowed and what's not.

If you received the software without the license (i.e. the person who distributed it failed in their duties to comply with the licensing requirements), then that doesn't mean you are allowed to ignore copyright law or that your copy is magically license free. Just ask the folks at the BSA about that. Millions of illegally-licensed copies of Windows are installed and used every year, and there are very real penalties for knowingly doing so.

You also said:

"...You signed a contract with them to receive support. If you were to give me a copy of your software, that wouldn't entitle me to receive support, would it?..."

If the contract was for support, then they paid for support. The license is a separate thing...it covers under what conditions you may use the software under, not whether you will receive support.

You mentioned that you wouldn't be bound by that agreement (the support one) any more than redhat would be bound to give you support. True, since you didn't enter into a support contract with them (although you could do so very easily). You then mentioned that:

"...It's clear that I can have a license to distribute Redhat Linux but not be bound by any contract to Redhat..."

This almost true, since you would be bound by the terms of the license of the software you received, not by a contract signed directly with a particular company or person. Traditionally, copyright was the only legal condition allowed for distributing a work, but the GPL is becoming common, and allows more freedom. The GPL says (in part):

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

The only reason you are *ever* allowed to redistribute is because of the license. If you don't accept the terms of the license, there isn't anything else that magically gives you distribution rights. It doesn't matter if you got it direct from RedHat, or from some guy in a van behind a seedy building, the only rights you have are copyright and the license the work is distributed under. Copyright gives you certain fair-use rights, none of which would apply to you distributing someone else's software.

I can't help but think that the MS-Novell deal was the inspiration for this going into completion; the final straw, so to speak (or at least, the reason for the timing of the announcement). Consider it; Novell uses Mono and just got in bed with Microsoft.

Sun is in trouble, and according to FSF Lawyer Eben Moglen's (wild) allegations in his talk at a recent Free Software Foundation Associate Membership meeting, they previously (2005?) took a bribe from Microsoft to keep OpenSolaris incompatible with the GPL (in exchange for financing they believed was desperately needed for miniaturizing CPU size with Fujitsu to compete with IBM(?) in the server market). Sun is now flip-flopping like a struggling politician; they caved to the pressure of GPL'ing Java despite (allegedly) accepting a bribe to keep Solaris less free. Like many on Slashdot, I consider the FSF and the F/OSS development community greater long-term allies than Microsoft, so maybe Sun will release Solaris 11 or 12 under the GPL.

The Free Software Foundation has made no announcements on either of these developments. What does this mean for the GCC/Java code, which is largely functional? How would GPL'ed Solaris utilities impact use and development of the GNU utilities? (Yes, I realize that the Solaris utilities share code with BSD utilities given their common ancestors, but Solaris has the shiny stamp-of-approval from major security auditors.)

I think the official stance on this issue is available here.

Well, since the GPL 3 is not going to be ready until January 15, 2007 at the earliest I guess the question is if the licensing is going to include the "either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version" part of the copyright notice for GPL 2. My guess would be that they won't include it, so that they can know exaclty how it's going to be licenced in the future. Once the GPL 3 is out, thay may change it.

After that speech, someone asked an interesting question: What if party A makes a machine that will only execute binaries released and signed by party B? Would this escape from our anti-tivoization requirements? I had to study the question afterward, and the answer seems to be that major companies would not try such a thing without having a contract between them, and that contract would make the joint activity a clear violation of the GPL.

i am basically for stronger enforcement of copyright laws.. does this make me 'anti-tech' or 'pro-tech' in this survey view?

anti-tech, you douche.

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1763
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market
http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=01 97

http://jorge.cortell.net/
http://www.benkler.org/
http://www.dklevine.com/
http://www.stephankinsella.com/ip/
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books.htm

http://swpat.ffii.org/
http://creativecommons.org/
http://www.piratbyran.org/
http://www.stealthisfilm.com/
http://www.cambia.org/
http://www.plos.org/
http://www.fsf.org/

Patent licenses are legal fictions. A patent gives its owner the power to exclude others from practicing a claim, but it does not confer an affirmative right to practice it. In essence, then, a patent license is nothing more than an undertaking not to sue the licensee, and such an undertaking is precisely what is needed to enable users of GPL'd code to exercise their rights without fear of liability to upstream distributors for infringement of software patents.

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

Distributors should try really hard to build an online, wiki-style database of ALL the hardware that a given version of their distribution supports. This should not just be by "chipset" (Atheros, ACX100), but rather, should be by actual box packaged versions of the hardware (D-Link so and so version 2, Linksys so and so versions 3-5, Logitech QuickCam Pro, etc. . .).

While they don't list which distributions support particular hardware, or how to enable the hardware in those distributions that do, sites like the Free Software Foundation's Hardware Devices that Support GNU/Linux and LinuxPrinting.org are pretty good. The FSF one in particular lists not only the chipset, but what manufacturers use it and the names their products are sold under.

If you'd like to hear a very well-spoken argument to explain how unique the GNU/Linux system is in the market for small portable computers, listen to Eben Moglen's talk from the 2006 FSF Associate Member meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This talk was a hit in its own right and a highlight of the day's events. This talk is called "The Hardware Wars and the future of free software". Other talks from the meeting are online as well.

While it's a shame that the entire OS isn't free software, I would love to discover that Microsoft is distributing a free software kernel to its users; the more free software distributors, the merrier.

If you'd like to hear a very well-spoken argument to explain how unique the GNU/Linux system is in the market for small portable computers, listen to Eben Moglen's talk from the 2006 FSF Associate Member meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This talk was a hit in its own right and a highlight of the day's events. This talk is called "The Hardware Wars and the future of free software". Other talks from the meeting are online as well.

While it's a shame that the entire OS isn't free software, I would love to discover that Microsoft is distributing a free software kernel to its users; the more free software distributors, the merrier.

I've been reading on the GPLv3 and I don't like it.

Now's your chance to debug it while it's still in development by providing your input. There is an open invitation to contribute. GPL3 is coming whether individuals here or there like it or not, so at least try to make sure it addresses your concerns.

You can't stop progress, but you can help define it.

Actually, the CDDL is a Free Software license, albeit a GPL-incompatible one, according to the FSF. See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html.

Interesting. The Open Source Initiative disagree with you, and the Free Software Foundation describe it as a GPL-Incompatible, Free Software License. Sounds pretty open to me. Oh, and I actually have read the license; I suggest you do to.

I beg to differ:

No covered work constitutes part of an effective technological "protection" measure under section 1201 of Title 17 of the United States Code

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/not-ipr.xhtml

You can teach them that "intellectual property" is actually a vicious malapropism.

by goofyheadedpunk (807517) on Monday October 23, @12:26AM (#16542430) Here is, by the way, the full listing of the GNU Project Software.

http://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl-draft-2006-07-27.html

The reality is that businesses run Windows and Unix environments. Linux isn't the cheap panacea once touted to be. Sun isn't completely out of the game yet, and IBM still has AIX. Apple is also very much a player in the computing world. Sure you can download the latest version of Debian, but a corporate compute environment is more likely to use Red Hat or SuSE Enterprise.

Were I Apple or Sun, I'd be pushing my own version of Unix on the corporate world, letting them know they won't have GPLv3 worries to litigate in the future. Were I IBM, I'd make absolutely certain AIX is on every CIOs tongue.

"Doesn't it seem like obsoleting most successful software business models all at once, making it harder to make a living as a programmer", would lead to a net loss in software development?", nine-times

re obsoleting: If that were true we wouldn't have any Open Source software, as where's the money for the programer. The answer is that companies make money selling Open Source solutions and pay the programmers. Most sucessful?. Where do these huge profits come from. Have you factored in the cost of viruses.

Looking back I say we will look at the current situation as an aberation of the market. The only reason you see the huge profits is that once a company 'licenses' a proprietary product and puts all their records on it, they've effectively given away all their IP to a software company. They are locked in to the sofware company for life. The software company issues free lifetime upgrades but only until the next version comes out, at which point your 'license' becomes void and you have to buy a new 'license'.

"Obviously there would still be software, and there might be a long-term gain in pushing towards all software being open-sourced over time, but it's not a simple issue.", nine-times

It has always been able to copyright software. Why all the need for IP legislation. The answer being that if I only use 'proprietary' software I am bound to these IP clauses and am compelled to pay for a license to use the protocols, a guaranted revenue stream into perpetuity. The only obstacle to all this is Open Source. That certain people would like to reduce this to a discussion of 'software' is understandable. Lets see some quote from the ISC letter:

"the more information we [ISC] can gather .. the more coherent and better understood the software ecosystem can become.

For monoculture->insert, ecosystem. For globalwarming->insert climate change

"the study does add more information to this complex issue. It does not holistically reflect the full dynamics now occuring in the vibrant software marketplace."

Vibrant?. 'software' is a drain on a companies balance sheet. On average one fifth of revenue is going up the pyramed. It's a net negative on the balance sheet. No one ever made money out of buying software 'licenses'.

"It must reiterated that FLOSS is merely a business model for distributing software,"

Untrue, you would like us to merely think so. FLOSS according to the FSF is freedom to distribure and further modify the software as well as a developement and collaberation model.

"the proprietary model is supported to a large extent by a complex system of rights (i.e. IPR) .. it is an intricate and market-oriented stimulation of innovation that clearly works"

translation: We will give you bits of paper and you will give us money. You see having achieved such strangle hold on the market through the use of IP legislation and cross-licensing-do-not-sue-agreements that's there's no point going Open Source.

re Re:I, too, am convinced

In Linux, email attachments aren't nearly as much of a problem. My understanding is that, with most Linux email programs, clicking an email attachment does not result in something running without asking the user first. Furthermore, the .exe attachments and active-X stuff won't run even if the user does give permission. I recently received a message with a .exe attachment and had no idea how make Windows-only stuff like that run or open. If something did somehow run the program most likely would not be running with full root (administrative) privileges.

Ordinary free downloaded software usually comes from projects at reputable well known organizations such as Source Forge or the Free Software Foundation. The programs can be downloaded in source code form and compiled and the source code is available for public inspection. I am no expert on any of this, but the source code later gets compiled and packages for particular versions of Linux such as Ubuntu (or whatever) are created and placed on repositories waiting to by downloaded by ordinary users. A Ubuntu user would then run Symantic and select which of the thousands of free programs he wants to have installed. Most Linux users do not just download and install software from just anywhere. The Ubuntu user can choose which types of repositories use. I am not sure about signature signatures and other details. I have occasionally wondered if perhaps a trojan from somewhere like that might still be possible but I haven't heard of it happening.

Even if email attachments in Linux aren't much of a problem, targeted trojans with kestroke-loggers or screen-scraping software and such might still be something to think about. Obviously, no operating system has perfect security.

You only read it that way because you do not have the objective clear in your head.

The objective is user freedomm not the freedom to do all you want with the software including removing freedoms.

The objective is to make a closed circle around the 4 freedoms:
0. to run the software for any purpose
1. to study and adapt the software (source code availability is a requirement)
2. to distribute copies
3. to distribute modified copies (source code availability is a requirement)

If you keep in mind that the objective is to have those freedoms and that they can't ever be lost, then you will read the text properly.

As long as you think in "open source" just because "open source", and that Freedom is something software (not the users) needs (which is absurd since software doesn't have needs or feelings), or that you think that making proprietary versions is "noble"... you're always going to nitpick such weird stuff.

Of course this doesn't mean the text can't be made clearer. I suggest you make suggestions rather than bitch (that is, don't imitate Linus, be better than him).

What on earth are you talking about? What debian is shipping is just firefox minus branding plus debian-specific patches. Why would anyone else have an interest in adopting that?

Your idea about a full fork shows a complete lack of understanding about how the Mozilla project works. Why would you want to fork Gecko or XULRunner just because of disagreements over a front-end that makes up 10% of the code, tops? Because that's all Firefox is. At least learn the basics about Mozilla before calling for a fork of it, otherwise you won't get far.

And for your "corporate governance" argument... Mozilla Corp. is just a subsidiary(sp?) the Mozilla Foundation created for administrative purposes. GNOME has the GNOME Foundation, Apache has the Apache Software Foundation, Python has the Python Software Foundation, GNU has the FSF. Are you calling for a fork of those projects too, to rid them of their evil governing entities?

The GPL-3 allows the copywrite holder to place certain restrictions on the licensee's use of the software, for instance no military/weapons use (don't like your stuff being used; Freedom's a biach isn't it).

1. There isn't a GPL3 YET
2. The GPL3 DRAFT doesn't add any restrction on USE

The GPL-3 allows the copywrite holder to place certain restrictions on the licensee's use of the software, for instance no military/weapons use

This would make GPL3 non-free by the FSF's own definition, which requires the freedom to run the program for any purpose. Please support your claim with text from the current GPL3 discussion draft.

The Corresponding Source also includes any encryption or authorization keys necessary to install and/or execute modified versions from source code in the recommended or principal context of use, such that they can implement all the same functionality in the same range of circumstances. (For instance, if the work is a DVD player and can play certain DVDs, it must be possible for modified versions to play those DVDs. If the work communicates with an online service, it must be possible for modified versions to communicate with the same online service in the same way such that the service cannot distinguish.)

Also, I just want to add that between FSF, FSFE, FSFI, and FSFLA, organising events around the World is not so difficult. There is a local network of employees and/or volunteers in many cities (and these would be the places chosen to host events).

And, after getting many experts into one place so that a large discussion can be had, all events were recorded in some way. A good example is the European conference, for which the entire two days were recorded and put online.

This is 3.c)
        c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
        to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
        allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
        received the program in object code or executable form with such
        an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

from the current GPL here:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt

Do you fall within that?

all the best,

drew

The new proposed GNU Simpler Free Documentation License [ . . . ] has no requirements to maintain Cover Texts and Invariant Sections. This will provide a simpler licensing option for authors who do not wish to use these features in the GNU FDL.

You can read it here.

What part are you talking about? The section paragraph of section 2?

This is borrowed from other free software licences. From the late 90s onward, many companies wrote their own free software licences, and many included patent retaliation clauses like this. GPLv3 is copying them.

That you haven't seen this before and that you have a hard time pigeonholing GPLv3 is a reflection of you, not the licence.

If you have a comment about the licence, please make it at gplv3.fsf.org (as well as discussing it in whatever online forums you want to).

All comments submitted there are reviewed by four committees with about 130 people in total. One of those committees is made up of legal experts. They should be competent enough to review your comment. Here's the member list of that committee:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/discussion-committees/C/membe rlist-public

There are people that create software, beta test software, classify images, submit bug reports and do a whole host of things that benefit companies. They do it for a wide variety of reasons. One of the best reasons is because often when we help, we are making the world we live in a better place to live and we are helping ourselves.

The FSF is about _user_ freedom

DRM is concerned with the same thing, except Bob and Charlie are actually the same person.

No, Bob is a piece of hardware. His key lives deep inside a silicon wafer.

Programmers who expect to break DRM are living in the past.

News item on fsf.org: http://www.fsf.org/news/gplv3-clarification
"The Free Software Foundation wishes to clarify a few factual points about the Second Discussion Draft of GNU GPL version 3, on which recent discussion has presented inaccurate information.

1. The FSF has no power to force anyone to switch from GPLv2 to GPLv3 on their own code. We intentionally wrote GPLv2 (and GPLv1) so we would not have this power. Software developers will continue to have the right to use GPLv2 for their code after GPLv3 is published, and we will respect their decisions.

2. In order to honor freedom 0, your freedom to run the program as you wish, a free software license may not contain "use restrictions" that would restrict what you can do with it.
Contrary to what some have said, the GPLv3 draft has no use restrictions, and the final version won't either.
GPLv3 will prohibit certain distribution practices which restrict users' freedom to modify the code. We hope this policy will thwart the ways some companies wish to "use" free software -- namely, distributing it to you while controlling what you can do with it. This policy is not a "use restriction": it doesn't restrict how they, or you, can run the program; it doesn't restrict what they, or you, can make the program do. Rather it ensures you, as a user, are as free as they are.

3. Where GPLv2 relies on an implicit patent license, which depends on US law, GPLv3 contains an explicit patent license that does the same job internationally.
Contrary to what some have said, GPLv3 will not cause a company to "lose its entire [software] patent portfolio". It simply says that if someone has a patent covering XYZ, and distributes a GPL-covered program to do XYZ, he can't sue the program's subsequent users, redistributors and improvers for doing XYZ with their own versions of that program. This has no effect on other patents which that program does not implement.
Software patents attack the freedom of all software developers and users; their only legitimate use is to deter aggression using software patents. Therefore, if we could abolish every entity's entire portfolio of software patents tomorrow, we would jump at the chance. But it isn't possible for a software license such as the GNU GPL to achieve such a result.
We do, however, hope that GPL v3 can solve a part of the patent problem. The FSF is now negotiating with organizations holding substantial patent inventories, trying to mediate between their conflicting "extreme" positions. We hope to work out the precise details of the explicit patent license so as to free software developers from patent aggression under a substantial fraction of software patents. To fully protect software developers and users from software patents will, however, require changes in patent law."

Which are your ideals regarding software. I want to be clear on this and make sure you see them as your ideals or do you see them as something else?

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1).
  Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3).
  Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

See The Free Software Definition.
The GPL is a means to achieve and make irrevocable Free software in a world with strong copyrights, in effect by subverting copyright and turning it on itself. This is why "copyleft" is sometimes described as a "copyright hack". The GPL, however, is a means to the end, and is not the end in itself - ensuring that the four freedoms are available to users of software is the objective.

Well, I don't know what the technical legal terminology would be, but defacto it acts as a contract that you do indeed have to agree to to use GPL software. This conversation would not exist if Dlink could use GPL software without having to agree to the GPL.

It cannot be a contract, because it's unilateral. You can purchase or be given GPL software, and you need not agree to the GPL to use the software, nor does using the software constitute de facto agreement to the terms of the GPL. This is explained here: If I get some software under the GPL, do I have to agree to anything?. While agreeing to the GPL does not incur any obligations on you, neither is it required to use the software. This, incidentally, is one reason the GPL is very strong, as it is not like an EULA which purports to unilaterally bind you by the mere fact that you have received or use the software.

What does incur obligations, however, is redistributing the software, which is what DLink did. More precisely, it is not a GPL violation, but a copyright violation. By and large, redistribution of copyrighted works, including GPLed works, is not permitted in most jurisdictions today. The only possible get-outs are to not use GPLed code, and write one's own code, or to accept the validity of the GPL and comply with the necessary requirements of the license, such as those related to source code. If, on the other hand, one disputes the validity of the GPL, as DLink did, then we fall back to plain old copyright violation.

Right, in other words, the creator retains more control over his creation. That control comes directly from placing limits on the consumer of that creation.

Oddly enough, in some ways placing work under the GPL involves the creator giving up control to a wider community, especially if the maintainer accepts back improvements to the original also under the GPL rather than requiring copyright assignment to themselves before doing so. After a little accumulation, there are so many "authors" that the work can never be reclaimed or taken non-free, and the community can decide to take it away from the original creator by forking the project and assigning new maintainers. This is not common, partly because the creator generally knows it's possible, but it can happen, as with XFree86/Xorg and more recently Joerg Schilling's cdrecord tools being forked by Debian.

By contrast, the only freedom I see offered by the BSD license which is not also offered by the GPL is the freedom to deny further recipients the freedoms which the

The GPL is *not* based on international copyright and contract law, but is rather parochially (and dangerously so) modeled on US/British legal views.

um...

I seriously doubt that the GPL would mean much in US courts

It's difficult to reply when comments are published as a news story instead of submitted to the gplv3.fsf.org forum. Using the forum attaches your comments to a part of the draft text.

Here are transcripts of eight GPL3 talks plus Q+A sessions. Many arguments for using GPLv3 can be found in those. Some specific points:

• Protection against patent litigation for distributors and developers
• Licence compatability - there is no beneficial reason for the GPL to be incompatible with the Apache or Eclipse licences, so v3 will not be incompatible
• Internationalised wording - unlike 1991, we can now draw on the input of hundreds of lawyers from tens of countries to make the most solid document possible
• Tivoisation and DRM - because the GPL was never meant to let Tivo insert unremovable spyware or to let them ban adding certain features from modified versions
• Common sense fixes such as permitting BitTorrent and fixing the "automatic termination" clause

(This is a repost of a comment I made on another site.)

And the terms of the GPLv2 specifically allow for distribution under newer versions of the GPL.