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He've been doing it for some time. As soon as Free Software, Free Society hit the shelves you could order a signed copy and in fact, I did. That way you support the FSF and you get something neet in return. Remember kids, members of the FSF get, among other things, a 20% discount on all GNU Merchandise. That include the impressive GNU Age t-shirt! So waste no time and join the FSF as an Associate Member so I can get my voice mail message by Richard Stallman.

He've been doing it for some time. As soon as Free Software, Free Society hit the shelves you could order a signed copy and in fact, I did. That way you support the FSF and you get something neet in return. Remember kids, members of the FSF get, among other things, a 20% discount on all GNU Merchandise. That include the impressive GNU Age t-shirt! So waste no time and join the FSF as an Associate Member so I can get my voice mail message by Richard Stallman.

Hastening the launch date by a couple of weeks isn't too significant, but AMD certainly deserves to be congratulated for (apparently) leaving DRM out of their AM2 microprocessors. In contrast, Intel has succumbed to RIAA/MPAA pressure and betrayed their customers by stuffing Treacherous Computing down their throats.

I'm also happy to see that AMD has not put DRM into its AMD Live! technology, which competes with Intel's DRM-ridden Viiv. I'm sure AMD is taking a lot of heat from the entertainment cartel for not handcuffing users, and I hope they'll continue to keep their products DRM-free.

And let's not forget that AMD has been supportive of LinuxBIOS by actively ensuring that their motherboards can run it.

Intel is pushing a technology called Treacherous Computing, which will prevent unsigned code from running on their hardware. So even if you have the source code, if you try to remove the DRM restrictions, the hardware will refuse to run the modified binary.

The Free Software Foundation admits that the anti-DRM provisions in the GPLv3 will not be enough on their own to prevent the nightmare scenario where users can't trust their own computers.

People who understand the dangers of Digital Restrictions Management at a technical level (ie.Free and Open Source software developers) should warn the general public to avoid buying DRM-crippled hardware. Consumers should know about the great variety of DRM-free computers and accessories built specifically to work with Linux, the KDE desktop, and other Free and Open Source applications.

On the music side, there are plenty of websites that legally sell DRM-free, RIAA-free music by independent artists. Consumers can use an iTunes-like application called Songbird to easily download songs from these sites.

As for movies, building a Linux media center works better than the DRM-crippled offering from M$FT. Just download MythTV and run it on a computer equipped with the pcHDTV HD-3000 card and the PVR-350 card -- these will capture both standard definition (NTSC) and Digital/Hi-Definition (ATSC/HDTV) signals.

Intel is pushing a technology called Treacherous Computing, which will prevent unsigned code from running on their hardware. So even if you have the source code, if you try to remove the DRM restrictions, the hardware will refuse to run the modified binary.

The Free Software Foundation admits that the anti-DRM provisions in the GPLv3 will not be enough on their own to prevent the nightmare scenario where users can't trust their own computers.

People who understand the dangers of Digital Restrictions Management at a technical level (ie.Free and Open Source software developers) should warn the general public to avoid buying DRM-crippled hardware. Consumers should know about the great variety of DRM-free computers and accessories built specifically to work with Linux, the KDE desktop, and other Free and Open Source applications.

On the music side, there are plenty of websites that legally sell DRM-free, RIAA-free music by independent artists. Consumers can use an iTunes-like application called Songbird to easily download songs from these sites.

As for movies, building a Linux media center works better than the DRM-crippled offering from M$FT. Just download MythTV and run it on a computer equipped with the pcHDTV HD-3000 card and the PVR-350 card -- these will capture both standard definition (NTSC) and Digital/Hi-Definition (ATSC/HDTV) signals.

But that doesn't mean anything other that you can view the source code.

No. The accepted definition of Open Source Software (put forth by OSI) is that you can view, modify and redistribute sotfware.

It may still be under a completely unusable licence incompatible with free software (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) .

The 'free sotware' definition but forth by the fsf is nothing but double speak. It really is a hijacking of the word 'free' to push an agenda. Licenses such as the MPL (Firefox), CDDL, Apache, Eclipse Public and others are not compatible with GPL (i.e. fsf's definiton of 'software freedom') but everybit as 'free'. BSD and MIT licenses also don't fit the fsf definition yet I would argue give you more freedom.

Open Source Software means nothing other than the source is open. But that doesn't mean anything other that you can view the source code. It may still be under a completely unusable licence incompatible with free software (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) .

Free software (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) on the other hand states that your software is free (as in freedom and free speech) and that the source code is available.

Stop using the "open source" term, it means absolutely nothing.

Open Source Software means nothing other than the source is open. But that doesn't mean anything other that you can view the source code. It may still be under a completely unusable licence incompatible with free software (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) .

Free software (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) on the other hand states that your software is free (as in freedom and free speech) and that the source code is available.

Stop using the "open source" term, it means absolutely nothing.

Freedom is subjective.

Who's freedom are you placing at the top? The users?

If the users get all their software "free" (as in beer AND speach), the the market for software development will shrink as their is less money moving into development.

A shrinking market LIMITS users' selection of options which definately reduces their Freedom.

Freedom for the original coders limits the freedom of derivative coders.

Freedom for the derivative coders limits the freedom of the original coders.

I'm not saying that Free (as in beer OR speach) is bad, I am saying that any SINGLE solution (non-free or free) is bad. The market will demand some of each and life will continue.

You really need to be more clear about whay YOU mean by Free.

Freedom is subjective.

Who's freedom are you placing at the top? The users?

If the users get all their software "free" (as in beer AND speach), the the market for software development will shrink as their is less money moving into development.

A shrinking market LIMITS users' selection of options which definately reduces their Freedom.

Freedom for the original coders limits the freedom of derivative coders.

Freedom for the derivative coders limits the freedom of the original coders.

I'm not saying that Free (as in beer OR speach) is bad, I am saying that any SINGLE solution (non-free or free) is bad. The market will demand some of each and life will continue.

You really need to be more clear about whay YOU mean by Free.

There are currently 14 Radeon 9250 based cards on newegg. As for rt2x00 wifi cars look on the FSF web page for a massive list of them. http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards .html some by "obscure" manifacturers such as D-Link.

Actually, the APSL is indeed considered free by the FSF. But it is not copyleft nor is it GPL-compatible.

My question is how does Microsoft plan to solve the hacking problem.

Wrong. Free software is, in fact, more or less the abdication of copyright.

No, that's public domain. I'm sure you can find out the difference yourself if you do some research. The Free Software Foundation defend their copyrights. You could benefit from reading their web page "On Monday, a US Federal Court Judge dismissed Daniel Wallace's case saying "[The GPL] acts as a means by which certain software may be copied, modified and redistributed without violating the software's copyright protection."

Note the statement "without violating the software's copyright protection." Apparently the Free Software Foundation disagrees with you about Free Software. The US Federal Court too. Go figure.

...but if you're happy to conflate the dictatorial cults of personality of the so-called communist countries with the works of Marx (which you've clearly never read), feel free.

Communism is as communism does. I have not read books by Marx, but I did read the communist manifesto, which is entirely consistent with the actions of the "so-called communist countries", and if I understand correctly, co-authored by Marx.

RMS is a bit on the fringe but if you've ever heard him speak about what got him started with his open source crusade, it was that he was refused access to the source code for a printer driver that had a bug and which he needed to fix.

I've never heard him speak, therefore the printer driver bug was not what got him started on his open source crusade.

On a more serious note, RMS has never been on an open source crusade. He has, however, long been on a Free Software crusade.

Ever wondered what the g in glibc stands for ?

http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/glibc.html

thats the GNU part of GNU/Linux

Another noteworthy thing about this project is that it's going to be based on entirely free software. Free as in beer, and free as in speech, right down to the BIOS (LinuxBIOS in this case). And seeing how LinuxBIOS + GNU/Linux breaks their dreams of controlling everyone's machine via "Trusted Computing" (Or whatever they're calling it these days) I doubt Intel and Microsoft are very fond of the deployment of this machine on a grand scale. Their own greed has caused them to be cut out of the picture like a cancer.

OLPC is on the virge of doing what the fossils in these companies and in governments have only been able to talk about for the past several years--Bridge the digital divide. I'll bet the FSF people are happy they can now have their 100% free software+firmware laptop, though maybe not in the form they were expecting it ;-)

But then I realized it, some people just like linux. There is a certain allure to it.

Maybe because it is free?

Autoconf, Automake, Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, gnu cpio, diffutils, Emacs, fileutils, gnu finger, g++, gawk, gcc, gdb, glibc, gnu tar, gnupg, groff, gzip, mailman, mailutils, gnu make, ncurses, patch, screen, shellutils, texinfo, textutils, wget, which

And those are only a handful; there are many more. And those are just the ones that jumped out at me. And keep in mind some are packages of more programs, namely binutils, coreutils, etc. For more info, go here.

That's because he does not sell them. If it makes you feel better, make a donation or join the FSF.

Can i violate GPL and he'd be happy?

No.

The point of said, "violations," is to help your neighbor. Your obligations to people around you should always outweigh your obligation to Bill Gates and other greed heads. Public libraries are founded on this principle. Sharing and co-operation are good for everyone. Information, unlike all physical goods, has always been free to share. It is only recently that the US has made sharing information a crime. The laws do this are simply wrong.

Some people, who can't seem to finish their own OS after five years, would love to do what you suggest, so they can better screw their users. The laws they made, which keep them in business, prevent it. Microsoft is going to have to code or legislate themselves out of their GPL troubles. Their coding efforts appear to have failed.

OpenBSD: "Only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years!"

Microsoft: Only one OS release in five years!

Free Software: Billions and Billions served.

Peter Brown, Exec Dir of FSF, wrote a blog entry on this last year:

Well it's always nice to have people come visit, and it's no different when IDG's LinuxWorld comes to town. We had big smiles on our faces at the FSF office recently, when journalists called to ask for our reaction to the LinuxWorld announcement, that they were coming to Boston in part because it was the birthplace and headquarters of the Free Software Foundation---which launched the Open Source Movement?

Why? Why do we get this constant repackaging of what we stand for? And always from organizations who by now should know better. Heaven knows we've explained it often enough, haven't we? When was the last time you heard the advocates of Open Source being asked to make a reference to the fundamental ethical and political issues of Freedom in Software. Never, because Open Source plays to the media interests that require a sanitized version of what the real drivers were behind the birth of a GNU/Linux world.

It seems that some words are hard to say, and some would have us give in to their limiting Orwellian speak. Well tough, it's the Free Software Movement; listen up, because you're in Freedom's home town.

Boston famously has a red brick trail mapped out across its streets, called the Freedom Trail, linking many of the American Revolution's most historic sites. No doubt many visitors to Boston's LinuxWorld will walk this Freedom Trail at some point this week, and we invite them to pop in and say hello, thereby creating an unofficial stop on Freedom's Trail. This could also be a visitor's last chance to see what has been FSF's home for the past 10 years. We receive many visitors each month, cameras in hand, who want to see the reality behind the opening lines of the GPL:

...read the rest:

Peter Brown, Exec Dir of FSF, wrote a blog entry on this last year:

Well it's always nice to have people come visit, and it's no different when IDG's LinuxWorld comes to town. We had big smiles on our faces at the FSF office recently, when journalists called to ask for our reaction to the LinuxWorld announcement, that they were coming to Boston in part because it was the birthplace and headquarters of the Free Software Foundation---which launched the Open Source Movement?

Why? Why do we get this constant repackaging of what we stand for? And always from organizations who by now should know better. Heaven knows we've explained it often enough, haven't we? When was the last time you heard the advocates of Open Source being asked to make a reference to the fundamental ethical and political issues of Freedom in Software. Never, because Open Source plays to the media interests that require a sanitized version of what the real drivers were behind the birth of a GNU/Linux world.

It seems that some words are hard to say, and some would have us give in to their limiting Orwellian speak. Well tough, it's the Free Software Movement; listen up, because you're in Freedom's home town.

Boston famously has a red brick trail mapped out across its streets, called the Freedom Trail, linking many of the American Revolution's most historic sites. No doubt many visitors to Boston's LinuxWorld will walk this Freedom Trail at some point this week, and we invite them to pop in and say hello, thereby creating an unofficial stop on Freedom's Trail. This could also be a visitor's last chance to see what has been FSF's home for the past 10 years. We receive many visitors each month, cameras in hand, who want to see the reality behind the opening lines of the GPL:

...read the rest:

The Free Software Foundation is already warning consumers to not buy HD-DVD or Blu-ray disks:

Hollywood's plans for Digital Restrictions Management, supported by Intel, IBM, Microsoft and SONY, are an outrageous attack on your freedom. They are also an attack on free software, since free software may never be able to read these disks. Business conspiracies to restrict technology should be illegal; until they are, you should prohibit them from your home and your life.

From a more practical point of view, there just isn't a need for a new disk format like HD video. Compression formats like MPEG-4 and all its variants (h.264, DivX, XviD, etc) can fit perfectly well on a CD or a DVD. Who's going to pay $30 for one blank disk that will become useless if scratched?

Now. http://www.fsf.org/

If you are honest about it, you will refuse to use software in the gnu directory, as well. Here's the list: http://directory.fsf.org/
For myself, I'm glad RMS is out there standing up for what he believes in. Makes it easier for me to be complacent and intellectually lazy.

I suspect that there are lots of people/companies you wouldn't like who are producing products you use every day.

Given the debt of the US, funding anything through Darpa is just putting it on your children's credit card. This is not the solution. In addition to being immoral, government funding will always be inherently subject to the vagaries of politics.

Don't be typical talk-conservative, act-liberal American. Here's a different idea: instead of depending on the government, pony up and pay for what you use. Is $45 dollars for a useful CD set every 3 years so much money ?

Admittedly, it looks like the OpenBSD guys need to get their act together a bit in terms of products and marketing. Maybe a good start would be for them to look over http://order.fsf.org/, and take a few lessons from the comfortably self-funded movement that produces the tools that allow them to exist. For starters, why doesn't Theo do speaking engagements ? I know there are some people at UT Austin that might be willing pay his ticket, hotel, and a few thousand dollars on top in exchange for a lecture. Even if he's boycotting Texas or the US in general for some reason, a handful of similar deals could be arranged in Canada and New Zealand each year.

I have spent over $100 on FSF books, t-shirts, and cds over the last two years, and donated more than that to specific projects such as sdf.lonestar.org and various sourceforge stuff.

Here's an idea: create a web page with a list of links and one-line text descriptions to consultants who have donated more than, say, $500 within the last year. I know that I would look over such a page, because the services those people are selling probably run on OpenBSD and will be more reliable. You could rotate a link to the top of the openbsd home page every few hours. The advertising would be worth the price to buyers, useful to the people reading openbsd.org, and some editorial control could be exercised so that it was only sellers of OpenBSD related services, so that Theo wouldn't have to look at any ads for Halliburton or something like that.

The fact is, for the base OpenBSD has, $40k/yr is not much. That's like $100 each from every user. (I kid, I kid.) But seriously, it is more like a CD set from every 20th user, which should actually over-fund the project.

Before this case, the GPL was taken to court twice, and it was upheld twice. Something about MySQL in the USA, and another case in Germany.

One of the goals of the GPLv3 consultation process is to identify enforcement issues in all the legal regions of the world. Yet another win in court doesn't give us anything to fix, but it's good to know that Stallman's written a solid licence - GPLv3 should be GPLv2 but better.

gawk
gmake
gcc
bc
bison
ed
gcron
gnome

here's some more :

http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/

Intel is pushing a technology called Treacherous Computing, which will prevent unsigned code from running on their hardware. So even if you have the source code, if you try to remove the DRM restrictions, the hardware will refuse to run the modified binary.

The Free Software Foundation admits that the anti-DRM provisions in the GPLv3 will not be enough on their own to prevent the nightmare scenario where users can't trust their own computers.

People who understand the dangers of Digital Restrictions Management at a technical level (ie.Free and Open Source software developers) should warn the general public to avoid buying DRM-crippled hardware. Consumers should know about the great variety of DRM-free computers and accessories built specifically to work with Linux, the KDE desktop, and other Free and Open Source applications.

On the music side, there are plenty of websites that legally sell DRM-free, RIAA-free music by independent artists. Consumers can use a cross-platform, iTunes-like application called Songbird to easily download songs from these sites.

As for movies, building a Linux media center works just as well as the DRM-crippled offering from M$FT. Just download MythTV and run it on a computer equipped with the pcHDTV HD-3000 card and the PVR-350 card -- these will capture both standard definition (NTSC) and Digital/Hi-Definition (ATSC/HDTV) signals.

Intel is pushing a technology called Treacherous Computing, which will prevent unsigned code from running on their hardware. So even if you have the source code, if you try to remove the DRM restrictions, the hardware will refuse to run the modified binary.

The Free Software Foundation admits that the anti-DRM provisions in the GPLv3 will not be enough on their own to prevent the nightmare scenario where users can't trust their own computers.

People who understand the dangers of Digital Restrictions Management at a technical level (ie.Free and Open Source software developers) should warn the general public to avoid buying DRM-crippled hardware. Consumers should know about the great variety of DRM-free computers and accessories built specifically to work with Linux, the KDE desktop, and other Free and Open Source applications.

On the music side, there are plenty of websites that legally sell DRM-free, RIAA-free music by independent artists. Consumers can use a cross-platform, iTunes-like application called Songbird to easily download songs from these sites.

As for movies, building a Linux media center works just as well as the DRM-crippled offering from M$FT. Just download MythTV and run it on a computer equipped with the pcHDTV HD-3000 card and the PVR-350 card -- these will capture both standard definition (NTSC) and Digital/Hi-Definition (ATSC/HDTV) signals.

It's clear that RMS feels that in some cases it is better to use the GPL than the LGPL.

I think RMS would say the GPL is preferable in the vast majority of cases. Else why would he urge developers -- in bold letters -- to release their libraries under the GPL?

But getting back to the topic of this thread: should GNOME's multimedia backend be licensed under the weak LGPL, when we know that the entertainment cartel has been one of the most vocal advocates of Digital Restrictions Management and Treacherous Computing?

Preventing users from skipping computers
Controlling your computer over the internet with rootkits
Instilling fear by suing innocent people
Suing independent competitors out of business
Bullying witnesses into perjury
and the list goes on...

The answer is absolutely no, and I daresay the FSF is of the same opinion, since they will include anti-DRM provisions in the GPLv3.

Developers of Free and Open Source Software should use every legal tool at their disposal to protect the users' freedom. One of the best tools is to license music and video apps under the GPL, so that the entertainment cartel can't poison their hard work with draconian DRM. Otherwise, the developers might as well be working for the RIAA and MPAA!

Open Source developers who care about the users' freedom should help out multimedia projects that are licensed GPL (such as Xine, MPlayer, and VideoLAN).

the PDF viewer is no longer "fully functional" when it can't read the DRMed file somebody sent you

Have you actually tried opening up a DRMed file with KPDF? Of course you can still read it after you've disabled the DRM.

You're never going to have a legal and free-as-in-speech mp3 plugin.

In most of the world it is legal to have a free-as-in-speech mp3 player. As for the US, just wait till some senator's grandkid gets hauled to jail for listening to music on his Linux desktop. Then we'll start seeing the laws change :-)

Oh, and about the FSF warning against the LGPL. Isn't Gnome part of the GNU project, and thus FSF-sponsored?

How long do you think that sponsorship will last, given that the FSF is ready to release GPLv3, which contains anti-DRM provisions? It is the business interests that have taken over GNOME and that are currently advocating DRM and the LGPL. Sooner or later the FSF will have to distance itself from GNOME.

FTR, the FSF have released a video of that talk (about the GNU GPL v3 draft and very informative as well as funny). The torrent of the video is at http://gplv3.fsf.org/av/gplv3-draft1-release.ogg.t orrent.

If anyone is looking for videos of RMS, the movie, RevolutionOS (2 CSS-free DVDs for $27) has a lot of footage of RMS as well as other pioneers in the movement.

Hopefully the FSF will take videos of talks in the future now. I suspect this hasn't been done before due to practical reasons (e.g.: needing a good videocam & cameraman).

I wonder if Linus even has the real authority to unilaterly switch to an alternative license.

He doesn't. The Linux kernel hasn't been under his exclusive copyright for most of its existence. Not even his fork is under his copyright alone because he doesn't collect copyright assignments from contributors to his fork. This seems to me to be right in line with the general lack of foresight and considerable confusion about software freedom I've come to associate with him (see his use of Bitkeeper and his objection to Andrew Tridgell's work on a Bitkeeper repo pulling program for other examples).

By his own admission he is not a deep thinker about the philosophical (he says polical) part of the job.

All the more reason why Forbes should have interviewed people who are deep thinkers about issues relevant to the GPL: RMS, Eben Moglen, or someone from the FSF who could have spoken with more insight and a clear understanding of what the license is meant to achieve. Interviewing Torvalds about licensing is usually fruitless because he gets another chance to demonstrate how much he doesn't understand the goals of the license and how much he doesn't agree with what he doesn't understand.

He claims that use of GPL-covered programs is restricted by the first draft of GPLv3: "You cannot install it on your hardware (laser-equipped shark or otherwise) without also making sure that others can install another version.". That is a good thing because that's critical to software freedom. His criticism is confusing: he professes to want to be allowed to fix things, yet he criticizes along the lines of preventing people from stopping users to be able to fix things. He also doesn't seem to understand that others might want to tinker things he doesn't want to tinker with (a dishwasher or a DVR). Heaven forbid anyone wants to change the length of a wash, rinse, or dry cycle or a DVR that only deletes recorded programs when the user says to do so.

He views the GPLv2 as a contract: "However, I don't think that's part of my GPLv2 contract." and Eben Moglen made it quite clear in his detailed discussion of GPLv3 that the GPL has not been and will not be a contract. There's even a section in the draft GPLv3 called "Not a Contract". I'd rather take Moglen's legal advice than Torvalds', particularly when it comes to interpreting the GPL.

It's also hard to take Torvalds' complaints seriously because he refuses to become a part of the year-long revision process, even by submitting comments to the GPLv3 FSF site.

If not a fork is all but inevitable (GNU/Linux anyone?). My guess is he will talk like this from time to time but will be under pressure to maintain the status quo.

GNU/Linux isn't a fork, it's the GNU operating system featuring the Linux kernel. This is distinct from the GNU operating system featuring a kernel from one of the BSD systems, or the official GNU operating system which runs with the HURD.

You are ignorant. You don't know the difference between free software and open source. Learn more about it. Start here and here. Free software is about freedom... Freedom is, among other things, a human right and civil liberty and should be part of any political agenda.

But let's call a spade a spade here and look at what GPLv3 is about: attempting to hide attempts to restrict developers under the guise of being an update to the world's most popular open source license.

The GPL has always been restrictive in specific ways. And version 3 does have additions to its restrictive nature. Read why. You don't have to agree with him but at least your not ignorant. If GPL is too restrictive for you then don't use for your code.

I hope Forbes will let Richard Stallman explain his reasons for including anti-DRM provisions in GPLv3.

Otherwise, it seems that Forbes is biased and acting in the interests of the Intel, Sony, Tivo and other business interests that want to hijack the hard work of open source developers in order to hancuff users and consumers with draconian treatcherous computing.

But then again, writing stories that are merely disguised propaganda for the business cartels is nothing new for Forbes.

"What I'm saying is that you can't give so much credit to a group of people who do nothing but write a distribution license that's getting increasingly preachy."

You had a valid point unitl you said that (IMHO) opinion.

The FSF/GNU project has done a hell of a lot more then just write a distribution license.

In fact I would go so far to say that the pre 1.0 version of the Linux kernel would have had an interest level of 0 attached to if it were not for the widely availbale, free tools that people used to improve Linux into something that people could actually use. (gcc & friends, binutils, etc.)

Preaching is what Stallman does. You can love it, hate it or ignore it and get back to programming. But a lot of us, when we get back to programming, have Stallman to thnak for the tools we are using.

The fact that GPL requires a lawyer to describe what you can and can not do with software is scary enough for businesses. "If we compile our proprietary software with gcc, do we now have to distribute the source?"

You should check that with other compilers, too. The last commercial compiler I bought (a version of Borland C++) came with a list of exclusions to the license that meant any given project may or may not be legal to distribute in binary form if compiled by it, depending on what kind of software it was. I forget the details, but I recall that "operating environments" (which could have described what I was developing at the time) were not permitted, and I think anything that competed with a Borland product may have been excluded.

GCC's fairly simple: all you need to do is read the licences in question (there are two, the one for GCC itself, which is traditional GPL, and one for 'glibc', which is GPL plus an exception to the requirement to license any product linked with it under the GPL) to realise that the answer to your question is no. Anyone reasonably well educated can do it. Certainly any experienced and competent IT manager ought to be able to.

"If we include the GPL'd drivers for the left-handed USB Framis, are we compelled to release our source, or just the driver's source code?"

A slightly more complex question, but it's still reasonably simple to answer. Read the license. It outlines cases where this is necessary in very clear (although admittedly technical) terms. Also note, most businesses would probably ask a lawyer to check the license terms on any product that they purchased the right to use like this anyway.

Businesses do not like confusion. The government gives us all that we can stand, so adding in an obscure, vision-inspired license doesn't make us comfortable.

I think the only way you can describe the GPL as obscure is if you haven't read it. The GPL v2 is very easy to read, and the GPL v3 draft is even easier.

Compare it with other organisations redistribution licenses, e.g. the Microsoft .NET framework EULA, or the even harder to understand Intel Performance Primitives Library EULA.

Please cite the paragraph in GPL3 {2006-01-16 draft as shown here} which you believe would oblige you to provide the source code as you state.

It is my understanding that the source code for those parts of a web application which run only the server end, need not be made accessible to users accessing the application via the web. Of course, the source code for those parts of a web application which run on the client end -- assuming that it be written in an interpreted language such as JavaScript-- is already accessible to users.

In any case, your complaint about having to insert source download links if you set up a web application is rather like complaining that if you invite members of the public into your private property, you have to provide fire exit signs.

If you want the straight dope, look at the draft GPL V3 language and accompanying commentary/elaborations.

I think the objection many GPL objectors have isn't that you're giving it away, but that you're demanding that they pay back in kind if they want to benefit in certain ways from what you gave away. They'd rather you gave them stuff without asking anything from them in return. They're certainly entitled to want stuff without any strings attached, but we aren't obligated to give it to them just because they want it.

Richard Stallman correctly predicted many of the ways in which Big Corporations and Big Brother will use DRM (also known as Digital Restrictions Management, Treacherous Computing, or Handcuffware) to enslave people. Just read the essay he wrote, titled "Can you trust your computer?" and look at some of the recent Slashdot stories and you'll see that he's been all along.

I have nothing but respect for Stallman's courage to take on the powerful and wealthy interests that want to subjugate the populace. This is the time to show our gratitude for his uncompromising ideals by donating to the Free Software Foundation (which Richard Stallman founded and leads) and to the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.

No, its Open, just proprietary and certainly not Free as in the Freedom to copy, redistribute, modify, and sell.

There's a reason so many people feel so passionate about Free Software. We're not just a bunch of raving lunatics foaming at the mouth. If we are, corporations like AOL made us this way. I mean just try to deal with them, or Microsoft or Adobe or Apple or ...

They're "Open", even compliant with the OSI on some levels, and they give you stuff for free, but there's always those hidden costs.

"""You know, that bit where it says "derivative code must also be GPL'd" """

Only, the GPL doesn't actually say any such thing. Third-party code which includes GPL'ed source code must be released under terms which are compatible with the GPL if the software is redistributed to others, but you can use a mix of GPL'ed code and proprietary code yourself if you don't redistribute (this is why you can mix a GPL'ed Linux kernel with proprietary drivers from ATI or nVidia, and not have a problem).

You can also release your third-party code together with GPL'ed code which forms a deriviative work under the terms of other permissive open source licenses, such as the BSD or MIT/X11 licenses. The entire list of "GPL-Compatible Free Software Licenses" is kept here:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html

Stallman's thoughts on CC are explained in his blog about being on a panel with a CC lawyer.

No offense but I read Stallman's Blog and I haven't seen a single reference to the President or call him a "Shrub" so I call Bullshit on you.

All of these terms are new. There is no more "tradition" behind the monopolist's nomenclature than there is behind RMS' user-centric nomenclature. Nor should "tradition" define what is right and proper for a society. Did it ever occur to you that an "average Joe who wants to learn more about FOSS, GNU, etc." might want the ethical take on the matter that RMS presents and that it is the dog-eat-dog business-speak which alienates people? Since when did the business language become unquestioningly correct and any alternative become de facto offensive? Finally, if RMS were answering your question to your face, I'm sure he'd point out that what he's focusing on is his movement, the Free Software movement, not Open Source. Hence the term "FOSS" doesn't apply—that term is used for people who don't want to make the distinction between the movements or take a side, but he definately does take a side.

Is it just me or does it seem like RMS created a new verion[sic] of the GPL because people stopped listening to him about the old one.

Since most Free Software is licensed under the GPL, including the most famous programs this community has, I'd say it's just your misperception.

It seems to me that RMS views are no longer connected with where Open Source should go, and will just lead Open Source to be too socially libral[sic] for wide use.

You probably don't understand the GPL or RMS well enough to have an informed perspective on the matter.

I disagree with RMS so my Mod points will negitivly[sic] reflect it.

Your short post reveals multiple misunderstandings including citing the wrong movement—Open Source—which RMS takes pains to show why he's not now nor has he ever been a member of the Open Source movement. I would also add that the GPL is not properly called an "Open Source" license except in the most narrow way: it happens to qualify as an OSI-approved license. In more important ways, the GPL is the preeminent Free Software license; here are a couple reasons:

• The GNU GPL was written by Stallman and the FSF years before the Open Source Initiative (which started the Open Source movement) existed.
• The GNU GPL is a strong copylefted license, written to preserve precisely what the Open Source movement doesn't want to talk about—software freedom (the essay I pointed to clearly illustrates how the Open Source movement eschews software freedom).

Yes, it is just you. Others prefer to read the rationale of the changes before saying nonsense.

These transcripts, and other such documents, are collected at the official GPLv3 wiki, on the Reusable texts page. And there's more info about the draft and how to participate in the public consultation at gplv3.fsf.org.

These transcripts, and other such documents, are collected at the official GPLv3 wiki, on the Reusable texts page. And there's more info about the draft and how to participate in the public consultation at gplv3.fsf.org.