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The GPL is enforced like any other copyright and derives it's power from the same copyright laws used by some people to strip you of the four software freedoms.

From what I've read, contact is made with the suspected violator. Most violations are not intentional and everyone is made happy right away. If not, you have to do what other publishers do. This is how the FSF does it.

The free software foundation has plenty of good advice. Just Google for "gpl violation site:fsf.org" You will be taken to:

• A primer site on violations, which importantly notes that only the copyright holder can enforce their license. From this it can be inferred that an individual lapse in GPL enforcement is not globally fatal to the GPL.
• Information on how to avoid problems.
• A link to the compliance lab which provides consulting and information services.

There would not be any confusion over the issue if there were not for a massive propaganda effort by people who prefer their power and wealth to your freedom.

The GPL is enforced like any other copyright and derives it's power from the same copyright laws used by some people to strip you of the four software freedoms.

From what I've read, contact is made with the suspected violator. Most violations are not intentional and everyone is made happy right away. If not, you have to do what other publishers do. This is how the FSF does it.

The free software foundation has plenty of good advice. Just Google for "gpl violation site:fsf.org" You will be taken to:

• A primer site on violations, which importantly notes that only the copyright holder can enforce their license. From this it can be inferred that an individual lapse in GPL enforcement is not globally fatal to the GPL.
• Information on how to avoid problems.
• A link to the compliance lab which provides consulting and information services.

There would not be any confusion over the issue if there were not for a massive propaganda effort by people who prefer their power and wealth to your freedom.

The GPL is enforced like any other copyright and derives it's power from the same copyright laws used by some people to strip you of the four software freedoms.

From what I've read, contact is made with the suspected violator. Most violations are not intentional and everyone is made happy right away. If not, you have to do what other publishers do. This is how the FSF does it.

The free software foundation has plenty of good advice. Just Google for "gpl violation site:fsf.org" You will be taken to:

• A primer site on violations, which importantly notes that only the copyright holder can enforce their license. From this it can be inferred that an individual lapse in GPL enforcement is not globally fatal to the GPL.
• Information on how to avoid problems.
• A link to the compliance lab which provides consulting and information services.

There would not be any confusion over the issue if there were not for a massive propaganda effort by people who prefer their power and wealth to your freedom.

The GPL is enforced like any other copyright and derives it's power from the same copyright laws used by some people to strip you of the four software freedoms.

From what I've read, contact is made with the suspected violator. Most violations are not intentional and everyone is made happy right away. If not, you have to do what other publishers do. This is how the FSF does it.

The free software foundation has plenty of good advice. Just Google for "gpl violation site:fsf.org" You will be taken to:

• A primer site on violations, which importantly notes that only the copyright holder can enforce their license. From this it can be inferred that an individual lapse in GPL enforcement is not globally fatal to the GPL.
• Information on how to avoid problems.
• A link to the compliance lab which provides consulting and information services.

There would not be any confusion over the issue if there were not for a massive propaganda effort by people who prefer their power and wealth to your freedom.

Not sure how the GPL gets enforced, but I imagine the people who do know can be found here:
GPL Compliance Lab
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/compliance.html

Software Freedom Law Center
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/

An important part of Wikipedia is that it is available under the General Free Documentation License. The practical upshot of that is that anyone can host a copy of Wikipedia if they link back to the original articles, with the appropriate copyright notices.

So, most of they sites are probably legal, although some websites have been known to use Wikipedia content while not following the rules.

Having copies of Wikipedia articles can cause problems in some cases though. If you are checking a more obscure article you come across in Wikipedia, it doesn't help when many of the websites you come across in a search are copies of the article you are trying to verify. It's generally avoidable though by inserting -wikipedia (for Google) to remove the copies.

Well, if they legalized it, then all french citizen would need pay tax for it. Even the 80 year old elderly who dont know what a computer is must pay tax for something they dont use or download or benefit from.

Also france is the idiots who want to ban free software!
http://www.fsf.org/news/dadvsi-letter.html

dogdude wrote: "That's one thing about this whole OSS thing that the zealots don't understand... software can be, and often is used as a competitive advantage. Why would a company (say mine) "share" it's code for it's custom apps with competitors"

When I see comments like this I wonder whether it's willful ignorance or just people shooting off on something they know nothing about. The GPL clearly says that you are "... free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them." See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html #CanIDemandACopy.

That's clear enough and so easy to find out, so why the FUD?

You obviously have no clue about what your talking about.

Millions of people depend and use GNU software everyday. Why do you think that RMS tries to tell you to say: "GNU/Linux" and not just "Linux".

This is because not only do you use GNU for their compiler the most common userland tools and programs in Linux are almost wholey GNU.

GNU Bash, GNU tar, Gnome, CVS, GTK, Gimp, Glibc There are literally hundreds of GNU programs used around Linux distros.

Hell if you don't like Gnome GNU has a entire other desktop system to choose from.. Window Maker + GNUStep.

Try to remove all GNU software from your Linux system and see how far you get.
http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/

People go: Oh, why don't you just call it Apache/GNU/Linux since you have lots of apache-sponsored applications?

Well the thing is is that without Apache you'd still have a working OS. Apache isn't the only Free web server around...
Without GNU there would be no workable Linux distro.

If you use Linux for a living you depend on GNU and GNU Software to do it.

Even if you don't use Linux and use something like Solaris.. Solaris userland is crap. Best way to improve Solaris for day to day use as a workstation and server is to install a bunch of GNU software on it. And it's similar situation for the BSD's although it's not nearly as bad.

Hell even Apple uses GCC to build OS X.

To say GNU software as unsucccessfull.. your completely wrong.

In fact the GNU project is one of the most successfull software projects ever created. It's wildly successfull.

The goal was to create a Free software OS for using Free software for Freedom-liking individuals.

Just taking GCC.. It's one of the most ubiquious development tools ever created. Probably the most popular software compiling suite ever created. You can build C programs, fortran programs, Java programs, C++ programs, ada programs. It works on VAX, on x86 variants, on POWER/PPC varients, and pretty much every other hardware platform created in modern times.

Apple, IBM, Redhat, and many other companies put development time and money into it.

Think about it. They give it away for no-cost and for Free.

If that is not successfull then tell me what is?

So what if nobody uses the kernel, almost every other peice of software that was ever created or ever joined that project is used buy buches of people.

GNU/Linux is the 2nd most common OS anywere. It's used in everything from super computers to wrist watches to toasters.

Go back in time on Google groups and you can find usenet postings from when GNU was just starting and you'll find people saying stuff like: "that RMS is entertaining and has lovely ideas about software, but nobody is ever going to make a compiler like $LONG_FORGOTTEN_COMPILER and give it away for free!"
or
"Well GNU is funny stuff, but no way it will ever come close to $DEAD_OR_DYING_UNIX_VERSION in terms of capabilities, much less convince developers to work for free, what a wacko!"

While the GPL is the most popular Free Software License, followed by the LGPL, a significant set of free software is licensed under other terms which are not compatible with version 2 of the GPL. Version 3 of the GPL will provide compatibility with more non-GPL free licenses.

. . .

Version 3 of the GPL should reduce the difficulties of internationalization. Version 3 should more fully approximate the otherwise unsought ideal of the global copyright license.

Anyone subscribe to Stallman's new mailing list?
http://www.gplv3.fsf.org/index05

I hesitated because it didn't just say "subscribe".
The submit button says "I want to participate." which is hard to do without knowing exactly what you're participating in first.

First, I don't believe your 5% figure....

Secondly, even if your figure is correct, it is obvious that the number is significant enough right now that many companies have decided not to ignore the Linux market. Sure, some companies are going to feel they can ignore the market (e.g. nvidia, ASUS is another bad example), but continuing to purchase from them, or help them with their drivers is just stupid, especially since the Linux users numbers are big enough to make a diference to some companies, and there are companies like "VIA, Realtek, RALink and MSI showing an interest in cooperating."

Our cardinal principal is to make no change impeding any of the four basic freedoms for software users that the free software movement enshrined in GPL version 2: to run, study, copy, modify and redistribute software.

(It goes without saying that people have the freedom to run a program under the GPL.)

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA

Agreed that you can just stick to GPLv2. However, 'I don't see a need' both ignores Eben M's prior editorials on why GPL3 is needed and presumes you're better-versed in international IP law than he is.

A few threads arguing for clarifying ambiguities, delving into specifics geared toward their own pet concern, and language changes also need to temper their remarks with the thought that FSF is writing general-purpose legalese applicable to a few thousand projects in ~200 countries. I don't mean 'shut up and be grateful'... our job is to think of specifics and speak up, and try to give clearcut examples when arguing a concern.

And as for being very specific (clarify the nonexistent nonlinking clause, a clause to automatically upgrade gpl2 to gpl3, or whatever), remember the contract lawyer's favorite subordinate clause. It's easy: every time you see a call for very specific language, add the words '...so we can find loopholes!'

Contract details are like razor blades: whether they're useful or lethally hazardous depends on how expertly and carefully you handle them.

Re: The link

Wow... a bad analogy on so many levels...

An analogy for the GPL would be the farmer who receives the gift of a GPL cow from a neighbour.

The farmer is thoroughly welcome to not accept the cow into its herd.

The cow is completely free, but all of the milk from the cow must be given away for free,

Since the milk is content created by a process of running the GPL cow, it's not a derivitave work of the GPL cow, it's a completley separate creation. Otherwise, it'd be like Microsoft claiming copyright over the content of a file created by Microsoft Word.

and all of the cow's calves, and the calves' calves, yea, even unto the thousandth generation, shall be given away for free.

You're more than welcome to sell the cow. It's just that if you do sell the cow, you have to give the receiver the DNA of the cow... you can't prevent the receiver of the cow from "breeding" the cow. [In fact, companies supplying genetically engineered animals typically make it a violation of the contract to breed the animal or plant without paying for a license.]

Now what kind of use is such a cow? Even if the bulls are non-GPL bulls, all of their offspring by GPL cows are controlled by the GPL licence.

It's generally not a good idea to cross breed a non-GPL cow and a GPL cow. It's a derivitave work of the GPL cow. You're more than welcome to not breed the GPL cow.

If you have a cow breeding programme and you develop a really excellent breed of cow, you must give the new breed of cows away for free if just one of the many ancestors of the superior cow was a GPL cow. The GPL cow is even more dangerous than patented GM crop seeds.

At least if I get one of these superior GPL cows, I can legally breed it, and there's nothing you can legally do to stop me.

The world envisioned by the GPL seems to be a perfect communism where all developers are like subsistence farmers; they must give away everything excess to their own immediate requirements for free to the community.

I'm still more than welcome to sell the software. I just odn't have the right to prevent you from turning around and giving it away.

Re: The link

Wow... a bad analogy on so many levels...

An analogy for the GPL would be the farmer who receives the gift of a GPL cow from a neighbour.

The farmer is thoroughly welcome to not accept the cow into its herd.

The cow is completely free, but all of the milk from the cow must be given away for free,

Since the milk is content created by a process of running the GPL cow, it's not a derivitave work of the GPL cow, it's a completley separate creation. Otherwise, it'd be like Microsoft claiming copyright over the content of a file created by Microsoft Word.

and all of the cow's calves, and the calves' calves, yea, even unto the thousandth generation, shall be given away for free.

You're more than welcome to sell the cow. It's just that if you do sell the cow, you have to give the receiver the DNA of the cow... you can't prevent the receiver of the cow from "breeding" the cow. [In fact, companies supplying genetically engineered animals typically make it a violation of the contract to breed the animal or plant without paying for a license.]

Now what kind of use is such a cow? Even if the bulls are non-GPL bulls, all of their offspring by GPL cows are controlled by the GPL licence.

It's generally not a good idea to cross breed a non-GPL cow and a GPL cow. It's a derivitave work of the GPL cow. You're more than welcome to not breed the GPL cow.

If you have a cow breeding programme and you develop a really excellent breed of cow, you must give the new breed of cows away for free if just one of the many ancestors of the superior cow was a GPL cow. The GPL cow is even more dangerous than patented GM crop seeds.

At least if I get one of these superior GPL cows, I can legally breed it, and there's nothing you can legally do to stop me.

The world envisioned by the GPL seems to be a perfect communism where all developers are like subsistence farmers; they must give away everything excess to their own immediate requirements for free to the community.

I'm still more than welcome to sell the software. I just odn't have the right to prevent you from turning around and giving it away.

I am pretty sure that legal compatibility isn't an issue. Since you are only packaging the sounds with the software, and not merging them into the source of the application, they are considered separate works distributed together, and not a single derivative work. While the files do add to the functionality of the program, they are really no different from config files or scripts that modify the behavior of the program. As long as the modification is done outside the source code, then it isn't considered a derivative work. The GPL does not prevent you from bundling works. It is completely legal.

However, the non-commercial use clause is annoying and could cause practical difficulties for open source projects. The GPL expressly allows for the software for commercial purposes, how ever the CC Sampling Plus license doesn't. Therefore, a person who chose to use the package for commercial purposes couldn't use the sound files. It would be the responsibility of the project to inform their users that different parts of the project are under different licenses, and the responsibility of the users to follow them. This would be a major pain and would not be in the spirit of Free Software (similar to all the icon-set licensing arguments that have come up lately). I would avoid using files under this license in Free Software projects for that reason.

Actually, there are some reasons you shouldn't just use Creative Commons for software. From the FAQ:

Can I use a creative commons license for software?

Creative Commons licenses are not intended to apply to software. They should not be used for software. We strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses available today. The licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed at the Open Source Initiative should be considered by you if you are licensing software or software documentation. Unlike our licenses -- which do not make mention of source or object code -- these existing licenses were designed specifically for use with software.

I'm well aware that Nvidia's drivers are free in that you don't have to pay for them. I want a card that has drivers that are Free. If you're unsure of the difference, the FSF's site explains it nicely.

You don't know what you're talking about. I've installed and run Linux on probably 70 different machines from el-crappo PCs, high end PCs, laptops, low and middle end servers... Runs beautifully on all of them. You should try it some time.

richard stallman is the guy that made this all possible. His vision is to give everyone NEXTSTEP by duplicating software from 1988 that steve jobs had and rebranding it GNU/Mach GNU/Hurd and using the GNUSTEP and windowmaker software to accomplish his task. Someday we'll have free NEXTSTEP.

See above: This is complete rubbish. For Stallman's vision, see gnu.org and fsf.org.

With the keep the button to output the sourcecode requirement RMS and the FSF are trying to license the output of their application. Especially since the HTML put out by a web application is the output. In addition they're removing freedoms as to how applications are used, something the FSF have stated many time that they are against.

• 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.

• Attempts, and suggestions to restrict the way people change and use software, expecially the prosed get source functions, violate freedom 0.

  In addition the attempt to controll the output of the application, and changed application go against the GPL FAQ on Liscensing GPL output.

Is there some way that I can GPL the output people get from use of my program? For example, if my program is used to develop hardware designs, can I require that these designs must be free?

In general this is legally impossible; copyright law does not give you any say in the use of the output people make from their data using your program. If the user uses your program to enter or convert his own data, the copyright on the output belongs to him, not you. More generally, when a program translates its input into some other form, the copyright status of the output inherits that of the input it was generated from.

So the only way you have a say in the use of the output is if substantial parts of the output are copied (more or less) from text in your program. For instance, part of the output of Bison (see above) would be covered by the GNU GPL, if we had not made an exception in this specific case.

You could artificially make a program copy certain text into its output even if there is no technical reason to do so. But if that copied text serves no practical purpose, the user could simply delete that text from the output and use only the rest. Then he would not have to obey the conditions on redistribution of the copied text.

Whatever the FSF decides to do with GPL-3 they need to stick to these principles.

With the keep the button to output the sourcecode requirement RMS and the FSF are trying to license the output of their application. Especially since the HTML put out by a web application is the output. In addition they're removing freedoms as to how applications are used, something the FSF have stated many time that they are against.

• 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.

• Attempts, and suggestions to restrict the way people change and use software, expecially the prosed get source functions, violate freedom 0.

  In addition the attempt to controll the output of the application, and changed application go against the GPL FAQ on Liscensing GPL output.

Is there some way that I can GPL the output people get from use of my program? For example, if my program is used to develop hardware designs, can I require that these designs must be free?

In general this is legally impossible; copyright law does not give you any say in the use of the output people make from their data using your program. If the user uses your program to enter or convert his own data, the copyright on the output belongs to him, not you. More generally, when a program translates its input into some other form, the copyright status of the output inherits that of the input it was generated from.

So the only way you have a say in the use of the output is if substantial parts of the output are copied (more or less) from text in your program. For instance, part of the output of Bison (see above) would be covered by the GNU GPL, if we had not made an exception in this specific case.

You could artificially make a program copy certain text into its output even if there is no technical reason to do so. But if that copied text serves no practical purpose, the user could simply delete that text from the output and use only the rest. Then he would not have to obey the conditions on redistribution of the copied text.

Whatever the FSF decides to do with GPL-3 they need to stick to these principles.

they don't appear to be incorporated.

At the bottom of this page: "Copyright © 2004, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc."

At the beginning of the GPL you will notice:

Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

In other words, the GPL itself is not 'open source'. It cannot be modified, forked, updated, etc., except by the copyright owners (the FSF). The only thing we mortals are allowed to do is distribute verbatim copies.

### You forget that the FSF zealots believe that commercial software is inherantly evil.

No, they only think closed source software is evil, commercial software is quite fine for them, you can even order from them: https://agia.fsf.org/order/ if you want to.

Quite true. This is why there are efforts to create "open" forms of BIOS (as well as efforts to create very closed forms).

FSF have a lengthy and interesting report from yesterdays meeting

Cue "that-shit-ain't-free" comments from the FSF in 3, 2, 1...

Cron, pipes and PureData.
A visual programming environment by Miller Puckette that started as a sound tool and now
includes animation and 3D modelling tools. You can build audio streaming servers or anything you like
by defining arbitary deep abstractions, with the serial and parallel modules it becomes
a dream for robotics and automation, fine for growers and brewers:)

BSODs were a big problem, that still does happen.
Of course, faulty hardware can make all the system fail, but a good system should cope with most of those problems, and provide some easy way to fix them, or at least diagnose them.
Most GNU/Linux users can tell you to watch some files in /var/log after a hardware failure. I don't know how to diagnose a hardware failure, post mortem, in Windows, after tinkering with it from its existance to around 2000.
It's not a matter of mswindows failing too much.
That happens, too, because users need to install their own drivers sometimes, and that of course can lead to some failures, it's understandable, and I believe XP has somewhat good hardware support.
The problem is that when it fails, it's very difficult to know what happen, and to have a chance at fixing it.
When it works, mswindows might suit the needs of the user, but once the user has some trouble, things start to get exponentially harder.
What I like in unix-like systems is that stuff has increasing levels of difficulty, so you can learn while you use it, and problems like hardware compatibility issues or troubleshooting the network don't require wizardry.

That, and the fact that most people I know, keep reinstalling their mswindows systems because of issues like "Internet is too slow" or something. We have a mswindows 2000 server, that had soe issues with terminal services (they use it for develoment) and the only fix available was reinstalling. That's too much of a cost.

Well, maybe you can tell me that people who know enough of mswindows should be able to fix issues without reinstalling. I just know that I took two MS courses on win 2000, and I can't fix a damn thing on windows, and most people I know can keep their systems going for years without reinstalling (and for months without rebooting ) with GNU/Linux, man, HOWTOs, and some googling.

And about switching.....
Well... that's not a technical issue.
Do you know what Free Software stands for?
If you read some stuff at http://www.fsf.org/ , aside from what many of people think about them, and wit an open mind, you could realize that the issue of using free software is not technical, although it does have technical advantages. Its an ethical issue. Sharing software and having the possibility to do your own fixes to software should be your right, and you lose it with proprietary software, other technical issues aside.

It's true that no GPL violation has ever gone to court. But it's not because no one has ever pushed the issue, quite the contrary: it's because the general assumption is that it will hold up in court, and no company really wants to risk it.

Check this out for a start: FSF Compliance Lab.

Cheers.

I'm sorry to be envangelizing here, but (wait! I'm not sorry, I like evangelizing everywhere!!) there are many people who believe that software licensing terms do have ethical issues.

RMS, aside from being regarded as a nut by some people, makes a lot of sense once you listen to him. I was a "Linux" supporter, here in Uruguay, when he came for a talk about GNU/Linux and stuff.

The guy expressed _why_ software should be free, in the sense of freedom (freedom to use, to share, to improve, and to share improvements, that means to not be locked with your provider, as a user, or as a community) . He talked about why NDAs hurt people, and why proprietary licenses hurt the development of the software community. The GPL is a tool, that aside from seeing the source or not, helps us in getting rid of proprietary software in our lifes.
Giving some thinking myself, and being form south America, I actually feel the problem of us giving money to software companies, and getting too little in return, and being hurt by vendor lock-in, and how free software could help these countries develop, and how proprietary software hurts that.
Of course, when it comes down to paying or not a hundred bucks for a license for your home machine, it's not so much of an ssue. When propretary software vendors takes loads of money from your government, and lock themselves in by propriteary protocols and formats, that's money that could be mused much better. Plus, you could be free from forced upgrades, or products that quit being supported, and lots of problems that arise from propriteary software. Most of them are not a problem for rich people, or corporations, but where I live, it's not ethical to give that much control to software corporations.

The guy makes a lot of sense to me, here you can read some stuff by RMS, about why free software is important, and why it's bad supporting proprietary software:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html

I'm sorry to be envangelizing here, but (wait! I'm not sorry, I like evangelizing everywhere!!) there are many people who believe that software licensing terms do have ethical issues.

RMS, aside from being regarded as a nut by some people, makes a lot of sense once you listen to him. I was a "Linux" supporter, here in Uruguay, when he came for a talk about GNU/Linux and stuff.

The guy expressed _why_ software should be free, in the sense of freedom (freedom to use, to share, to improve, and to share improvements, that means to not be locked with your provider, as a user, or as a community) . He talked about why NDAs hurt people, and why proprietary licenses hurt the development of the software community. The GPL is a tool, that aside from seeing the source or not, helps us in getting rid of proprietary software in our lifes.
Giving some thinking myself, and being form south America, I actually feel the problem of us giving money to software companies, and getting too little in return, and being hurt by vendor lock-in, and how free software could help these countries develop, and how proprietary software hurts that.
Of course, when it comes down to paying or not a hundred bucks for a license for your home machine, it's not so much of an ssue. When propretary software vendors takes loads of money from your government, and lock themselves in by propriteary protocols and formats, that's money that could be mused much better. Plus, you could be free from forced upgrades, or products that quit being supported, and lots of problems that arise from propriteary software. Most of them are not a problem for rich people, or corporations, but where I live, it's not ethical to give that much control to software corporations.

The guy makes a lot of sense to me, here you can read some stuff by RMS, about why free software is important, and why it's bad supporting proprietary software:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html

But PostgreSQL is not Free Software in any sense of the term...

I hope I'm not feeding a troll...

PostgreSQL is released under the BSD license, which according to the definition by the FSF, is Free Software. (It is not, however, "copyleft.")

... the General Public License, a subversive bit of lawyering that turns property law on its head by prohibiting the users of open-source software from charging money for it.

Daniel Fisher really needs to do his homework. Sheesh.

DoesTheGPLAllowMoney

Can anyone provide a link to the dilbert comic where Scott Adams notes that it is a good thing engineers don't build nuclear power plants that only look like they would work?

Excuse me, what? Cite the clause please.

Part I is to provide info on the licensing of software and FOSS licensing. Include:

• The ideas and the differences between, meaning of copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, contract, click-wrap/shrinkwrap license, etc -- And how these effect software. Concepts that are important to fully appreciate the difference between closed source and Free Software.
• The Open Source definition link
• Show the traditional model examples of interoperability problems such as proprietary file formats, Patents, the enforcement mechanism, End-User License Agreements.. pick a prominent example, show common restrictions vendors place on their development tools, i.e. look at the licensing of a particular computer video game, development tool, OS, etc by a major publisher. (No reverse engineering, no right to tinker, etc)
• Perhaps contrast with the Open Source model in an example as a way to illustrate the advantage.
• Show off some of the major Open Source programs in action -- a web browser would be a start, but provide some example that the Open Source model has been successful and delivered "cool", respectable products.
• Cover Free Software, the Free Software Foundation's philosophy link; other philosophies
• The distinction made between Free Software, Open Source, Freeware, Careware, etc...
• Free documentation... Wikis.. transparent file formats, etc.
• The meaning of copyleft
• How to place software under an Open Source license, when you can, choose? Compatibility with the GPL (and between other licenses)
• Popular types of Open Source licenses to pick from (GPL, LGPL, BSD License, MIT Style, Artistic, are probably the most important); what is unique about each of the popular licenses; when they can be interchanged.
• The development advantages.. including forking and its advantages and disadvantages (consider X.org).. good reading material may be the The Cathedral and the Bazaar: link.

Part II would be software development in an open source environment; basically how to get and setup a free software Operating System like Linux, FreeBSD, etc, to program in C/C++/Perl using GCC, or a compiler set like Python or Ruby on their windows machine. An understanding of what some of the most popular tools are used for (not necessarily the skills to use a tool, just what they are used to do):

• Subversion / CVS
• Gimp
• Vim, TeX, Indent, Text editors
• Make, Patch, Diff, Gdb, GCC, G++, Autoconf
• Apache, PHP, Python, Perl
• GNU/Linux; Redhat; Debian; *BSD; ...
• OpenOffice, The Mozilla browser
• XFree86, Qt/GTK, KDE/Gnome

Part III OSS Projects

• Organize: Version control, version number management, Todo lists, Milestone charts, ideas like 'release early, release often..' What's a beta? What are nightly tarballs.. nightly builds Etc.
• Develop: Tools used to edit and test sources. How to get a copy of a source tree... how to compile a source tree...
• Popular coding styles, brace styles; tab stops, etc.. GNU Coding standards, GNITs
• Debug: GDB, Bug trackers..
• Feedback/Discussion and its importance: Forums, Mailing lists, Newsgroups

Students should have a project that deals with Open Source Software.. for the purpose of expanding practical experience -- and to write a report on Open Source, their experimentation, and what was learned, including some quoted forum posts, and patches/source snippets, related to their activities. The quality and understanding of Open Source conveyed in the report is what matters.

Perhaps to either start their own Open Source proje

I was never that hardcore, but I loved playing with the stuff that came with 4.5; that's where I learned a ton of stuff that eventually developed my interest in computers in general.

I don't know how close this is in functionality to ncd, but you might check out wcd .

Reality check:

The recording industry has been repeatedly and consistently been involved in crime, including bribery, theft from artists, and murder.

The recording industry has a long history of involvement with organized crime. Example: Morris Levy, a longtime Genovese crime-family associate and recording industry "legend."

The recording industry has been repeatedly accused itself of corrupting the values of youth, and even inciting violence. But in those cases, it claims the protection of freedom of expression -- a freedom they have worked hard to deny to programers and consumers through outragous legislation and restrictive technologies.

With this record, without even getting into the lies they have spread, accusations from the recording industry have little credibilty as far as I am concerned.

What can we do? Support the EFF and the FSF.

Take a course on free software and come back.

Other interesting thing - this law defines "free software" as the ones covered by the GPL license. BSD-licensed software are considered proprietary software under this law. Stallman should be happy with it :)

Really? The FSF include BSD on their list of GPL-compatible free software licenses. I really don't see why BSD and GPL have to be separate "sides". Save your arguments about which one is superior - that isn't the point. Both are infinitely better than full-time closed source.

(Actually GNU programs do implement those recommendations: bc, for instance.)

$ bc
bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.

The GPL Compliance Lab maintains resources for Free Software developers and others to learn about licensing. Members of the Free Software community are encouraged to consult with the FSF regarding licensing issues. However, before contacting the FSF please be sure to have reviewed the GPL FAQ before emailing us.

The Compliance Lab also makes its services available by paid consultation, allowing businesess to access our unique expertise. These consultation services include a software certification program which is explained in detail here.

The sections of the GPL you quote do indeed establish that programs that make use of GPLed code fall under the GPL, and thus must follow its terms. But this: "...and the compulsion to provide source code to anyone who asks free of charge plus any reasonable copying and/or distribution fees..." just isn't true and isn't supported by the quoted material. The GPL does compel you to distribute the source code to anyone who receives the binary on which it is based. See the GPL FAQ for details.

"Nobody likes having their source code used as if it was simply public domain. How would you like to have your source code used by anyone in anyway they want without having to give you anything in return?" Uh, I've been giving my work on e.g. Nickle, XCB, and PSAS away for over 20 years. I actually like it pretty well.

"Have you actually read the GPL or any other OSI approved licenses?" Read them, taught them, talked them over with lawyers including FSF's Eben Moglen. Let me recommend Larry Rosen's Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law as a resource to you as you explore the world of open source licensing further.

zlib isn't open source in the traditional sense.

zlib is open source. The zlib license is closely related to the classic BSD-style license, and was one of the earlier licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative, which lists the zlib license here:

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/zlib-license.ph p

The Zlib license is also "free" according to the FSF, and is GPL-compatible:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#G PLCompatibleLicenses

zlib is simply released with no strings attached whatsoever. only catch is that the author's not responsible for anything that happens with it.

most people equate OSS with the GPL or a BSD-style license.

This being said, the OSD itself is derived from some people at Debian Linux who came up with the "Debian Free Software Guidelines", to help their project figure out which licenses were compatible with their goals. The first four licenses considered as such were the GPL, LGPL, BSD, and MIT/X11 licenses.

zlib is released more or less without any license at all. It's a few lines that make it VERY VERY CLEAR that the authors don't care what the hell you do with it as long as they're not implicated

-Chuck

Certainly, licensing should be a primary issue.

Certainly, licensing should be a primary issue.

Certainly, licensing should be a primary issue.

FSF is collecting copies of comments that people e-mail to FEMA about this. See http://www.fsf.org/news/fema.html.