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This attempt is placed under the apache license, which is similar to the BSD license. I'm not a legal expert, but basically I gather that it means that the code can be reused and enhanced by commercial organizations without them having to offer the source code changes up for redistribution.

Thus, if you contribute under this license, MS (for example) can run off and add your code to .NET, distribute it as a binary, sell it, and not have to show you the changes (would it lead to a future patent that would come back to bite you?). Under the GPL, they would have to redistribute source, which would allow you to learn what, if anything, they changed. Requiring the source to be open would allow you adapt the changes back to an open standard if necessary.

Maybe releasing it under this license is the only way to get enough cooperation from Sun or other patent owners to get such a project to work?

And a related question -- what were Ballmer and McNealy smiling so much about? Well, I'll leave that exercise to the reader.

NextSTEP was always based on gcc, so it didn't cost them to bundle it with the OS. (well, the only cost was that they discovered that it would require them to release the source for the Objective C front end, but that was a one time cost, not per unit)

Irix didn't have a bundled compiler. It was actually worse than most because the header files (/usr/include) came with the unbundled compiler, so you couldn't easily get a third party replacement like gcc.

In the mid-80's USL's license scheme charged vendors more to sell with a compiler and with troff, so many of them unbundled their compilers. Some of them (those assuming that most of their customers needed a compiler.) paid USL the extra money, got a volume discount, and continued bundling the comiler. Since a good portion of Sun's customers were buying their workstations for things like CAD workstations, passing on USL's price increase wouldn't have made sense.

Maybe you ought to actually read...

Same to you buddy

Volunteers needed to build, test and package free OpenOffice 2.0.
Seems the FSF plan to do something about it. I wonder is it a complete fork, or more a (dis)integration project.

He advocates the use of a Free Bios too.

Actually he doesn't seem to like the idea of a non-fre BIOS. fsf article

Linux BIOS Project (unfortunately can't find a link to the linux bios project itself, the site linuxbios.org had a blank page up)

Intel Open BIOS site doesn't seem to want to resolve either.

Hey ASSHOLES ... Apologies for the abrasiveness of this post, but crap like this deserves it.

The idea that there can be no criticism of Sun because they've provided a "gift" is silly. If you make a gift of pork to someone whose beliefs say "don't eat pork," should they thank you and chow down? Granted, the analogy doesn't hold in the end, because in this case, Free Software types can try to turn the pork into chicken (Kaffe, gcj, etc.). That doesn't make them ASSHOLES either.

As for what you falsely label "abrasiveness" (it's actually something much deeper), if you have this level of intolerance for opposing views, well, there are words to describe people like you. You already seem to know one of them. Remember to turn the caps lock on.

Well we are talking about Eben Moglen after all, he has been donating his time to the Free Software Foundation for years. It's not that big of a surprise.

You, sir, are a troll. From the horse's (or, more appropriately, goat's) mouth (aka the GPL FAQ):

Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

Q: Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my site?
Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide "equivalent access" to download the source--therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary.

Does the GPL allow me to develop a modified version under a nondisclosure agreement?
Yes. For instance, you can accept a contract to develop changes and agree not to release your changes until the client says ok. This is permitted because in this case no GPL-covered code is being distributed under an NDA.
You can also release your changes to the client under the GPL, but agree not to release them to anyone else unless the client says ok. In this case, too, no GPL-covered code is being distributed under an NDA, or under any additional restrictions.
The GPL would give the client the right to redistribute your version. In this scenario, the client will probably choose not to exercise that right, but does have the right.

I believe in the first idea of non violent action. I believe in the same way the linux code is open for everyone to look at, there should be a group created for governing/advising the laws made.

Laws.org or something to just track our governing and how it's going along. There are more laws that need fixing then a measly senate can handle. I believe if you are to make a better group it should have all of it's actions public. I'm sure military wouldn't like it but recording the ones recording us would prob be the best thing.

If you do not want the spot light don't step into it and be a politician. They only "seem" accountable at voting time. The rest of the term they usually take the cash.

The FSF ( http://www.fsf.org/ ) is a great idea for code, perhaps one could be made for government? :D

high hopes!

This is a free software license but it is incompatible with the GPL. The Apache Software License is incompatible with the GPL because it has a specific requirement that is not in the GPL: it has certain patent termination cases that the GPL does not require. (We don't think those patent termination cases are inherently a bad idea, but nonetheless they are incompatible with the GNU GPL.)

In the mean time, the Apache group's choice of license for their Java project makes perfect sense given a major, if not the major, use for Java these days is for back-end work of web-fronted applications. Apache's Tomcat sometimes seems to be more popular than Apache itself. (I said seems people, seems); I can't think of any other reason why the Apache people would be organizing this, though it surprises me they're going for J2SE and not J2EE compatability.

So, no. There's no "Java trap" inherent in developing code for Apache Harmony.

Personally, I think Intel has pretty much lost control of the enthusiast segment. The majority of enthusiasts look for value and performance when it comes to hardware and quite honestly, the Intel platform definitely doesn't have any "value" attached to it.

From the performance numbers published on numerous online publications, Intel has lost the Dual-Core War. The only competing factor that Intel has right now is the possibility to keep their prices low enough to attract those with strict budget. And before I end this column, I would like to forward a special note to Intel: Please make sure your next generation of processors isn't as atrocious as the Prescott, as AMD is making you look pretty silly right now.

It's just the GPL they hate, because they can't use GPL'ed software. See here for example.

If I know someone has a copy of a GPL-covered program, can I demand he give me a copy? No. The GPL gives him permission to make and redistribute copies of the program if he chooses to do so. He also has the right not to redistribute the program, if that is what he chooses.

I suppose that if the expenses started to get out of hand, the FSF could take a few of the more egregious offenders to court, rather than settling. Or, they could simply start demanding a large cash settlement from the real bad guys. I'd say that their work could be self-funding, if they wanted to get mean.

I suppose that if the expenses started to get out of hand, the FSF could take a few of the more egregious offenders to court, rather than settling. Or, they could simply start demanding a large cash settlement from the real bad guys. I'd say that their work could be self-funding, if they wanted to get mean.

My question is, what's to stop this sort of behaviour? Most free software projects operate under a tight budget as it is, how many have the funds to sue anyone who misappropriates their GPLed code? If every victim has to solicit donations to fund a lawsuit then what's to be done? Sure the FSF can probably help, but I doubt they'd have the resources to defend the GPL on multiple fronts if violators launched a wholesale attack.

... the normal process you expect in open source: You start with some one else's code, hack on it until you really understand what you wanted to do with it, and in that process replace all the original code to make your own product.

Indeed. Perhas the author can point us to the original "pre-hack" code for Emacs, LaTeX or LyX ?

Maybe in their spurt of generosity, they'll consider a better license for Squeak Smalltalk?

Does anyone know what this thing looks like? Surely it involves more than emailing the maintainer and saying "I assign the copyright of my contribution to the FSF?"

The two relevent pages I can find at debian.org are this one listing companies that have donated hardware, bandwidth, etc., and this page saying that they recommend giving to Software in the Public Interest and the Free Software Foundation

With respect, ethics may be YOUR whole point behind free software but it is not everyone's point.

Debian to the rescue! http://wiki.debian.net/index.cgi?DFSGLicenses

It is a CPL is a decent enough Free Software license. However it is incompatible with the GPL due to technical legal reasons (https://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/license-li st.html for details).

Go to http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/ and look at the list of utilities, tools and applications the RMS and the Free Software Foundation are responsible for. With the exception of Gates and Jobs, RMS either implemented everyone else's ideas, or made it possible for these people to implement their own ideas (Torvalds, Taco). I think he deserves a hell of a lot of credit.

First open source (GNU) has no authority.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/sco/sco.html

SCO is so not a threat they decided to delete the page. (404 Not Found)

oh, wait. here it is

GIT already exists. It is GNU's Interactive Tools. Admittedly it has not been updated since 2000, but it is there.

Another example of free software going where proprietary software cannot, or dares not, go.

> If you borrow a piece of GPL code, and CHANGE
> NOTHING in the GPL code, it just plugs directly
> into your product, you don't have to release your
> entire product as GPL.

Richard Stallman disagrees. I can also refer you to the FSF GPL FAQ and what it has to say on the subject. This very scenario was the reason to create the LGPL in the first place. If linking didn't infect, the GPL and the LGPL would be the same thing.

> I don't need or want your entire product, only
> the part that you've added TO MY CODE.

Then you should use the LGPL license, not the GPL.

> I haven't yet heard of a single case where an author of
> GPL code forced a company to release their entire product

Only because any company that tries to use GPL code is forced by a court to remove it instead. Releasing the entire product under the GPL is an option; it is just never taken. Mostly though, companies just don't touch any GPL code at all.

> So please, get off the "viral" rant, its getting old, and
> its just propagating more misinformation that simply isn't true.

If you read the LGPL and the reasons for creating it, you'd understand that the "viral rant" really is true. Your mistake is simply in not knowing the difference between GPL and LGPL. Look it up. What you think of as GPL really is the LGPL.

It's not "Free" by the Free Software Foundation.

From http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/license-list .html

"Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL)
This is a free software license which is not a strong copyleft; it has some complex restrictions that make it incompatible with the GNU GPL."

I don't like CDDL either, but it IS a free software license.

First of all, if you haven't changed the font itself, you have no obligation to provide it to anyone - Just like with GPL'd software.

Second, if you only use it for within an organization, you have no obligation to provide it to anyone - Just like with GPL'd software.

Third, the license under which a given tool falls does not usually extend to what it creates - I can use GCC to compile non-GPL code, I can use GIMP to create non-GPL (or CC, in this case?) artwork, and I can use OO to produce non-GFDL documents.

So why would any of the above magically differ for a font?

I'm not a laywer, and there may be a case for fair use, but as the FSF website states, notions of fair use differ by jurisdiction. The fact that the FSF has come up with the experimental font exception to the GPL should be a tip-off, too.

You can add the following text to create an exception when distributing the font:

"As a special exception, if you create a document which uses this font, and embed this font or unaltered portions of this font into the document, this font does not by itself cause the resulting document to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the document might be covered by the GNU General Public License. If you modify this font, you may extend this exception to your version of the font, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version."

This is and addition to the GPL, and is also an "experimental" addition.

I found it here: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html #FontException

Another idiot.

Please go read the GPL FAQ.

What is is doing might not be pleasing to you, but it certainly falls in the 'OK TO DO' category under the GPL.

Look here.

Combining other code with GPL code _requires_the_result_to_be_released_under_the_GPL_ !

Maybe a little more complicated, given that the FSF lists some 80+ licenses, documentation related ones not included.

CC.

The OSI has a list of "approved" licenses here, but it's literally just a list (no explanation of the differences or analysis of their implications), and I get the impression the OSI is regretting approving so many of them, given most of them are incompatable with one another (some of them can be incompatable with themselves, depending on the precise circumstances!)

Well, I was aware that people had attempted claiming copyright over generated works in the past with non-GPL software, but I wasn't aware anybody had succeeded! (Though I was referring only to the output of GPL software, as below)

I'd be interested if you had any legal judgement or specific examples not relating to compilers (which I can see you could argue copy parts of themselves into the binary, if it was an proprietry vendor), as according to the GPL faq -

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.

In what cases is the output of a GPL program covered by the GPL too?
Only when the program copies part of itself into the output.

and the bison bit:

Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?

Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.
Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons--for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input.
As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs.


For the moment, I'm standing by my statement, as GPL output is yours, and it's covered by the copyright licence you choose - assuming of course, you owned the copyright to the inputs.

The linked article makes no mention of paying money.

The issue is about distributing software changes, not about paying anyone money.

In the Old Days, it was largely true that to use software you or your organization had to have a copy of it. The GPL mandated that if someone gave you a copy, they had to give you source; therefore other then a few outlying cases, if you used GPLed software you had access to source. It's proved to be a smashingly good idea.

But in this brave new world of the internets, it is becoming much more common to use GPLed software without having a copy yourself.

The question is therefore how to update the GPL to promote and preserve people's right to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.

Consider: how do we preserve your right to keep running the software if the remote service provider can change it, or stop offering the service?

rising above/alongside the fray:

https://www.fsf.org/donate

You can't simply revoke their license, the GPL has no provision for that (and thank God for that).

RTFL:

"4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License."

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/license-list .html says you're wrong. It's almost exactly as free and open as Apache.

How trustworthy do you believe the people are that made these 'protections' ? Their assurance that they have done the right thing and havent inserted any secret backdoors into their proprietry code is not good enough, I'm sure it would be a simple thing to bring up plenty of examples in which companies have lied in similar situations. This is another form of Treacherous Computing, in which control over your system is not retained by you, but is in the hands of some third party.

Its a similar problem to having proprietry BIOS present on the motherboard, an issue now being addressed by the Campaign for Free BIOS. Given that the harddrive has a type of firmware, its likely flash-upgradable in some fashion. It would be a great thing to replace this with Free Software that allows the user to have full control over their system.

If the consumer feels that you don't add enough value and chooses to download the GPL'ed product for free, or buy it from someone else, or turn around and sell it themselves (assuming that the entire product they received from you was GPL'ed and contained no proprietary material, such as your own manuals or the like)---that's their prerogative.

I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions about the GPL. Nowhere does it have any non-commercial clauses, like some so-called open source academic licenses do. Some people may argue that being required to disclose your source code is anti-commercial, but it isn't explicitly non-commercial.

For more information, see this FSF page

Many of those documents have been manually transcribed, proof-read and reformatted into HTML or PDF documents by various volunteer members of the FOSS community, on their own time.

The only change I'd like to see is " this code cannot be used by Microsoft or SCO or its subsidiaries, or employees in any fasion ". Or better "this code cannot be used by GW Bush to kill innocent people in any country under any circumstances whatsoever" or something to that effect.

Then the GPL would no longer be an Open Source license, or even a Free Software license.

See items 5 and 6 of the Open Source Definition ("No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups", "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor"), or the Free Software Definition ("you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere .")

The funny thing is that the reason to switch exclusively to the newer license would be to limit freedom.

All licenses that place any restrictions on the licensee restrict the freedom of the licensor. Even the BSD license requires that I not say the code was written by me. The intention of the GPL is to open up the code to any type of freedom imagineable. It is specifically designed to "Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software." Patent law could limit the freedoms of the users of GPL code by requiring NDAs or licenses for the use of the technology. International copyright law could open the code up to any type of changes (including closing the source). Without restrictions or changes to the GPL, the purpose of the license could be undermined.

Nope, there's nothing in the GPL about making your code hard to read. You can name all your functions 1 through 221 for all the licence cares.

The GNU General Public License defines "source code" as "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." I have no law degree, but I don't think an intentionally obfuscated form would count as a "preferred form".

"What to do if you see a violation of the GNU GPL, LGPL or FDL"

The Plan 9 license is "OSI approved(Open Source), and accepted by FSF and RMS as Free Software; what more do you want?

If that is not enough, complain to Lucent with a clear explanation of why the LPL is not good enough for you.

It's time to push for an hard for a free bios. You can help if you
can figure out how to install a new bios on a computer, especially a
laptop. I don't know why we can put linux on an xbox but nobody can
get a free bios on a laptop.

Stick to AMD machines, avoid Intel and IBM. Heh, IBM. We talk like
they're our allies but they're pushing patents and treacherous
computing. They're a _much_ bigger threat than SCO ever was.

If you haven't yet read stallman's dystopian short story The Right To Read,
this might be a good time.

Treacherous computing is the reason I'm a GNU+linux user.