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Have you read the GPL? If not, please go and do so now. If you have, please refresh yourself. I mean, actually do it. Pay particular attention to section 3.

Done? Now, read the parent post again. Do you see the part in bold? Have you read that?

OK, now you tell me, quoting from the GPL, and referring to the situation presented by your parent, what terms and conditions of the GPL that company X is in violation of if company Y distributes copies without source or a promise to provide source.

On your last issue, a "license" is not a "copy" as defined by Title 17. So what's the relevance?

Sorry, you've both missed the point. Go and read the license and look carefully at Section 3. Note the use of "one of" and "or".

When company X gives their machine readable source to company Y, that's their obligation under the GPL fully and completely discharged. Company X are not required to attach a written offer to make the source available to third parties, not no-how, not no-way. "one of". "or".

Company Y don't have to add such an offer (or distribute the source) because they have rights of first sale on the units they've bought. Well, technically the GPL might (or might not, depending on how you interpret Section 3) require them to make the offer or distribute the source, so as to give them a license to distribute the executable code on the device, but there is no copyright stick to beat them with if they don't.

The GPL says no such thing. Perhaps you should take your own advice and go and read it, then read the parent post again, and then have another think about it.

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
* a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

Note "one of", "or". If you company X gives the full source to company Y, they have completely discharged their obligation. You could argue that Company Y, because they are technically "distribut[ing] the Program [...] in object code or executable form" are bound by the GPL (even though that's clearly not the intent of Sections 1 and 2), but the first sale doctrine means that company Y doesn't have to worry about the copyrights in the GPLd code anyway.

A little hasty on the old trigger there, bucko.

Why do people still keep using MySQL, in spite of their atrocious license changes?

Some people wouldn't call a switch from LGPL to GPL "atrocious." They've been arguing for ages that the GPL is better. And since they wrote both licenses, they must know what they're talking about.

The answer to that is long, and RMS has done a better job explaining it than I could. In involves beliefs that people have a moral obligation to help each other, and that software is a significant resource in society.

My favorite essay of his on this subject is here

GPL'ed software would NEVER have been used for this in the first place, whether or not it was better.

Read Paragraphs 11 and 12 of the GPL. There is NO WARRANTY. Nobody in their right mind would use software without any form of warranty in a situation where lives can be lost

It's a members only meeting. XFree86 is not a member of the Free Software Foundation (otherwise known as GNU).

It's for Associate Members - anyone that pays their $120 per year membership fee. Developers or counsel for xfree86 may be associate members of FSF. (it's $60/year for students)

(also, (and I thought everyone knew this) FSF was set up to provide organisational and legal infrastructure for the free software community. In doing so, they are the prime sponsors of the GNU project. FSF and GNU were both founded by RMS, and the two projects are synergistic, but they are seperate.)

Because when nVidia wants to know something about ATI drivers it's only slightly less trivial to get the information when the driver source is closed than open.

The GNU GPL is about 15 years old now. That's precisely the kind of software abuse it's made for. If ATI released its drivers under the GPL, nVidia would have to do the same to copy any code from the ATI drivers.

Drivers aren't (supposed to be) what you pay for when you buy a piece of hardware; you pay for the hardware. The common excuse to keep drivers closed-source isn't the one quoted above; the concern is (supposedly) that ATI is afraid nVidia will notice architectural advantages of the Radeon series and integrate those into its hardware.

But what's the big deal? From drawing board to mass production is a matter of years; by the time a driver is released it's too late for the competition to integrate design ideas into its current product line.

What would open-source drivers bring, then? They'd bring the competition back to where it belongs: the hardware. Is GeForce or Radeon design better for most games? Nobody knows -- the driver hides how good the chips themselves are. (Personally, I'm under the impression ATI's chips are more powerful and their drivers are garbage.) Open-source drivers and open specs would benefit any company that released them; they'd also benefit the customer. And what if all hardware companies saw the light and released open-source drivers and open specs? Then they'd still compete much as they do today, and their customers would be better off.

It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.

The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.

The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.

The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.

So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html [harvard.edu]

The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733

The McBrides, jointly -- I feel sometimes as though I'm in a Quentin Tarantino movie of some sort with them [laughter] -- the McBrides have failed to distinguish adequately between dicta and holding.

I do not like Eldred against Ashcroft. I think it was wrongly decided. I filed a brief in it, amicus curiae, and I assisted my friend and colleague Larry Lessig in the presentation of the main arguments which did not, regrettably, succeed.

Oddly enough, and I will take you through this just enough to show, oddly enough, it is the position that we were taking in Eldred against Ashcroft, which if you stick to holding rather than dicta, would be favorable to the position now being urged by Mr. McBride. What happened in Eldred against Ashcroft, as opposed to the window dressing of it, is actually bad for the argument that Mr. McBride has been presenting, whichever Mr. McBride it is. But they have not thought this through enough.

Let me show you why. The grave difficulty that SCO has with free software isn't their attack; it's the inadequacy of their defense. In order to defend yourself in a case in which you are infringing the freedom of free software, you have to be prepared to meet a call that I make reasonably often with my colleagues at the Foundation who are here tonight. That telephone call goes like this. "Mr. Potential Defendant, you are distributing my client's copyrighted work without permission. Please stop. And if you want to continue to distribute it, we'l

It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.

The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.

The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.

The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.

So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html [harvard.edu]

The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733

The McBrides, jointly -- I feel sometimes as though I'm in a Quentin Tarantino movie of some sort with them [laughter] -- the McBrides have failed to distinguish adequately between dicta and holding.

I do not like Eldred against Ashcroft. I think it was wrongly decided. I filed a brief in it, amicus curiae, and I assisted my friend and colleague Larry Lessig in the presentation of the main arguments which did not, regrettably, succeed.

Oddly enough, and I will take you through this just enough to show, oddly enough, it is the position that we were taking in Eldred against Ashcroft, which if you stick to holding rather than dicta, would be favorable to the position now being urged by Mr. McBride. What happened in Eldred against Ashcroft, as opposed to the window dressing of it, is actually bad for the argument that Mr. McBride has been presenting, whichever Mr. McBride it is. But they have not thought this through enough.

Let me show you why. The grave difficulty that SCO has with free software isn't their attack; it's the inadequacy of their defense. In order to defend yourself in a case in which you are infringing the freedom of free software, you have to be prepared to meet a call that I make reasonably often with my colleagues at the Foundation who are here tonight. That telephone call goes like this. "Mr. Potential Defendant, you are distributing my client's copyrighted work without permission. Please stop. And if you want to continue to distribute it, we'l

It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.

The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.

The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.

The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.

So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html

The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733

The McBrides, jointly -- I feel sometimes as though I'm in a Quentin Tarantino movie of some sort with them [laughter] -- the McBrides have failed to distinguish adequately between dicta and holding.

I do not like Eldred against Ashcroft. I think it was wrongly decided. I filed a brief in it, amicus curiae, and I assisted my friend and colleague Larry Lessig in the presentation of the main arguments which did not, regrettably, succeed.

Oddly enough, and I will take you through this just enough to show, oddly enough, it is the position that we were taking in Eldred against Ashcroft, which if you stick to holding rather than dicta, would be favorable to the position now being urged by Mr. McBride. What happened in Eldred against Ashcroft, as opposed to the window dressing of it, is actually bad for the argument that Mr. McBride has been presenting, whichever Mr. McBride it is. But they have not thought this through enough.

Let me show you why. The grave difficulty that SCO has with free software isn't their attack; it's the inadequacy of their defense. In order to defend yourself in a case in which you are infringing the freedom of free software, you have to be prepared to meet a call that I make reasonably often with my colleagues at the Foundation who are here tonight. That telephone call goes like this. "Mr. Potential Defendant, you are distributing my client's copyrighted work without permission. Please stop. And if you want to continue to distribute it, we'll help you to get b

It is a criminal offense to claim, with fraudulent intent, that you have a copyright if you do not. The SCO Group does *NOT* hold the copyrights to the UNIX source code. Novell has *NOT* transfered the title for the works that the SCO Group fraudulently filed for copyright in 2003. The SCO Group do not have the right to sue anybody for violation of copyright works without the assent of the title holder.

The SCO Group claims the right to sue for work in standard UNIX and POSIX interfaces that AT&T and Novell granted full rights to use royalty free in perpetuity for the ISO, ANSI and FIPS federal standards.

The SCO Group's contract claims against IBM and others based upon the AT&T license in respect to rights of so called derivative works is in direct contradiction to evidence presented to the SCO Group by Novell.

The SCO Group though the press and SEC filings, has bolstered the share price of the SCO Group based upon demonstrably false claims to the contrary of above points 1,2 and 3. The SCO Group CEOs and legal agents were notified by Novell and IBM *before* making these false claims and presenting them as fact. The actions of the SCO Group must be in violation of several SEC regulations.

So how is the lawsuit going to go if it gets to court?
Eben Moglen's Harvard Speech
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/p.cgi/speakers.html

The Transcript
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200402260 03735733

The McBrides, jointly -- I feel sometimes as though I'm in a Quentin Tarantino movie of some sort with them [laughter] -- the McBrides have failed to distinguish adequately between dicta and holding.

I do not like Eldred against Ashcroft. I think it was wrongly decided. I filed a brief in it, amicus curiae, and I assisted my friend and colleague Larry Lessig in the presentation of the main arguments which did not, regrettably, succeed.

Oddly enough, and I will take you through this just enough to show, oddly enough, it is the position that we were taking in Eldred against Ashcroft, which if you stick to holding rather than dicta, would be favorable to the position now being urged by Mr. McBride. What happened in Eldred against Ashcroft, as opposed to the window dressing of it, is actually bad for the argument that Mr. McBride has been presenting, whichever Mr. McBride it is. But they have not thought this through enough.

Let me show you why. The grave difficulty that SCO has with free software isn't their attack; it's the inadequacy of their defense. In order to defend yourself in a case in which you are infringing the freedom of free software, you have to be prepared to meet a call that I make reasonably often with my colleagues at the Foundation who are here tonight. That telephone call goes like this. "Mr. Potential Defendant, you are distributing my client's copyrighted work without permission. Please stop. And if you want to continue to distribute it, we'll help you to get b

1) Logon to your EV1Servers.net hosted Linux webserver.
2) Download a copy of the Linux kernel binary and all the modules.
3) EV1Servers.net are making use of derived works under the terms of the GPL. They are obligated to provide the source code under the terms of the GPL if they make the binaries available to the customers.
4) Under the terms of the GPL, EV1Servers.net must either make the binaries avilable on the same place, or http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#SourceAnd BinaryOnDifferentSites

Note, however, that it is not enough to find some site that happens to have the appropriate source code today, and tell people to look there. Tomorrow that site may have deleted that source code, or simply replaced it with a newer version of the same program. Then you would no longer be complying with the GPL requirements. To make a reasonable effort to comply, you need to make a positive arrangement with the other site, and thus ensure that the source will be available there for as long as you keep the binaries available.

The CreativeCommons GetContent page contains a huge list of media. But what I am looking for is content, which fits to a Linux PDA like the SHARP Zaurus series. Are there eBooks, AudioBooks and movies, especially designed for small computers? BTW: Though there are many sites, which offer free mobile cell phone logos and ringtones, are there any logos and ringtones available under the Creative Common Licenses or the GPL?

NOTHING can be an X application unless it's under the GPL, because the GPL is not compatible with anything but itself. That means no Blackbox (and most of its derivatives). No KWin or Kicker for KDE. Nothing that's under the Artistic, BSD, MIT, MPL, etc. licenses will be allowed. If you can't understand why this is a problem, stop drinking the FSF Kool-Aid and wake up!

BZZT, sorry, you lose. The GPL is compatible with many licenses, in particular, many of those you mention.

I agree that a GPLed X server would be a bad idea, but because there are many applications that are offered under GPL-incompatible licenses, not because everything is incompatible with the GPL. The vast majority of Free Software is compatible with the GPL.

A peak at their press release page shows some interesting information regarding their positions and actions. Googling news.google.com for fsf+lawsuit didn't show anything of interest. Reuters showed no hits for "fsf" at all, as well as "lawsuit gpl", which you would think would include sco news. Searching Yahoo News yielded better results, mainly SCO related. Then I got bored ;)

Its a good questions. I didn't find that much, but no one has really challenged the GPL itself until now. Individual cases like the Linksys case are rare, and from my limited experience, they have been settled through careful and thoughtful (and sometimes slow) negotiation. Then again, if the FSF can quietly get infringers to comply, perhaps this is better than high profile lawsuits.

They are the best positioned to defend GPL software. Whether they are the best AT defending depends on how you look at it.

Stallman unambiguously made it clear that he considers making money from software to be *bad*, period.

It's very strange that you can't back this claim up, especially as Stallman and the FSF have made money by selling GNU software.

In fact, you can order GNU software directly from the FSF right now.

In fact, why not read what the FSF have to say on the matter straight from their own website:

Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can.

Stallman unambiguously made it clear that he considers making money from software to be *bad*, period.

It's very strange that you can't back this claim up, especially as Stallman and the FSF have made money by selling GNU software.

In fact, you can order GNU software directly from the FSF right now.

In fact, why not read what the FSF have to say on the matter straight from their own website:

Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can.

One of the reasons I became an Associate member of FSF is to help the piper. Put your money where your popcorn is going and become a producer of the show!

Eben Moglen is lead counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation

He is, however, the lead counsel for the Free Software Foundation(FSF) and it is in this capacity that the quote in the article writeup is relevent.

I think these CEOs need to do a little soul-searching and figure out if they're really doing themselves, or the industries they work in, any good. In the cases of "intellectual property" and especially software patents, if so many people have to sue one another, I believe it's indicative of a deeper problem. A problem already solved here.

Morons. Don't they know that the lawyers are the only winners? The real solution is not more lawsuits. The money spent on a software patent lawsuit might as well be flushed down the toilet for all the good it does the world. The real solution is adjusting the industry's perceptions about software.
--

> Also, they can only compile for the lowest common processor. (e.g. A pentium II)

That may be true for traditional proprietary software, but NOT for F/OS Software. Witness Gentoo; I compile everything for my computer's specific processor. And surely you don't believe that the Hotspot Java VM does its optimizations 'for free'! Every runtime optimization check introduces a performance hit.

[0013] FIG. 1A is a pictorial diagram illustrating a desktop of a graphical user interface according to the prior art.

Many (possibly most) of the programs in the "non-free" repository actually meet the FSF's definition of "semi-free" software. Basically, this is non-commercial-but-otherwise-free software, i.e., it comes with the rights to use, copy, modify, and redistribute, but not the right to sell. I don't think this sort of software should be part of the system (and indeed, the non-free repository is not part of Debian), but aside from that, I don't find it objectionable.

What I'd really like is to replace "non-free" with "semi-free", and only allow semi-free software in - but nobody has proposed that. Oh well.

Would that be the Apache 1.0 license (which isn't GPL compatible) or the Apache 1.1 license (which isn't GPL compatible)?

Would that be the Apache 1.0 license (which isn't GPL compatible) or the Apache 1.1 license (which isn't GPL compatible)?

For the incompatible licenses, you see some big names there. OpenSSL, BSD, Apache, xinetd, Mozilla, LaTeX, Sun, PHP, and Apple. I know some pretty hardcore FSF zealots, and they use OpenSSL, Apache, and Mozilla, just to name a few. Clearly these products and their group/company backings are not so evil as to prevent their use. Some of the people I know even contribute to these projects, so clearly the license is not so evil as to tarnish their code. The incompatible licenses aer still "free software" according to that page. So what's the problem?

But that's a rhetorical question, so I'll address another glaring problem with the page. Look at all the compatible licenses. Again, a lot of big names: VIm, Perl, Python, Berkley DB, zlib, W3C, X11, and of course BSD. Why do all these licenses need to exist if they're compatible with the GPL? Again, I don't expect an answer.

But the fact that there exist a large number of compatible and incompatible licenses indicates that the state of the licensing world is broken. And there's an opportunity for the FSF to take a leadership role here. Call a license summit. For the compatible licenses, get some folks from each project together, and say "what is it that you find objectionable about the GPL, and how can we fix it? Can we create another license that is not the GPL, but is acceptable to all of you? Ditto for the incompatible ones. Many of those are from big companies that have an interest in Free Software and Open Source (IBM, Apple, Sun, Netscape). They probably each have their own license because their lawyers wanted to cover their asses. Get all the lawyers together, and say "Look, it's stupid to have all these licenses. Can we come up with a license that allows your software to be free, but won't scare your CEOs and shareholders?". That, of course, may be harder, since lawyers cost money. But the FSF should at least be able to get the attention of influential people within each company.

Unless the state of licensing is fixed soon, software will be strangled by it. Being more restrictive (c.f. debian-free, debian-nonfree, debian-illegal (tongue in cheek, get over it)) and claiming that everyone should use the GPL or LGPL is the wrong answer. If this is handled correctly, we'd ideally end up with something like 4 licenses: GPL, LGPL, "Open Source", "Free Software" (those last two would be licenses that cover GPL-compatible and GPL-incompatible licenses , respcetively). But as long as I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony.

Um, not that theirs is the final word or anything, but the FSF considers the following licences compatible with the GPL:

• LGPL (duh)
• Guile's
• GNU ADA compiler runtimes'
• X11 (not to be confused with the XFree 4.4 licence)
• Expat (aka "MIT")
• Standard ML of New Jersey
• public domain
• Cryptix General
• current BSD
• Zlib
• iMatix Standard Function Library
• W3C
• Sleepycat/Berkeley DB
• current OpenLDAP
• current (and early) Python
• Perl (when not Artistic 1.0)
• Artistic 2.0
• Zope 2.0
• Intel Open Source
• Netscape Javascript
• eCos 2.0
• Eiffel 2.0
• current Vim

Is the GPL compatible with any other license?

firebird is a remarkable product. period. hats off to the developers!

i've been developing commercial software since 93 with borland delphi. delphi is a fine ide with awesome db powers. it came a long way with that crappy paradox/bde thing with a bunch of drawbacks, but interbase is a professional and very powerfull dbs with its sql dialect.

the firebird project forked back in 2000 as interbase became opensource. as it is licensed under a gpl incompatible license there will always be flaimbaits. especially here on /.

sure, it got alot of attention due to the name conflict, but software developers that rely on a powerfull and stable db engine surely know about it for a long time.

This could have been immensely useful to a lot of commercial vendors, and Stallman knew it, so he used the GPL (not even LGPL) to try and "force" third party code to be GPL'd.

As a result, nobody outside the free software world uses it.

Yes, the server at shop.sco.com is poor, tortured and somewhat out of date. SCO doesn't seem like a technically apt software company. I really wish people gnu the truth of this matter.

I'm amazed by ignorance of people posting here. XFree never has a single license. Part of XFree code licenses never were GPL compatable by FSF definition. See: link at FSF site.
Other people don't think that dynamic linking can create any problem.
Nothing has changed in fact by that new license for XFree own contributions.

This is a permissive non-copyleft free software license with a few requirements that render it incompatble with the GNU GPL. We urge you not to use the Apache licenses for software you write. However, there is no reason to avoid running programs that have been released under this license, such as Apache.

I think that the Open Source movement is approaching a crossroads where the failure to have reached a viable consensus over what a proper license should be will seriously impede the future of software synergy and integration that the OS world so desparately needs.

While there are certainly more free/open source licenses than would be neccessary (and the OSI is at least trying to prevent this from getting worse, by not accepting new licenses if there isn't a convincing reason why no existing license can be used), there is that one big schism that cannot be resolved by license consolidation: Copyleft or not copyleft.

You will never make a GPL-user switch to a non-copyleft license, because he simply does not want proprietary software vendors to use his code. Likewise, you will never make a BSD-user switch to a copyleft license because they want anyone to be able touse their code for every purpose whatsoever, including proprietary software vendors. The fundamental reasons to hack on open-source code are just very different, and I think talking of both as one community is just plain wrong more often than not. (Of course, both camps are not a homogenous community of their own either.)

Do you honestly think RMS would write something better than ESR on this matter? ESR just pointed out Java would get wide acceptance as an open source standard much like NFS where other Sun innovations have failed for being closed and proprietary. RMS would just point out how evil and wicked Sun is for distributing binaries without the source and not GPL'ing all their code.
I can't read Mr. Phipps' response currently, but I think he's the one out of touch on this issue after reading the well written and argued (along with politely worded) letter from ESR.

Bottom line: The Free Software community hates Sun like it hates all other developers who keep their code closed. So if you're expecting a Sun Love-In from RMS, you'll be waiting a long time.

THIS SECTION CONTAINS MY PERSONAL OPINIONS AND DOESN'T REPRESENT AN OFFICIAL POSITION OF THE XFree86 PROJECT.

The first incarnation of this version of libGLw used eight header files from LessTif, four for each Motif version. LessTif is covered by the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL) whose terms are not compatible with the XFree86 licensing policy. Since the copyright holder of LessTif is the Free Software Foundation (FSF), I asked Richard Stallman, president of FSF and so called "leader of the Free Software movement", permission to redistribute a copy of those eight headers under XFree86 terms, still maintaining the FSF copyright.

Observe that I was not asking him to change the license of LessTif as a whole, but only to allow me to distribute copies of some header files containing function prototypes, variable declarations and data type definitions. Even so, Stallman said no because the files contained "more than 6000 lines of code". Which code? The LessTif headers are mostly copies of the Motif ones and don't contain any original GNU "code"! I can't still imagine a reason for Stallman's negative answer except for paranoia. He seems to ignore what Motif is and that LessTif's API is simply a copy of Motif's one.

After spending some time, I made my own headers, that became much smaller than the previous ones because I included only a subset of the Motif API and merged everything into four files: 417 lines instead 6000. Humm, perhaps I should be grateful to Sallman too :-).

Except, almost 6 years ago, Richard Stallman: The X Window's Trap

I think Stallman would remind he foresaw this situation many years ago:

The X Windows Trap

If people like you weren't so busy misrepresenting his views you'd see that.

I would know by viewing the source code.

Not to say that everyone is not entitled to his own ethics, but some of us feel it is unethical to use software that restricts peoples freedom.

So, for me there is something that is wrong about non-free software, that it restricts peoples freedom , who cares about the money??

For many of us (everyone who supports the FSF, for example) there is something wrong with paying for non-free software, it's great, though, paying for the development of free software. When you pay for non-free software, you are funding a company that bases its revenue on restricting people's freedom. Non-free software restricts your freedom to help other by sharing the software you have, your freedom to help yourself by improving that software, and to help others again by distributing your improvements.

If you use GPLed software, you gain all those freedoms, plus the assurance to keep them throughout the whole life of the software project.

-- There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels. --

In my mind, the prime candidate for releasing the virus is SCO themselves, in a bid to disgrace the Linux community.

That the story has been picked up by the BBC in such a way rather suggests that there is a hidden agenda - Politici(s|z)ing the Open Source movement.

Friends, it is time to organise. Never before has there been a time to be more together and united against such tales. Bodies that truly represents the Open Source philosophy already exists, and I suggest we all get behind them.

The FSF particularly here

The OSDL particularly here

The BBC must learn not to refer to a bunch of loosely knit hackers around the globe in terms more rightly applied to terrorist movements and political agitators. It's not good to rant as an individual with loosely knit backing around the globe. It must be done from a united front. So get with your LUGs and your websites and make sure we're all linking to the same places.

My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.

In my mind, the prime candidate for releasing the virus is SCO themselves, in a bid to disgrace the Linux community.

That the story has been picked up by the BBC in such a way rather suggests that there is a hidden agenda - Politici(s|z)ing the Open Source movement.

Friends, it is time to organise. Never before has there been a time to be more together and united against such tales. Bodies that truly represents the Open Source philosophy already exists, and I suggest we all get behind them.

The FSF particularly here

The OSDL particularly here

The BBC must learn not to refer to a bunch of loosely knit hackers around the globe in terms more rightly applied to terrorist movements and political agitators. It's not good to rant as an individual with loosely knit backing around the globe. It must be done from a united front. So get with your LUGs and your websites and make sure we're all linking to the same places.

My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.

If you spend a dollar with a local company working on Linux, that dollar stays in your economy," said Simon Phipps of Sun Microsystems.

"When you spend a dollar with a multi-national corporation as a license fee for a piece of software, that dollar leaves your country."

"It's about keeping the money in your local economy, developing skills and developing the local economy to be strong in its own right in a global context."

Also quoted are Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond.

Not mentioned, however, are The Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project.

If you spend a dollar with a local company working on Linux, that dollar stays in your economy," said Simon Phipps of Sun Microsystems.

"When you spend a dollar with a multi-national corporation as a license fee for a piece of software, that dollar leaves your country."

"It's about keeping the money in your local economy, developing skills and developing the local economy to be strong in its own right in a global context."

Also quoted are Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond.

Not mentioned, however, are The Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project.

As I discuss in Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else , it is extremely important that OSS projects choose a GPL-compatible license. You don't need to use the GPL - not even the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the developer of the GPL and its most avid proponent, claims that absolutely all software must be GPL-licensed. But choosing a license incompatible with the GPL is generally a bad idea if you're developing open source software.

If a project isn't GPL-compatible, it may not receive enough support from other developers to sustain it. Many developers prefer the GPL; the majority of open source software (as counted by packages or lines of code) are GPL'ed. See my paper, there's lots of quantitative evidence for this. Developers who prefer the GPL will work with non-GPL'ed programs, but usually only if they're GPL-compatible. Several high-profile projects have undergone great agony to become GPL-compatible (vim, Python, Mozilla, Qt). Apache just made a change to its license saying that one reason was to make it GPL-compatible. Multiple major projects don't undergo painful license changes unless they have a reason to do so.

If this isn't resolved, the likely outcome is a fork, with the version under the modified license eventually losing. I don't see that this license change is worth such an outcome. They could resolve this with a dual license with the GPL, or just continuing to use the original license, or some variation.

Can somebody explain why this new 1.1 license is necessarily incompatible with GPL2 / LGPL? True, it is an annoying licence change as the FSF article explains, and may not be a smart move for the project. But annoying doesn't make it incompatible. And no one even said (that I can determine) that original flawed BSD license was in fact incompatible; just undesirable.

In fact, this seems to be less restrictive than the GNU FDL license for documentation. It's not the same as past famous GPL-incompatible licenses, such as an old version of the Python license.

Can somebody explain why this new 1.1 license is necessarily incompatible with GPL2 / LGPL? True, it is an annoying licence change as the FSF article explains, and may not be a smart move for the project. But annoying doesn't make it incompatible. And no one even said (that I can determine) that original flawed BSD license was in fact incompatible; just undesirable.

In fact, this seems to be less restrictive than the GNU FDL license for documentation. It's not the same as past famous GPL-incompatible licenses, such as an old version of the Python license.

"Linux Losers" by billg

I'm WithHolding My Anger Though I'd Like To Be The Strangler Of This PunkAss Little Pussy's Puny Neck
It's My Right To Insist That He Acknowledge My Existence But He Just Displays Complete Lack Of Respect

That's What He Says To Himself As He Uses Slashdot To Trash Me As He Sits With Both His Feet Up At His Desk
Smokes A Bag Of His WEED And Starts Imagining Things And He Just Can't See That He's Manically Depressed

And In His Jealousy And Envy It Just Whirls Him In A Frenzy As He Turns On MSDN And Sees My Face
He Don't Exist In This World So He Just Twists And He Twirls Spirals And Spins Till He Hurls Himself In A Rage

And It's Destroying Him Slowly Cuz He Does Not even know me Even Though He Sees Me EveryWhere He Goes
So He Just Tortures Himself He Has No Fortune And Wealth So He Extorts SomeOne Else To Get His Dough

And Now He's Acting Like A Bully So He Tries To Push And Pull Me But He Knows That He Can't Pull Me So He's Mad
He Has No Choice But To Scream And Raise His Voice Up At Me Cuz It Annoys Him To See That I Ain't Scared

[Chorus]
You aint no motherfucking (bully)
And I aint bowing to no motherfucking (bully)
I won't allow it, aint gonna cower to no (bully)
I'll be damned if I don't stand up to a (bully)
Fight like a man and throw my hands up to a (bully...)

And I know it must be fucking with you emotionall(y...)

[Verse]
Now I'm not trying to make no more enemies No more unfortunately There's so many other motherfuckers that just are
They just keep pounding at me Now that I'm down with Longhorn Suddenly now I got beef with this faggot Linus [laughter]
But his ass is such a puppet Stallman could shove his whole hand up it And just make him say what he wants him to say
But FSF has Stallman on a string And Stallman's so nervous that he Says anything to this man to keep him at bay

So now Steve Jobs thinks that he's so tough And fucking iPod's the big bad wolf And they go huff and puff and blow our company down
But our building's made out of bricks So you ain't taking out shit and dawg you just sold a song by Bobby Brown

So now you try to pull a race card And it backfires in your face hard Cuz you know we don't play that black and white shit
Plus the sylist you fucked When you was ecstasied up Was just a man who's dressed up as a white bitch

You must be taking to much (E...)

[Verse]
Now what bothers me the most About software world is we so close To picking up where we left off with Ashton-Tate
We just lost SCO Group i2 got blasted away
Plus we lost marchFirst, VA, and Pets.com
It's like a never-ending cycle That just seems to come full circle Everybody's gotta be so fucking hard
I'm not excluding myself Cuz I been stupid as well
I been known to lose it when someone says something smart

But as we grow as men We learn to let shit go, but then again There's only so much bullshit we can really stand
We all got reps to uphold When someone steps on our toes It's no exception, it goes for every man
But if Stallman really gave a fuck About SCO like he claims he does He'd wake him up and make McBride get off them drugs

But he just keeps feeding him pills So if that Microsoft doesn't kill him Someone from Sun Micro will and I ain't buzzed
Dawg, I'm talking to you straight If the situation escalates Any worse, we're gonna lose another soldier to this game
And if I get killed for this rap I got a million in cash That says I will get you back.

GNU+HURD or FreeBSD is going to slide right into that position, and if there is further trouble from the SCO camp I don't think *anyone* can impinge the likes of Plan9 or BeOS.

The Hurd, together with the GNU Mach microkernel, the GNU C Library and the other GNU and non-GNU programs in the GNU system, provide a rather complete and usable operating system today. It is not ready for production use, as there are still many bugs and missing features. However, it should be a good base for further development and non-critical application usage...On the negative side, the support for character devices (like sound cards) and other hardware is mostly missing. Although the POSIX interface is provided, some additional interfaces like POSIX shared memory or semaphores are still under development.