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The GPL is far more enforceable than the click-through licenses, because rather than forbidding you to do something you are normally allowed to, it allows you to do something you are normally forbidden to do. So, if you are distributing GPLed software without agreeing to and obeying the GPL, then you are violating copyright law, as nothing besides the GPL is giving you the right to distribute that software.

So far, the GPL has never been tested in court, because every single violator backed down. No one has been foolish enough to try. Enforcing the GNU GPL by Eben Moglen, the general counsel of the FSF describes in detail what has been done to enforce it.

Wow, hardware is not software. *BING* *BING* we have a winner!

I'm glad that a genius like you finally made that connection because us average dumb fucks already figured that out 18 years ago.

Since when has slashdot been ONLY about open source software. In fact I thought it was also about FREE SOFTWARE and propetary software like this, this, and this. One of those companies, a produceer of propetary hardware and software, even has its own section here. Then one of the other two has very frequent stories here.

Not to anybody - only to those you distributed a binary to. Modify to your heart's content, but you only have to make source available to those you sell a binary. Of course, they can then release it freely, but you still only have to provide a written offer to give source at cost (ie, CD reproduction plus shipping and handling) to anyone who receives a binary.

I usually don't say it, but: PLEASE MOD PARENT UP! (I would have done it myself, but I don't have any mod points right now. Thanks.)

I'm really glad that eht touched that sensitive subject. Someone had to say that. Because there is a huge difference between Open Source and Free Software, which so many people are overlooking. Please check out Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative for more info. Thanks.

Please avoid using the word "open" as a substitute for "free software". A different group, whose values are less idealistic than ours, uses "open source" as its slogan. If you are referring to them, it is proper to use their name, but please don't lump us in with them or describe our work by their label---that leads people to think we are their supporters.

Please avoid using the word "open" as a substitute for "free software". A different group, whose values are less idealistic than ours, uses "open source" as its slogan. If you are referring to them, it is proper to use their name, but please don't lump us in with them or describe our work by their label---that leads people to think we are their supporters.

Please avoid using the word "open" as a substitute for "free software". A different group, whose values are less idealistic than ours, uses "open source" as its slogan. If you are referring to them, it is proper to use their name, but please don't lump us in with them or describe our work by their label---that leads people to think we are their supporters.

Please avoid using the word "open" as a substitute for "free software". A different group, whose values are less idealistic than ours, uses "open source" as its slogan. If you are referring to them, it is proper to use their name, but please don't lump us in with them or describe our work by their label---that leads people to think we are their supporters.

Please avoid using the word "open" as a substitute for "free software". A different group, whose values are less idealistic than ours, uses "open source" as its slogan. If you are referring to them, it is proper to use their name, but please don't lump us in with them or describe our work by their label---that leads people to think we are their supporters.

I've found that it's much easier to say to people 'hey, check out this software that runs on windows' than it is to say 'hey, ditch windows and use linux'. People are generally more responsive if they don't have to leave their comfort zone, then once they have a chance to use Free Software, see that they like it, that it's better, have used OpenOffice in windows, then say oh yea, Linux can do that, and more, and with more freedom. It's especially easy to nab programmers that way, because they get to see the source of what they're using.

I've been doing this for a while, building my own CDs and passing them out. First with Win32 software then a Linux distro. Knoppix was rad because it let me add another step to the conversion process. It's a step to change mindshare and for a lot of people OpenCD will be their first step towards computing freedom.

I leave a trail of little Linux users everywhere I go and this is the tactic I've been using for a long time. Now they've made my job easier.

anarchy 1. Absence of any form of political authority. 2. Political disorder and confusion. 3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

You deserve to be able to cooperate openly and freely with other people who use software. You deserve to be able to learn how the software works, and to teach your students with it. You deserve to be able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it when it breaks. You deserve free software.

[The]...ownership of a program--the power to restrict changing or copying it--is obstructive. Its negative effects are widespread and important. It follows that society shouldn't have owners for programs.

anarchy 1. Absence of any form of political authority. 2. Political disorder and confusion. 3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

You deserve to be able to cooperate openly and freely with other people who use software. You deserve to be able to learn how the software works, and to teach your students with it. You deserve to be able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it when it breaks. You deserve free software.

[The]...ownership of a program--the power to restrict changing or copying it--is obstructive. Its negative effects are widespread and important. It follows that society shouldn't have owners for programs.

I promise you that my personal actions will in no way affect your liberty. Which is why I will continue to use the BSD and MIT licenses for my own code. You might not agree with my choice, but my act of using them will in no way affect your life, liberty or property.

That's fine. Heck, while Stallman and the Free Software Foundation would rather that you use the GPL, they're happy with the BSD and MIT licenses and cheerfully agree that they are Free Software licenses. After all, if all the software in the world was licensed under the BSD license, they would have exactly what they wanted. You are granting us all liberty to your software; I thank you for it, and I suspect the FSF would thank you for it.

The FSF is against proprietary software. With proprietary software the publisher benefits from liberties denied to end users (the freedom to distribute copies and the freedom to modify). There is where equality comes into play. Ultimately there must be some limitations on liberty. The most obvious is when your liberty takes someone elses liberty away (which is why slavery, murder, and kidnapping are illegal). There are also times when we trade personal liberties for the betterment of society (this is what copyright strives for). However, when liberty is taken from one person and given to another, the situation deserves to be closely scrutenized and constantly reconsidered. Copyright is exactly such a case. In the absence of copyright, we would be free to make and modify copies to our heart's content. Copyright has taken away this liberty from millions of people, granting the liberty exclusively to a minority. The FSF believes that the current balance of copyright is not reasonable and should be changed. (I find Stallman's essay, "Reevaluating Copyright: The Public Must Prevail sums up their situation well.) As a short term work around in the area of software, the GPL and the LGPL are offered as partial solutions. ("I can't change the rest of the world's software, but I can make my software Free and ensure that it always remains Free.") The FSF's only concern about the BSD license is that software released under the BSD license can be made proprietary external parties. This has nothing to do with the BSD license, and everything to do with copyright.

You can check out the source from CVS. Also, most of the essays are already on the GNU philosophy page, and the rest are being put up this week.

Sincerely,
Bradley M. Kuhn
Executive Director, Free Software Foundation

2003 is going to be a very exciting year for Linux. Someone get up and whack the turntable... this record is stuck.

OK, that's fair, every year someone will delcare it the next year the year Linux "reaches the mainstream." For some people it was 97, for others it was '93. That's because different people understand at different times. Most people understand that M$ is an illegal monoply and uses their position to crush other makers of software. Sooner or later they understand about free software and realize that no one needs traditional closed source software vendors. It usually happens when the user gets aquainted with free software then understands it's better than the stuff they have been paying for. Every year that passes when free software does not become universal is amazing to them.

Yet, every year has been exciting. Each year new projects are born, improve and mature. Each year brings amazing new tools. More organizations see the benifits and convert, Schools, Banks, Government Offices. The word is moving slowly, but surely.

It's always fun to play with you, Sheldon. You are always so offensive, yet harmlessly clueless.

The benefits of Open Source or Free software to its users are undeniable. If the software has a bug, or the software does not do something you want it to do, you can change it. There are many advantages, and they have been explained at length by various people. If you are going to be using software, you are definitely better off if you have access to the source code.

Trust

The fundamental difference between open source software and closed source software is the level of trust required. For a business to use closed source software, the level of trust required is enormous. It is not simply a question of whether the money spent purchasing the software is a good investment. The time invested using the software is far more significant. Almost inevitably your own business information becomes tied up in a format that is specific to the software you are using. In order to buy software from a closed source company, you have to take the following on trust:

• They have not left gaping security holes in the code.
• They will fix bugs in a timely manner.
• They will eventually add the features you want.
• They are not using your computing resources to do things which are not in your interest.
• They will not increase the price unreasonably once you depend on them.
• They will not go bust.

Business Models Having access to the source code makes good sense to the users. However the business case for the software vendor is far less convincing. In fact, the dangers of closed source from the user's perspective can be considered opportunities from the vendor's perspective.

The open source foundation proposes "4 ways to win" which is reproduced here: Four Ways To Win

Now for a higher-level, investor's point of view. There are at least four known business models for making money with open source:

1. Support Sellers (otherwise known as "Give Away the Recipe, Open A Restaurant"): In this model, you (effectively) give away the software product, but sell distribution, branding, and after-sale service. This is what (for example) Red Hat does.
2. Loss Leader: In this model, you give away open-source as a loss-leader and market positioner for closed software. This is what Netscape is doing.
3. Widget Frosting : In this model, a hardware company (for which software is a necessary adjunct but strictly a cost rather than profit center) goes open-source in order to get better drivers and interface tools cheaper. Silicon Graphics, for example, supports and ships Samba.
4. Accessorizing: Selling accessories books, compatible hardware, complete systems with open-source software pre-installed. It's easy to trivialize this (open-source T-shirts, coffee mugs, Linux penguin dolls) but at least the books and hardware underly some clear successes: O'Reilly Associates, SSC, and VA Research are among them.

In fact, the number of companies that have had success with any of these models is miniscule. This is hardly surprising, they are simply not very good business models for software companies.

Taking each in turn... Selling Support The better documented and more reliable the product is, the less support it needs. A business model where the more perfect your product, the less money you can make has got something fundamentally wrong with it. Loss Leader The very fact that this can be advanced as a viable business model for OpenSource shows desperation. What it comes down to is an admission that the best way to make money from software is by selling it. Widget Frosting This makes perfect sense if you are a hardware company, or when the software is a side issue. However, its no use at all for a business whose main product is software. Accessorizing Selling accessories is fine, but there is no pressing need to actually develop the software when one is in the accessories business.

There are of course other business models for Open Source. For instance, the one adopted by the Perl foundation and several others is begging. This is not a business model that many companies would find appealing though.

The basic problem is that for a business whose primary function is to make software, then the primary reward has to come from selling the software. We need a business model that actually works and we have one, it's called capitalism. It works like this: make something that people want and sell it to them. This model works for software too, and there is no reason why this model cannot work even when source code is available. Closed source vendors are relying on something a little closer to the business model of a heroin pusher. It starts off like capitalism, but there is the added feature that the user gets addicted and has to carry on buying the same thing even if he does not really want to. The more he uses the same vendor, the more reliant he is upon it.

The Solution Community software is software where the vendor can be paid a fair price for the software he creates, but where the buyer does not end up in a similar position to a junkie.

Community Source is software that guarantees the following:

1. The right to see what the software is doing, ie access to unobfuscated source code.
2. The right to add enhancements.
3. The right to fix bugs.
4. The right to sell his enhancements to other companies. This does not mean the right to the sell software without the original vendor receiving any money. The buyer still needs a license from the original vendor, but he does not have to rely on a single vendor for upgrades and enhancements.
5. The right to buy enhanced versions from 3rd parties.

This is an attempt to clarify some issues. Correct me if I'm wrong, Darwin's histroy is complicated and I might be off here and there. In my opinion, the question if GNU-Darwin is Apple Darwin or not is the mirror image of asking if Linux with BSD toolchain instead of GNU toolchain is Linux or not. Darwin is an operating system developed by Apple, which serves as a basis for OS X.

Apple's Darwin distribution is a BSD flavor, with a kernel based on CMU Mach, and most of the utilities taken from FreeBSD. It is released under the APSL.

GNU-Darwin is a distribution of Darwin with some favorite GNU software ported to it, as well as the FreeBSD ports tree. It is not Free Software, as the Darwin part is APSL, and thus considered non-free by the FSF. Despite its name, its not a GNU package either. Nor is it GNU/Darwin, as that would imply that it is the GNU system on a Darwin kernel; AFAIK GNU-Darwin is a BSD system.

I don't know anything about OpenDarwin and am too lazy to go find out right now. Hopefully I have managed to enlightened some of you who were wondering what all this is.

I seem to recall that the FSF can only sue a GPL violator if the violation is on a program that the FSF has the copyright on. The general rule, then , would seem to be that only a copyright holder can sue for copyright violations.

So, who the hell is this anti-piracy group? And what gives them the right to sue on behalf of George Lucas, Eminem, and Rockstar Games?

If the Anti Pirat Gruppen had used their (admittedly quite reasonable-sounding) tools simply to report the violations back to Lucas/Eminem/Rockstar et al., and then let them sue, I'd have little problem with this.

As it is, though, I can't help but wonder what Anti Pirat Gruppen is planning to do with the money. This sounds sort of like if I saw a burglar breaking into my neighbor's window, and I said, "Hey, buddy... tell you what, how about you climb back out that window now, and pay me $100, and I won't call the cops on you."

I wonder if Lucas and the others have heard about this... and what they're planning to do to Anti Pirat Gruppen as a result.

I seem to recall that the FSF can only sue a GPL violator if the violation is on a program that the FSF has the copyright on. The general rule, then , would seem to be that only a copyright holder can sue for copyright violations.

So, who the hell is this anti-piracy group? And what gives them the right to sue on behalf of George Lucas, Eminem, and Rockstar Games?

If the Anti Pirat Gruppen had used their (admittedly quite reasonable-sounding) tools simply to report the violations back to Lucas/Eminem/Rockstar et al., and then let them sue, I'd have little problem with this.

As it is, though, I can't help but wonder what Anti Pirat Gruppen is planning to do with the money. This sounds sort of like if I saw a burglar breaking into my neighbor's window, and I said, "Hey, buddy... tell you what, how about you climb back out that window now, and pay me $100, and I won't call the cops on you."

I wonder if Lucas and the others have heard about this... and what they're planning to do to Anti Pirat Gruppen as a result.

I mean, don't they sometimes give off the impression that they either want software released under the GPL or a "compatible" license (not sure what that means), or not at all?

It doesn't just seem that way, that's exactly what they're saying! You can find out all this and more just by reading what Mr. Stallman and others have written. They've done their best from the beginning to get to a state where they were able to use a system that was comprised only of Free Software (such as you'll find with the default install of Debian GNU/Linux), now that they have that of course they're not going to give it up without at least complaining a little. :)

I'll never forget my first boot into the 1.x series many, many years ago.

From that day on, I never looked at a computer the same way. Whenever friends would talk about the latest cool games or case modifications, I was never really interested; what truly grabbed my attention was exploring the depths of the Linux kernel and just learning, learning, learning.

The rest is, as they say, history. I've gained a lot from using Linux, moreso than any other person or thing that I've used so far in my short life. With that being said, I decided to donate, once again, to Linux and its related movements just as a simple "Thank You" for all the time and dedication that so many, like Linus, put into the Free/Open software movement.

Here are some quick donation links:
- FSF
- Mandrake
- KDE
- Apache

Hi, I'm the guy who made the Lessig's Challenge website. I'd like to address some of the concerns which have been raised with the idea.

To my doubters: This isn't about a fundraising drive for the EFF (though I think you should join. Did you know the EFF only has 7,000 members? You can make your voice heard in the way the EFF operates if you join). It isn't about me buying cool stuff and writing it off as hurting the MPAA.

It's about supporting a different way to do things than the MPAA and RIAA. They want to lock up content and charge you every time you view it. They want to prevent you from viewing DVDs on Linux. And we help them do it. Every time you buy a CD, every time you go to a movie, you help them take away your freedom.

It's time to fight back. We can fight back not only by giving money to the EFF and the ACLU and the Free Software Foundation and Digital Consumer -- orgainizations which will fight against the media oligarchy -- but also by helping those artists and programmers who are outside the system. If they can make a living without turning to the RIAA or MPAA, the media oligarchy will not survive for long.

I'm not asking you to boycott these orgainizations entirely because it's not really plausable. Everyone likes to go see a movie now and then, everyone likes to listen to the radio or buy a few CDs. What I'm challenging you to do is to keep track of how much you're giving to the oligarchy (to take away your freedom) and counter that with a donation to people who will fight against that.

Here are a few suggestions:

• EFF
• ACLU
• Free Software Foundation
• Project Gutenberg
• Creative Commons
• Local bands in your hometown
• Your favorite online comic strips
• Unsigned musicians online
• Artists you like
• An open source project you appreciate
• A weblog or news site that provides you with fresh, interesting stories daily
• Political canidates who will fight against the MPAA and RIAA

The list goes on and on.

I strongly believe that the battles that are coming will require that FSF (where I work) and EFF both be as strong as possible. I pay $107.40 annually for my home Internet service (a cheap 56K dialup). I am today renewing my annual donation to EFF, increasing my usual amount from $65 to $107.40. I just yesterday pledged $120 to FSF for 2003. (Eben Moglen, BTW, recently gave substantially more than that). I hope that you will choose to support both organizations at the same level as your ISP charges (or split the amount of your annual ISP charges equally between FSF and EFF).

Sincerely,
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Free Software Foundation

The FSF sells a poster of the preamble of the GPL: https://agia.fsf.org/#posters

There are actually multiple lobbies for tech related issues. Some are just starting out, though most have some efforts occuring right now.

The first that has to be mentioned -- even if some moderator is hostile to it -- is the grandaddy Free Software Foundation, though there are others if that one is somehow not to your liking;

Bruce Perens has 3 efforts at the Global Technology Policy Institute.

The folks at The Linux Show often promote two efforts; GeekPac and American Open Technology Consortium

...and I'm sure that is not a complete list. If you can't support one, support one of the others.

Lindows allows to download the sources, but only for their customers. If some gives me a binary GPL'ed program from de Lindows distribution, I can't download its source. So Lindows is taking my rights away. Isn't it?

From Lindows, of course. The GPL only requires that they make a copy of the source available to people to whom they distributed the software.

Try the FSF in case you had any other questions about the GPL.

The Simputer is actually designed by a trust, the Simputer Trust, which leased out the design to companies who might be interested in manufacturing it. Their motivation in having liberal license policies is to promote hardware development, allowing Simputer users to benefit.

Technically, this is neither Open Source according to the Open Source Initiative's definition, , which says: "The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.", and companies producing designs have to pay a licensing fee of $25,000 if they're from developing nations or $250,000 if they're from richer nations.

It also isn't Free, according to the Free Software Foundation's
definition, for the same reason.

However, given the differences between hardware and software development (and manufacture), it's very reasonable and not surprising that a free hardware license won't count as free/open source software, and is definitely in the same spirit as the open source movement, and inspired by the free software movement as well.

Related Links:

SGPL vs GPL
Simputer Licensing terms

The Simputer is actually designed by a trust, the Simputer Trust, which leased out the design to companies who might be interested in manufacturing it. Their motivation in having liberal license policies is to promote hardware development, allowing Simputer users to benefit.

Technically, this is neither Open Source according to the Open Source Initiative's definition, , which says: "The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.", and companies producing designs have to pay a licensing fee of $25,000 if they're from developing nations or $250,000 if they're from richer nations.

It also isn't Free, according to the Free Software Foundation's
definition, for the same reason.

However, given the differences between hardware and software development (and manufacture), it's very reasonable and not surprising that a free hardware license won't count as free/open source software, and is definitely in the same spirit as the open source movement, and inspired by the free software movement as well.

Related Links:

SGPL vs GPL
Simputer Licensing terms

It would not hurt to ask. If that does not work, maybe you could find a friend and give them the copyright to the program.

...we can embed links and advertising about Linux (oops, GNU/Linux) in Richard Stallmans' Free Software song?

Wait a minute, my /. Geek Club membership schedule says today I don't care about free software and love the MPAA, RIAA and Microsoft. Nevermind.

Heh, If I ever had that kind of cash to donate to the FSF, I would just buy official copies of the GNU utility CDs... with full official docs for $5000

It would be fun to say you actually bought them from the FSF, and it cost them little to produce, so it's still mostly a donation. Plus they probably sell so few of those, it might be worth something in 50 years when GNU has taken over the world.

However, the cost of settling a case like this for $15 or $20 000 is less than the cost of a coupla' good IP lawyers.

Unfortunately, it'd probably be even a lot more than that, especially in Chocolatier's case. My question is: if all of these legal types and law professors are in a tizzy about it, why are none of them willing to offer their support for pro bono work, or even nominal compensation. This effects *everyone*, and this is a precedent that should not be allowed to continue. If a couple of prominent IP lawyers were willing to donate some time for what would appear to be an open-and-shut case, they would pave the way for others. PanIP would probably stop hounding all of these small businesses for cash. IANAL, but if they didn't, they could just bring them to court with a local lawyer, and pretty much only have prove that they're under the same umbrella as SoandSo vs. PanIP, not? I hear so much speculation by prominent lawyers about how awful these new laws are, but no one is willing to give up their time to do anything. Hell, we're decently paid professionals too, and a lot of us give away our professional works for the greater good.

It sounds like your organization is genuinely trying to do the right thing. The FSF is eager to help organizations like yours become compliant with the GNU GPL. The FSF's general counsel Eben Moglen has said that he spends a good deal of time helping people become GPL-compliant. Perhaps he could help your company too.

Does anyone else get the impression that this will be yet another area where, yet again, Europe is going to be WAY out in front of the US.

Muslims have ideological reasons for ignoring their utter dependence on American technology, but Europeans probably have more benign ones- namely, American technological dominance is so pronounced (50%+ of the scientific Nobel Prizes each year go to Americans or scientists working at American universities) that it becomes taken for granted, kind of like the air you breath.

But if it weren't for America's unprogressive social policies many of the technologies the world takes for granted would not exist, such as new drug treatments (would AIDs cocktails exist right now without America's for-profit health industry making new research profitable?), computer hardware & software (the Internet was created for the American Department of Defense, almost all new chips are designed by American hardware firms, the modern computer GUI was developed by Xerox... yada, yada, yada).

So please have some perspective about where all your technological goodies come from. And as a parting shot I'd just like to point out all the foolishness that's been committed recently in the name of progress. During the '70's, for example, it was hip to be a Maosist and in case you think only a minority of people fell for this ideological dead-end why did the Beatles have to warn against it in the choruses of one of their songs?

From the Open Source Definition:

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

And this from the Free Software Definition:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

So, the community can not (does not) restrict terrorists from using any GPL'd (or compatibly licensed) software. And by the way, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. As it stands the community does not want to engage in moral discussions about who uses its software and for what purpose.

I have no idea what the government can do about it, but how could it prohibit the use of something that is widely available? That's the reason why it would be completely useless to restrict the distribution of strong crypto to NATO countries only for example. In order for a crypto algorithm to be deemed secure by the security community, it has to be published and proven secure through years of peer review. Even if access to programs incorporating this crypto stuff could be restricted, anyone with access to academic publications (and decent programming skills) could write software based on the published algorithms.

Wrong.

Open Source is defined by the Open Source Definition, which is a very slight modification to the Debian Free Software Guidelines, so they were always intended to be equivalent terms.

Unfortunately the Open Source Initiative, in their wisdom accepted that Apple License that both Debian and the Free Software Foundation rejected, but that is a tiny thing.

Getting the source is nowhere near sufficient to qualify for "Open Source" status.

You are also wrong about Free Software only being applicable to copyleft software. The list of licenses that the FSF accepts is extensive, and certainly not limited to copyleft licenses.

OK, so if you're being pedantic, you can say that I got it wrong, because the Apple difference does mean that Open Source is a superset of Free Software, but that was an intentional move on my part, because it was bound to catch the attention of people like you who have totally failed to understand that the two terms refer to the same thing (pretty much).

The report also no makes no differentation between Open Source Software like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Apache; and Free Software which generally always refers to software under the GPL or LGPL. Like Linux, gcc, or GNATS.

you're repeating a distinction which is usually made only for the purposes of criticizing the GPL. All the software you mentioned is Free Software. It all grants you the certain vital rights, such as the right to copy and the right to inspect and change. to repeat.. there is no distinction to be made. some of them are GPL-incompatible, and many are not copyleft ("viral") but this is not important for this paper.

also, from a user's point of view, this is mostly irrelevant. the "license wars" are between developers. to users, they grant the same freedoms.

finally, from the distant and unpleasant vantage point of most proprietary software, the gpl/non-gpl are pretty much identical. really, for most people, being able to copy the software at will is mind-boggling. "how do they make money", etc.

He call's things under a BSD license with no cost, and no restriction on rights, freeware.

No, he points out the distinction that "zero-cost software" which DOESN'T grant you the FOSS rights is NOT FOSS! This is an important and subtle distinction, because it's not just about price, but freedom to do certain things. I'm impressed by their understanding. I think you misread it.

While in the next setence pushing the view that all OSS is GPL'ed.

no, it just says that they are very similar, and they both came from Stallman's ideas. which is still correct. open source is weaker form of free software, but usually they grant you the same basic rights.

For the purposes of this document, it is completely correct and appropriate to mix OSS and FS together, and to concentrate on freedom rather than price.

i think the document is peachy keen, and it gives me a fat chubby.

Some funny things about this debate:

1) Both the GPL *and* the BSD license are equally "free", according to the FSF. In fact the FSF says: "If you want a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license, the modified BSD license is a reasonable choice". RMS has NEVER said the BSD license is not a free license. However, people who want to make RMS an easier target often bring up the BSD/GPL dichotomy and attribute it to him.

2) McVoy's license is NOT free. In fact his is more restrictive than the average Microsoft license.

What's McVoy's point again?

Umm... I beleive your incorrect check out the gpl,
They must provide the source code on the same meduim you recieved the binaries and free of charge.

So if they sell a $99 CD with the binaries on it (ok by GPL) they must also give you the source on a CD, just via email isn't good enough.

Those companies, which include Linux firms, use a special "free software" license called the General Public License that bars any payment.

Expect some totally sick compiler optimizations for this processor. ...and since Apple's compiler is now gcc, expect some totally sick, totally Free compiler optimizations.

Ahhh... Free software. Everybody wins.

If you take a moment to understand the words you have used, you will realize that "source available" means the same thing as "open source". "Open source" implies nothing more than the source code being published or openly available; it does not imply any right to use the source code or the program unless otherwise specified. (This is why you will hear companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Sun speak of "shared source" or "open source", and why PGP Corporation could rightly call its software "open source" if it makes its source code publically available.)

This is exactly why the Free Software Foundation recommends the term free software. The "free" is what gives you the "freedom" to "take chunks of it and create your own version" as you say.

What's even more amazing is that even those who dislike the current and proposed copyright and patent laws use those misleading terms. Even the author of the article linked to in this Slashdot story writes that "property is a misnomer," but continues to use it anyway.

The FSF maintains a list of confusing words and phrases are worth avoiding. The arguments they give and the alternatives they suggest often are as much propaganda as the terms they suggest avoiding, but still I think the list is quite good. I'm surprised that "trustworthy computing" isn't included, by the way.

show me where in the GNU Free Software philosophy it says anything about market forces. I'm sorry, but you've got open source and free software mixed up thanks to the king of flatulence

The relevent clauses are 7 and 8 in the GPL Interestingly, the MP3 situation seems a bit fuzzy. They say that if you cannot redistribute the source freely (because of patents), then you cannot distribute the program at all. This does not necessarily mean that a GPL program cannot implemented patented non-open/free protocols. It just means that it can't implement such protocols if they require a license fee per copy, which until recently MP3 did not. Also, since most MP3 players are distributed mainly as source, it is questionable whether they violate the GPL. After all, FreeType includes the bytecode interpreter in the source, but that doesn't violate Apple's patent unless an actual product (binary) is generated with the bytecode interpreter enabled.

copy/paste from here...

"The GNU Service Directory (58k characters) is a list of people who offer support and other consulting services."

copy/paste from here...

"The GNU Service Directory (58k characters) is a list of people who offer support and other consulting services."

hmm...interesting subtext: openoffice.org is released under the LGPL and SISSL which allow for closed source extensions to the source base and commercialization. According to the next to last NeoOffice FAQ entry the prototype is under the full GPL license and Sun employees know they can't use its source code directly.

Is this the first salvo in a free source vs. open source war?

hmm...interesting subtext: openoffice.org is released under the LGPL and SISSL which allow for closed source extensions to the source base and commercialization. According to the next to last NeoOffice FAQ entry the prototype is under the full GPL license and Sun employees know they can't use its source code directly.

Is this the first salvo in a free source vs. open source war?