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> But how will the GPL license of the software affect their works?

This seems to be a growing issue. E.g., there has been a recent discussion on the Freeciv mailing list, where they are actively trying to get their hands on improved graphics but want to be rigorous about licensing issues. (And alas, they had to reject some nice tilesets that various people have submitted because of dubious licensing status.)

It seems to me that this would be worth writing the FSF about and seeing whether they are interested in providing a "content" license. They recently produced their GNU Free Documentation License in recognition that the GPL doesn't cover everything, but that does not seem to be completely apt for game artwork (and other game content) either.

They do link to another Design Science License for data, which you may want to evaluate. But IMO it would be great if you could get the FSF to produce and defend a free content license (GCL?) that was explicitly defined to work like and with the GPL.

The reason I think the FSF might take an interest is because so much new GPL'd software is GUI-oriented and requires graphics of one sort or another, and a basic corpus of free/licensed graphics might help free software take off in new areas like it has in infrastructure.

Some of the dumber EULA are sure to be thrown out. Is anyone really going to enforce the "you can't say bad things about M$ with front page" term? Good freaking luck. They might be able to take away that horrible program from you but they can't keep you from telling the world how much they suck.

Privacy is a real concern. The XP EULA grant's M$ the ability to search your computer. You had better believe they already do and will continue to do it. They even changed up their hotmail junk so they could spam you all the way to China. Kazza's gonna sell your cycles to Iraq for wepons development, well I don't think so.

These are all violations of your property and patience, but God help them if they actually break things in a way that lawers can understand. The waste M$ inflicts is huge, some starving lawyer is just waiting to pounce on it. Then poof, the proven illegal monopoly is going to actually pay.

My contracts with M$hit expired a long time ago and I'm much happier for it. You see freedom from all these abuses is closer than you think. Do something good for yourself and dump that privacy invading, insecure,unstable, advert laden junk. The power ends when you don't need it.

whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program,

In this case, "derived from" is not referring to the output of the program, but the actual codebase of the program having been modified in some way.

from the GPL FAQ

Q: 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?

A: 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.

Richard Marie^H^H^H^H. Stallman, major figure in the free software realm.
Founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation.

Everything2 is helpful for these types of questions.

How about freedomware? It goes along with the long tradition of terms such as shareware, freeware, etc. It contains the word freedom right in it, so it doesn't have the gratis connotation of free software. It is a little easier to say than either of the phrases mentioned.

According to the USPTO Trademark Electronic Search System, Toshiba once tried to trademark it for a global services network, but as of August 29, 2001 the trademark is abandoned. Maybe we should see if we can get the FSF or the OSI to snap up this trademark?

That kind of stretches the definition of theft a bit, doesn't it? I think we call that "murder" or something along those lines.

Anyway, people who kill people aren't bad for software businesses, pirates are.

Communists are, too.

Now for the strange contradictory part. Arandir says

If RMS is correct in saying that "software should not be owned", then derivative software should be owned even less.

but also says

As a user of the BSD license, I wondered if Ransom could relicense my code under a per-seat license. The obvious answer is "yes". The not so obvious answer is "yes, but so what?"

The answer you seek is, so then Ransom owns the derivative work. You may not mind that, but you should not pretend it is not true.

Some of us DO mind when our work is used to enrich evil companies which seek to deprive others of their rights. I'm loath to do anykind of software work at all right now. My company is a M$ slave shop, and they own all of my work and ideas by contract. Anything I do is theirs. Anything that works makes the slave world of M$ that much more bearable for them and so perpetuates things that are evil regardless of my intentions and choice of license.

Remember, it was RMS's change to the LGPL that describes Linux as a variant of "GNU operating system!" A lot of people take issue with the concept of a "whole GNU operating system" when it in fact didn't have a kernel (which most people outside of RMS and his disciples would consider as the operating system; the rest are just tools that make using the OS more convenient) that couldn't be considered anything but vaporware in the early 1990's.

From the GPL: You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. In the article UnitedLinux is quoted saying the binaries are not freely distributable. Sounds like a license violation to me... By the way, both links are dead by now.

You can find the Hurd hardware compatibility guide here

The Free Software Foundation follows the rule that we cannot install any proprietary program on our computers except temporarily for the specific purpose of writing a free replacement for that very program. Aside from that, we feel there is no possible excuse for installing a proprietary program.

For example, we felt justified in installing Unix on our computer in the 1980s, because we were using it to write a free replacement for Unix. Nowadays, since free operating systems are available, the excuse is no longer applicable; we have eliminated all our non-free operating systems, and any new computer we install must run a completely free operating system.

Wrong... In that role, he has fought for what he thinks is the complete freedom of software. Not everyone agrees with his viewpoint that GPLed software is the only truly free software available, or is even free software in the first place.

this works for me:
mldokey open source edonkey client for most unix platforms.

hopey

Eben Moglen's brief for the FSF has a great quote:

``Actually, Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever.''
--Rep. Mary Bono
144 Cong. Rec. H9951 (daily ed. Oct. 7, 1998)

It's kind of hard to enforce the DCMA outside the US, isn't it?

NA is no longer selling PGP, right? It's a cost cutting measure, right? Sure, it's much cheaper to not defy your government and remain in business.

I've seen a lot of posts here accusing radius of being a Warez site. Sounds like big bullshit to me. That letter would have been sent bye the "anti-piracy" division long ago if this were true. Are these posters telling me that radius really does not know what NA has asked them to remove?

NA is within their legal rights in anycase. Their goofey EULA explicity alowed this kind of behavior, and US laws back them up. You never really owned it, you just used it. It's unatural, it's wasteful and it's stupid. That's why there is free software.. Drink all the free beer you want, but don't complain about the hangover or the night you spent sobering up in jail, or the little girl you ran over under the influence. The rest of us will tell you how obnoxious you were later.

Sure, the system as a whole's usually referred to as Linux, rather than GNU/Linux, and realistically, that won't change, probably because it's easier to say "Linux" rather than "GNU/Linux", and just calling it "GNU" isn't appropriate since the HURD's not involved. But as far as giving credit where credit is due, the components GNU has produced are credited -- my Debian system's package descriptions refer to "GNU Emacs" and "GNU fileutils", letting you know just where that editor and those basic file management utilities came from, and I'm so used to GNU C at this point, that it strikes me as odd to have to use 'cc' instead of 'gcc' on proprietary Unices. The FSF's tools are important, non-trivial, and anyone involved with Linux to any degree knows it. The GNU project is in no danger of being forgotten -- merly neglected, perhaps. (How many people do you know who're running the HURD?)

"Change your name before I come" is RMS' personal requirement when accepting a speaking engagement. Actually, other FSF speakers often speak to groups that call themselves "Linux" groups. We ask only that the advertising and press material about our particular speech call the system, GNU/Linux.

Of course, when I and other FSF speakers make a speech, one of the items on our agenda is to ask such groups, as a favor to the GNU project, to change their name and/or documents to say "GNU/Linux" consistently. While it is RMS' personal demand that the name change occur as a term to accept the engagement, the FSF does not, as an organization, demand such name changes. We simply request them.

Comparing it to Microsoft's tactics is out of proportion. FSF firmly stands for free speech rights. We assert your right to call the operating system anything you like; we request as a favor that you call it GNU/Linux.

RMS is a highly sought-after speaker. As it turns out, since he is not (nor never has been) paid a salary by the FSF, he collects speaker fees to help pay for his living expenses. As with any speaker, it's his prerogative to set the terms of his speaking engagements. Indeed, every speaker has his or her own set of requirements. (AAMOF, ESR's are available online.) Personally, I have a rule that there must be vegetarian restaurants that someone can take me to in the towns I visit. Of course, FSF doesn't take a position on vegetarianism, but it's a personal need of mine that I can't ignore---even when I am speaking on behalf of FSF.

While RMS won't come to speak for your group if it's called a "Linux" group, I'd be happy to come, as would many of the other FSF speakers. While I am there, I am, of course, going to ask you to change the name of the group. But, please note the key point here: just because RMS sets a personal rule doesn't mean it is ipso facto FSF policy.

While it is RMS' personal demand that the name change occur as a term to accept the engagement, the FSF does not, as an organization, demand such name changes. We simply request them.

Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director of the FSF

Free software is built on a pre-existing cultural norm - ie hacking - that doesn't exist for these other media.

The first clue that Black has none is her assertion that "consumer groups, plus makers of PCs and electronics gear" were the first to sound the alarm. That may have been her first notice, but others have been thinking about such things and publishing it for much longer, like this man, back in 1983. The whole free software movement is a reaction to OTHER PEOPLE REMOVING YOUR CONTROL OF YOUR COMPUTER AND MEANS OF PUBLICATION, the reasons for it and the evil things required to accomplish that goal.

Jane then goes right back to things that must be nearer and dearer to her heart, Hollywood profits. She's swallowed the lie, hook and sinker, that this is about entertainment and a eighty billion dollar consumer electronics market.

Though confused and rambling, Jane manages to be smug and insulting. Check this out:

Embedding copyright-protection mechanisms into new PCs and other digital devices would mean inserting pieces of software code that are hidden, or locked down, and couldn't be altered. That would amount to nothing less than an assault on the open-source religion, which advocates sharing, collaboration, and free access to code.

That's all I can stand folks, let me set this ninny straight.

It's about freedom, stupid. I don't care if I can watch a movie on my computer. I don't care that a set top box runs propriatory software. What I do care about is some idiot telling me that I have to have a program installed on all of my computers that effectivly makes OTHER PEOPLE ROOT. THAT GIVES OTHER PEOPLE CONTROL OF MY COMPUTER AND MEANS OF PUBLICATION.

Don't get confused. Telecomunications companies, entertianment companies and your federal government are afraid of freedom. That's why someone else controls the wires that go into your house. It's why a 69 channel TV tunner will only pick up 4 or five stations owned by three or four companies. Hollings stuff, however, has the potential to control ALL forms of publication and must be stopped.

A supposed friend that trivializes your issue and get's it all screwed up is not a good advocate. Thanks for looking into it Jane, but keep digging. There's truth at the end of your quest, but you will have to stay away from entertainment pimps, their attorneys and other people only interested in extracting money from you.

The first clue that Black has none is her assertion that "consumer groups, plus makers of PCs and electronics gear" were the first to sound the alarm. That may have been her first notice, but others have been thinking about such things and publishing it for much longer, like this man, back in 1983. The whole free software movement is a reaction to OTHER PEOPLE REMOVING YOUR CONTROL OF YOUR COMPUTER AND MEANS OF PUBLICATION, the reasons for it and the evil things required to accomplish that goal.

Jane then goes right back to things that must be nearer and dearer to her heart, Hollywood profits. She's swallowed the lie, hook and sinker, that this is about entertainment and a eighty billion dollar consumer electronics market.

Though confused and rambling, Jane manages to be smug and insulting. Check this out:

Embedding copyright-protection mechanisms into new PCs and other digital devices would mean inserting pieces of software code that are hidden, or locked down, and couldn't be altered. That would amount to nothing less than an assault on the open-source religion, which advocates sharing, collaboration, and free access to code.

That's all I can stand folks, let me set this ninny straight.

It's about freedom, stupid. I don't care if I can watch a movie on my computer. I don't care that a set top box runs propriatory software. What I do care about is some idiot telling me that I have to have a program installed on all of my computers that effectivly makes OTHER PEOPLE ROOT. THAT GIVES OTHER PEOPLE CONTROL OF MY COMPUTER AND MEANS OF PUBLICATION.

Don't get confused. Telecomunications companies, entertianment companies and your federal government are afraid of freedom. That's why someone else controls the wires that go into your house. It's why a 69 channel TV tunner will only pick up 4 or five stations owned by three or four companies. Hollings stuff, however, has the potential to control ALL forms of publication and must be stopped.

A supposed friend that trivializes your issue and get's it all screwed up is not a good advocate. Thanks for looking into it Jane, but keep digging. There's truth at the end of your quest, but you will have to stay away from entertainment pimps, their attorneys and other people only interested in extracting money from you.

The first clue that Black has none is her assertion that "consumer groups, plus makers of PCs and electronics gear" were the first to sound the alarm. That may have been her first notice, but others have been thinking about such things and publishing it for much longer, like this man, back in 1983. The whole free software movement is a reaction to OTHER PEOPLE REMOVING YOUR CONTROL OF YOUR COMPUTER AND MEANS OF PUBLICATION, the reasons for it and the evil things required to accomplish that goal.

Jane then goes right back to things that must be nearer and dearer to her heart, Hollywood profits. She's swallowed the lie, hook and sinker, that this is about entertainment and a eighty billion dollar consumer electronics market.

Though confused and rambling, Jane manages to be smug and insulting. Check this out:

Embedding copyright-protection mechanisms into new PCs and other digital devices would mean inserting pieces of software code that are hidden, or locked down, and couldn't be altered. That would amount to nothing less than an assault on the open-source religion, which advocates sharing, collaboration, and free access to code.

That's all I can stand folks, let me set this ninny straight.

It's about freedom, stupid. I don't care if I can watch a movie on my computer. I don't care that a set top box runs propriatory software. What I do care about is some idiot telling me that I have to have a program installed on all of my computers that effectivly makes OTHER PEOPLE ROOT. THAT GIVES OTHER PEOPLE CONTROL OF MY COMPUTER AND MEANS OF PUBLICATION.

Don't get confused. Telecomunications companies, entertianment companies and your federal government are afraid of freedom. That's why someone else controls the wires that go into your house. It's why a 69 channel TV tunner will only pick up 4 or five stations owned by three or four companies. Hollings stuff, however, has the potential to control ALL forms of publication and must be stopped.

A supposed friend that trivializes your issue and get's it all screwed up is not a good advocate. Thanks for looking into it Jane, but keep digging. There's truth at the end of your quest, but you will have to stay away from entertainment pimps, their attorneys and other people only interested in extracting money from you.

Nope. Please read the GPL and the LGPL before commenting on the issues surrounding them.

Nope. Please read the GPL and the LGPL before commenting on the issues surrounding them.

If I've the copyright myself on a code, I don't need the GPL and am not bound to it.

Everything clear? The GPL does not require everyhing to be always open, that's FUD, often spread by people who don't really understand the license in detail.

An obvious example is clause 2a of the GPL, which implicitly covers things like plugins or kernel modules (or so the FAQ says, anyway.)

Another example is the making of the readline library GPL, rather than LGPL, and the reasons for it. Use of the library creates an interesting tail-wagging-the-dog effect, as far a licensing is concerned.

It is worth examining the license in detail ...

I've heard this repeated several places, and I don't understand where people are getting it. In fact, plex86 is a dead (or rather dormant) project, while bochs is chugging along healthily.

If you don't believe me, read the development mail archives for the month of May:

bochs

plex86

Daniel

Libertarians would let you decide for yourself whether you should use open software or not.

Authoritarians (like RMS) want to decide for you.

No, he's said he's not interested in outlawing proprietary software. He just wants to make it obsolete by creating better free software.

Libertarians would let you decide for yourself what to charge for your services and products.

Authoritarians (like RMS) want to decide for you.

Wrong again. The FSF encourages the selling of software.

TheFrood

However, this is RMS' personal requirement when accepting a speaking engagement. Actually, other FSF speakers often speak to groups that call themselves "Linux" groups. We ask only that the advertising and press material about our particular speech call the system, GNU/Linux.

Of course, when I and other FSF speakers make a speech, one of the items on our agenda is to ask such groups, as a favor to the GNU project, to change their name and/or documents to say "GNU/Linux" consistently. While it is RMS' personal demand that the name change occur as a term to accept the engagement, the FSF does not, as an organization, demand such name changes. We simply request them.

Comparing it to Microsoft's tactics is out of proportion. FSF firmly stands for free speech rights. We assert your right to call the operating system anything you like; we request as a favor that you call it GNU/Linux.

RMS is a highly sought-after speaker. As it turns out, since he is not (nor never has been) paid a salary by the FSF, he collects speaker fees to help pay for his living expenses. As with any speaker, it's his prerogative to set the terms of his speaking engagements. Indeed, every speaker has his or her own set of requirements. (AAMOF, ESR's are available online.) Personally, I have a rule that there must be vegetarian restaurants that someone can take me to in the towns I visit. Of course, FSF doesn't take a position on vegetarianism, but it's a personal need of mine that I can't ignore---even when I am speaking on behalf of FSF.

While RMS won't come to speak for your group if it's called a "Linux" group, I'd be happy to come, as would many of the other FSF speakers. While I am there, I am, of course, going to ask you to change the name of the group. But, please note the key point here: just because RMS sets a personal rule doesn't mean it is ipso facto FSF policy.

I think that point gets to the center of the problem with Barr's article. It seems to suggest that every position that RMS takes is automatically FSF policy. Of course, as our president and founder, many of RMS' personal positions match FSF policy exactly. But, most of them don't; RMS' personal website is full of personal positions that aren't FSF policy.

Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director of the FSF

P.S. Finally, there is a factual error in the article. the GPL is the "General Public License". The G stands for General, not GNU. I usually say "GNU GPL" to make that clear.

Remember that RMS doesn't do OSS. He does Free Software. Heck, Tim O'Reilly didn't even invite RMS to his west coast summit that spawned the OSS name. Of course, Mr. O'Reilly regrets this.

Given that RMS provided the definition of Free Software, and that others made a formal definition of Open Source Software, it isn't unreasonable to formally compare the two. The Free Software Foundation, which of course prefers Free Software over Open Source software, has provided their comparison
here. As they point out, and as anyone following this issue can attest, the phrases "Free Software" and "Open Source Software" are very different.

-Paul Komarek

-Paul

I'm currently working on a project which may be of some interest here. Actually, that's an understatement. ;^) See The AMPU Website for more details.

Wrong, the code _you_ did soly for yourself you can do with whatever you want. The GPL only allows some certain rights for others to you use your code. You of course have any rights on your own code you want. The GPL has to respected if you want to take over other peoples code (merged with yours) as you need the extra rights the GPL allows to do this at all.

He wrote that in 1997, and already covered most of these things. The funny thing is, when he wrote it, it seemed like paranoid ramblings, but as time goes by, it seems less and less paranoid and more and more realistic (Except maybe for the bit about people organizing an uprising so they could read)

I worked for a local Government, who were already brainwashed by Microsoft's sales. Here is the dialogs during a meeting debating with a MCSE whether we should use GPL's code:

Me: We could save money using this pieces of GPL code..
MCSE: Doesn't that make all the derived work GPL?
Me: Yes.
MCSE: Then we must release our source code to public! This is confidential!!
Me: No....we are only required to release the source code when the recipents has the binary. We wouldn't release our system to public...
MCSE: but according to GPL, the source code is open to all to read!(?) The other department could read it and might release them to public!
Me: You might have misunderstood the concept...according to GPL's FAQ we do not need to release the source code if we use them within an organization. A Government is one big organization, which is very suitable to adopt GPL....
MCSE: That's NOT I heard about GPL. I don't believe in what you said! GPL is about opensource and any dervied works must be made opensource, this is a very restrictive license and there's no way out!

and things went downhill from there. My boss trusted him because he has an MCSE.

I still ponder, what qualification in MCSE would make him know GPL better than others...

AC, you have never been good with details.

You certainly can "combine" GPL software with non-GPL. That is a true statement. You may link (run or compile-time) with any software under any GPL compatible Free Software license.

You certainly can "combine" GPL software with any non-GPL. That is a false statement.

You certainly can "combine" GPL software with proprietary. That is also a false statement.

Furthermore "You can link intact libraries." is also false when using the assumption that we are talking about proprietary software (which you seem to be), UNLESS the copyright holder has made a "clarification" (commonly known as an "exception") as L. Torvalds has done for the Linux kernel.

It might help you in the future to 1. read the GPL 2. work on your reading comprehension skills and 3. study the fundamentals of rational though.

Good luck AC. We're all pulling for you!

-Peter

Reading the various documents by Stallman, I've come to the conclusion that he's every bit as delusional as Gates. To Gates' tinpot dictator, RMS makes a great Marxist revolutionary, but his tactics are flawed by petty things like the GPL.

The GNU General Public License, to put it in one word, sucks. Much better licenses exist, ranging from the Mozilla Public License to the University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License. Because of Stallman's inane "demand" (we'll call it) to use nothing but the GPL, or to assign all IP rights to his Free Software Foundation, he scares away many of those thinking that open source might be the solution they're looking for.

It is perhaps best for the Open Source Revolution (if it still is a revolution) that both Microsoft (with Bill Gates) and the FSF (with Stallman) go away and never return.

Further to other Slashdot pieces on the activities of the FSF the BBC reports on a European conference on privacy organised by the FSF.The good news is even the FSF distinguishes between Windows software and homicide; it qoutes FSF's top guru Richard Matthew Stallman as saying: 'Windows is is a way of making money whereas homicide is killing.' The rest of the article is the usual panic-attack about the impact of proprietary software in general, and how this is holding back the software developers throughout the world, according to Richard. Although the article notes the irony that despite all the proprietary software, Linux installations are forecast to grow from 8 million in 2000 to about 20 million by 2005.

Greetings Linux Commies. Your beloved communist OS is [haphazardly] doing my bidding, because it takes EONS to do anything on reasonably-modest hardware such as a Celeron 466 with 64MB of RAM. This piece of shit OS is swapping itself to death running ONE major task: Konqueror, a "lightweight" and "quick" web browser, of which it is neither. God, this OS is true binary diarrhea.

• Exactly. Laws are *supposed* to represent what the people want them to be.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a world without speed limits or the other traffic laws that he cited.

Actually, I don't want our laws to be what people want them to be, either. I want laws to be consistent, not give in to hot-headed mob rule, be against bigotry and pettiness and not rob the few rich to enrich the many poor. I'm convinced that people want some horrible things sometimes and need to be restrained by a Government that can only be moved slowly.

That's why news of do-nothing Congresses and gridlock in Washington actually makes me feel relieved.

Government isn't a candy machine giving people what they want. It should protect liberties and set simple rules and otherwise stay out of our lives.

That being said, I do think that the IP laws(Patents and Copyrights both) are getting completely out of hand and need to returned to where they once were and probably greatly curtailed wrt Software and digital media. The new laws in these areas don't "promote the progress of science and the useful arts" as they were supposed to do. In fact, as Richard Stallman points out here (and elsewhere, but I'm too lazy to look up the references), the Patent system is actually going against progress.

In brief, I'm for Government that is informed by principles. The principle that we all want free music is not compelling to me. The principle that the current copyright system does not seem to be promoting the useful arts is compelling to me.

All Success in this kind of activity can acomplish is to popularize arts under open licences.

I see efforts by the RIAA like this like I see the BSA, it is the symptom of a problem raising peoples awareness of the negitive impact of itself. The problem being lenghty(infinate) copyright stay and binding contracts you don't have to physically see or sign prior to purchase.

Officially free to watch and copy Internet TV here we come. Sure it won't be the same content, but it will be targeted to an audience that marketers know is smarter anyway. I'm sure a couple of reality shows, a few documentations, and a variation on junkyard wars would be a good cheap start. TV will now have competition, thank you TV police.

Kazaa's agreement, for example, states: "Except as expressly permitted in this License, you agree not to reverse engineer, de-compile, disassemble, alter, duplicate, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, make copies, create derivative works from, distribute or provide others with the KaZaA Media Desktop Software in whole or part or transmit the application over a network."

are NOT your friends.

Though I despise RMS, I am sure the Free Software Foundation would like to have a few words with you.

• Actually, the FSF becoming a member of the BSA would be a good move. There is nothing so informative as having a foothold inside the enemy camp.

I doubt very much that RMS would want to be associated with the BSA in any way.

This is, after all, a man who prefers to describe piracy as "sharing information with neighbor".

Even if RMS did want the FSF in the BSA, the BSA almost certainly would find some reason to reject him, based on the above view.

How could they have GIF's on the movie's website when one of the main stars is RMS. You think there would be a clause about that in his contract.

But neither of those make any sense, as the GPL is, rather obviously, talking about software, and sticking it as the license to something that doesn't have a 'object code or executable form', 'machine-readable source code', and isn't 'the Program' is completely idiotic.

You haven't given them the rights to distribute, for example, your book at all, as your book is not 'the Program', and referring to it as such in the license is a bit like writing a contract that refers to providing ten 'fleeblenods' for fifty bucks. You can't just use random terms to refer to things, even if you 'really' mean 'sheep' when you say 'fleeblenods'.

Now, FSF does provide a documentation license, called the GFDL, which works for documentation and textbooks, and possible other books also. (Though with fiction there are other copyrights you can have beside the text, like characters, so that might get tricky.)

And there aren't any licenses that I see, at least by the FSF, for music or video or plays, etc.

The word "chaordic" is used as defined by Dee Hock (the person behind VISA) at http://www.chaordic.org and in his book "Birth of the Chaordic Age", which is essentially processes at the boundary between CHAos and ORDer and the social implications for how to design effective and responsive organizations for a dynamic society. The focus will be specially on computer simulations to support part of the goal defined here http://www.chaordic.org/who_hist.html#FourCond of: "Development of visual and physical models of chaordic organizations so that people have something to examine, experiment with, and compare to existing organizations. The models must contain the ethical and spiritual dimensions generally lacking in current models. In addition, computer simulations will need to be created to allow people to quickly see how clarity of purpose and principles allow institutions to self-organize, evolve over decades, and link in new patterns for an enduring constructive society."

People are invited to join the mailing list if they want at this page http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/ simulchaord-discuss if you want to contribute to project related discussions or submit snippets of code (with the understanding contributions will be archived and can be incorporated into the project under the GPL license). I have been posting some artificial life links there related to modelling social systems to get things started -- one of the first was a link to the Atlantic Monthly article discussed in this Slashdot thread. For now, I am using use the list to record my own musings on related simulation issues including design, architecture, and use cases. I will also be posting my experiences as I try to create such simulations. Feel free to lurk for a while or chime in.

Here is a page leading to the entire mailing list archives (aroudn twenty messages so far): http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/pipermail/simulch aord-discuss/

The main project page is here: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/simulchaord/ Cooperative development of releases of code is hosted on Savannah using CVS although I haven't yet put up any content (files or homepage) besides what's archived in the mailing list.

At the moment I am looking at using Swarm http://www.swarm.org as the base -- although I may just use Python instead -- or even use both for different aspects.

The word "chaordic" is used as defined by Dee Hock (the person behind VISA) at http://www.chaordic.org and in his book "Birth of the Chaordic Age", which is essentially processes at the boundary between CHAos and ORDer and the social implications for how to design effective and responsive organizations for a dynamic society. The focus will be specially on computer simulations to support part of the goal defined here http://www.chaordic.org/who_hist.html#FourCond of: "Development of visual and physical models of chaordic organizations so that people have something to examine, experiment with, and compare to existing organizations. The models must contain the ethical and spiritual dimensions generally lacking in current models. In addition, computer simulations will need to be created to allow people to quickly see how clarity of purpose and principles allow institutions to self-organize, evolve over decades, and link in new patterns for an enduring constructive society."

People are invited to join the mailing list if they want at this page http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/ simulchaord-discuss if you want to contribute to project related discussions or submit snippets of code (with the understanding contributions will be archived and can be incorporated into the project under the GPL license). I have been posting some artificial life links there related to modelling social systems to get things started -- one of the first was a link to the Atlantic Monthly article discussed in this Slashdot thread. For now, I am using use the list to record my own musings on related simulation issues including design, architecture, and use cases. I will also be posting my experiences as I try to create such simulations. Feel free to lurk for a while or chime in.

Here is a page leading to the entire mailing list archives (aroudn twenty messages so far): http://mail.freesoftware.fsf.org/pipermail/simulch aord-discuss/

The main project page is here: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/simulchaord/ Cooperative development of releases of code is hosted on Savannah using CVS although I haven't yet put up any content (files or homepage) besides what's archived in the mailing list.

At the moment I am looking at using Swarm http://www.swarm.org as the base -- although I may just use Python instead -- or even use both for different aspects.

I ambivalent about this. I did a paper on something similar last year and a few of the bigger dictionary makers were really interested. My idea was to use a Thesaurus like system to weight words and sentances, so that sentences could be broken into smaller metric products (a la Decartes). In theory it works quite well but I haven't had time other than the scratch pad paper. But I think that the language comprehension problem can and will be solved. I don't see that as the problem.

Now IMHO the real problem: Dictionary companies, publishers and Universities are the big players in this area. If Oxford University were to give away their dictionary a project would instantly have a massive base of words to work with, but would they? More to the point if they did could this be repeated internationally? I'm loathed to rely on the descriptions given by the unwashed masses ;-), but seriously a strong linguistic and academic base is essential and that is where the Wolverhampton system may do well.

Well, you can charge as much as you like for GPL'd software too, see this. Consultants charge an arm and a leg for freely available information, what's new? The GPL simply makes sure that the end user can use their software as they please, modify their software as they please and redistribute their software as well as their changes (better stated here.

MicroShit threw that language in to confuse people about the GPL. Too bad for them that simple and honest licenses are so easy to read and interpret. All of their nonsense comes to an end when people simply look at the source. Ah, so simple it's been the same since 1991 or so. Can you think of any MicroShit license that has remained so stable? You could fill a phone book with all the small print M$ has put out in the last ten years. Confusion is nothing new to them.

Well, you can charge as much as you like for GPL'd software too, see this. Consultants charge an arm and a leg for freely available information, what's new? The GPL simply makes sure that the end user can use their software as they please, modify their software as they please and redistribute their software as well as their changes (better stated here.

MicroShit threw that language in to confuse people about the GPL. Too bad for them that simple and honest licenses are so easy to read and interpret. All of their nonsense comes to an end when people simply look at the source. Ah, so simple it's been the same since 1991 or so. Can you think of any MicroShit license that has remained so stable? You could fill a phone book with all the small print M$ has put out in the last ten years. Confusion is nothing new to them.

Well, you can charge as much as you like for GPL'd software too, see this. Consultants charge an arm and a leg for freely available information, what's new? The GPL simply makes sure that the end user can use their software as they please, modify their software as they please and redistribute their software as well as their changes (better stated here.

MicroShit threw that language in to confuse people about the GPL. Too bad for them that simple and honest licenses are so easy to read and interpret. All of their nonsense comes to an end when people simply look at the source. Ah, so simple it's been the same since 1991 or so. Can you think of any MicroShit license that has remained so stable? You could fill a phone book with all the small print M$ has put out in the last ten years. Confusion is nothing new to them.

Lacklider also did a lot of papers on this in the 1960s, Xerox PARC did huge amounts of research and lots of other people including myself have worked (http://www.freesoftware.fsf.org/cdf/) on this problem. What I will say is that although lots of us have worked on it there are very few working systems (mind works a little but needs huge developement), if these guys succeed it is good for us all.

So good luck Wolverhampton!