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_and_ has a functional and up-to-date distribution behind it

I think it worth mentioning that the Free Software philosophy is fundamentally against big business and arguably anti-capitalist. Thus, RMS is labeled a Socialist, and from all appearances, he should be proud of that classification. Of course, the cards are currently stacked against RMS and his group, and so it IS a war (for him).

Open Source (the whole "open-source can beat out closed-source for the market") is a bit more pragmatic and fundamentally is willing to work within a capitalist system. Hence, why large corporations can push OSS and even pay for development of less glamorous, but important, pieces of OSS.

I'd say the Open Source philosophy is more realistic and definitely more interesting than the Free Software philosophy. So, I'd side more with Linus and point out that (for servers anyway), Linux has definitely proved itself and browsers like Firefox (which I use all the time and highly recommend) have gained significance and interest. Also, as far as free goes, lots of people use Apache and Java so they must be doing something right. Furthermore, I and the millions of others who are currently running a Microsoft OS don't have to be flamed because we're locked into "the evil empire." After all, if free software is indeed better than its commercial counterpart, than maybe RMS et al. should stop GREASING THE TRACKS via a newer restrictive GPL v3 license.

I'd compare RMS within the FSF/OSS genre to Pat Robertson within the religious right or Michael Moore for the far left. They need to be replaced as spokesmen for their specific agendas. Oh, and take that pencil-drawn Gnu and destroy it if you want to be taken seriously...

I think you'll find that he prefers to be called GNU/RMS.

The purpose of the GPL is to ensure that a software program includes the four freedoms. If a program will only function with, say, a signed binary module, and it is impossible for the end use to create such a signed module of his own, then he is missing the "freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to [his] needs". I don't really see how adding a new restriction to the GPL goes against this spirit of the GPL. It may go against your idea of what a license should be, but to say GPLv3 is a political statement while GPLv2 is not is wrong because the GPLv3 additions are within the spirit of the four freedoms.

People such as Alan Cox, Miguel de Icaza, Donald Knuth, Larry Lessig, Brian Paul, Guido van Rossum, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, and Larry Wall who have already received this or other awards for their contributions, are not eligible for the Award for the Advancement of Free Software.

Considering the free software definition I will form my response.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

1a. I don't think free software should force and/or encourage behaviours beyond that of ensuring the software is free.

1b. What is legal and illegal is inconsistent both over time and location. Let the laws in place deal with that. Using a software licence and copyright law to somehow back up "real law" is at best redundant and at worst subjective and confusing. For a second example a police keystroke logger can be both legal and illegal depending on the specifics of the case.

2. I agree that DRM is logically incompatible with the GPL, if you have all source to make a fully functional implementation you could easily hack around the DRM restrictions.

We not only disagree with you, we think you're stupid for even mentioning it.

Fortunately there are more open minded people than you involved in this debate.
I think the GPL should adhere as directly and as simply as possible to the free software definition.

REAlly.

Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.

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

So, straight from the horse's mouth, we can see your argument is bullshit, "period".

Nobody who actually takes the time to read any of the FSF's introductory material (e.g. the GPL's preamble, or The GNU Manifesto, or their "What is Free Software?" article) will have any confusion about the issue. The people who are confused are those who pass judgement on things without spending more than 250 milliseconds thinking about them.

Hell, the first thing you see when you visit the FSF's website is the following sentence:

Free software is a matter of liberty not price. You should think of "free" as in "free speech".

If the FSF is trying to spread confusion, they're not doing a very good job of it.

McVoy had a license agreement with individual people, that's it. Whatever that "open source community" is you speak of, if I may myself call a fringe part of it for the sake of argument, Linus et al. surely did not represent me when they chose to go with BitKeeper in the first place.

This is all moot anyway, since the FSF never denied that it sees itself outside of any "open source community", so they would not be part of any commitment of this community to McVoy.

Microsoft has licensed its source code in the past (think Citrix circa NT 3.51) to those who could meet their terms. Of course, Microsoft tried to "sweep the leg" on Citrix with NT4TSE; but Citrix, unlike so many others who have gone to bed with Microsoft, managed to survive.

Just remember about how Microsoft has *always* licensed their source code: under their terms. Sure Microsoft will license their source code. But you can bet the agreement(s) you must sign to license it will be lengthy, ambiguous where it benefits Microsoft and iron clad where it benefits Microsoft, giving only the bare minimum necessary to pacify the EU, and most definitely not free.

Wrong!, it's "``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free beer.''" as described in The Free Software Definition. There's a direct link to it on the samba site ;)

Are there any plans for an open-source Flash player for Firefox?

Yeah, I'm using those tools, too ("AMES" -- ASDT, MTASC, Eclipse and SWFMill). I wanted to switch to Linux for a long time and I finally could. Recently I began looking into ActionStep, and I must say I'm impressed. Other notable projects are ASwing (Swing implementation in ActionScript), and Red5 (server needed to make use of the client's webcam and for streaming videos).
On the player side, Gnash looks like the most promising attempt at the moment, but still has a far way to go. But once it's done, it will become possible to integrate it into "traditional" apps and use an SWF as the GUI (at least if the app is GPL), which is where Flash is best at. I don't see it replacing the proprietary plugin any time soon, though -- the next version (8.5, currently available as public alpha) will be a huge step.

I'm always amazed by the irrational comments each time something Flash related gets posted. I hate Flash banners, too. I also hated the animated GIF banners we had before Flash, especially combined with MIDI sound. Sometimes I think it's too easy to get started with Flash for people who have no idea what they're doing, but that doesn't mean it's inherently bad (I'm sure some will disagree). Accessibility is an issue, because unlike HTML, it takes extra effort to support it. And yeah, the official plugin is proprietary, but it's being worked on. Other than that, most of the stuff I read is either nonsense or due to improper use (which includes both how it's done and whether Flash is the right tool for the job in the first place).

GNU Chess is a great program, especially if you're like me and keep losing all your pieces.

I had this one back in the dawn of time, when we had OS2 on a dual boot with 3.11, before I even knew what dual boot was. Hours of fun. On the higher difficulty settings the computer simply cannot be defeated!

At least, I think it was GNU Chess. It looked exactly like it.

Pssst, FF isn't GPL ... it's MPL

Nitpicking your nitpick: Firefox source code is made available under the Mozilla Tri-license, a disjunction of MPL, GPL, and LGPL. This license is the successor to the Netscape JavaScript license (described here).

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
Though it's inconvenient, I don't see how the clause makes it strictly incompatible with GPL. Anyone know why it says so in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html ?

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
Though it's inconvenient, I don't see how the clause makes it strictly incompatible with GPL. Anyone know why it says so in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html ?

The relevant keys may be stored in a "trusted platform module", a hardware device that is designed to wall off its contents from the owner of the computer. The TPM requirement (?) for Vista is one of the first steps in the so-called "trusted computing" scheme. TC is deceitfully promoted as "security", but is in fact a vast DRM and remote-control system. When ISPs start requiring it to be present and turned on as a condition of internet access, computers will be "trustworthy" from the viewpoint of the commercial software vendors and copyright cartel, but complete, treacherous trojans from the viewpoint of their owners, not only for music and movies but for communication as well.

Using screen - start up screen, run bittorrent, press ctrl+a d to detatch, use `screen -r` to reattach. (Google link thrown in because I was checking my spelling and found it a somewhat odd first result.)

The very notion that sharing a book with someone is a "crime" angers me in so many ways, I'm not even going to get into it here.

Given Sony's track record I was hoping to see more of the right to read references.

by Richard M. Stallman rms@gnu.org To the Management of the Boston Public Library, Don Saklad forwarded me your message which reports that OverDrive Audio Books use "copyright protection technology" made by Microsoft. The technology in question is an example of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)--technology designed to restrict the public. Describing it as "copyright protection" puts a favorable spin on a mechanism intended to deny the public the exercise of those rights which copyright law has not yet denied them. The use of that format for distributing books is not a fact of nature; it is a choice. When a choice leads to bad consequences, it ought to be changed, and that is the case here. I respectfully submit that the Boston Public Library has a responsibility to refuse to distribute anything in this format, even if it seems "convenient" to some in the short term. By making the choice to use this format, the Boston Public Library gives additional power to a corporation already twice convicted of unfair competition. This choice excludes more than just Macintosh users. The users of the GNU/Linux system, an operating system made up of free/libre software, are excluded as well. Since these audiobooks are locked up with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), it is illegal in the US to release free/libre software capable of reading these audiobooks. Apple may make some sort of arrangement to include capable software in MacOS (which is, itself, non-free software for which users cannot get source code). But we in the free software community will never be allowed to provide software to play them, unless laws are changed. There is another, deeper issue at stake here. The tendency of digitalization is to convert public libraries into retail stores for vendors of digital works. The choice to distribute information in a secret format--information designed to evaporate and become unreadable--is the antithesis of the spirit of the public library. Libraries which participate in this have lost their hearts. I therefore urge the Boston Public Library to terminate its association with OverDrive Audio Books, and adopt a policy of refusing to be agents for the propagation of Digital Restrictions Management. Sincerely Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation MacArthur Fellow cc: John Sullivan for posting on http://fsf.org General Reference gref@bpl.org This is a follow-up message to our response to your recommendation that the Library's digital audio book collection be accessible to Mac users. OverDrive Audio Books use copyright protection technology from Microsoft Corporation. Unfortunately the iPod (and Mac) do not currently support copyright-protected Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. OverDrive, along with hundreds of online music and audio book providers, is hopeful that Apple and Microsoft can reach an agreement that would enable support for Microsoft-based copyright-protected materials on the iPod/Mac. We are hopeful too - and in the mean time, we will keep looking for a vendor that will serve a broader audience. There is a workaround, however, that allows you to upload OverDrive content to an iPod, provided your computer is a PC, you have a CD recordable drive, and the title may be burned to a CD. If you would like to try this, follow the instructions in the OverDrive Media Console to burn the downloaded files to CD. Then, rip the CD into iTunes for synchronization with your iPod. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you very much. Sincerely, General Reference Department Boston Public Library 700 Boylston St Boston MA 02116 Phone: 617 859-2270 We thank you for your suggestion. We are forwarding your message to the staff members working on the OverDrive Audio Book and OverDrive eMusic program. Thank you very much. Sincerely, General Reference Department Boston Public Library 700 Boylston St Boston MA 02116 Phone: 617 859-2270 -----Original Message----- Please make http://overdrive.bpl.org available to mac users !

by Richard M. Stallman rms@gnu.org To the Management of the Boston Public Library, Don Saklad forwarded me your message which reports that OverDrive Audio Books use "copyright protection technology" made by Microsoft. The technology in question is an example of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)--technology designed to restrict the public. Describing it as "copyright protection" puts a favorable spin on a mechanism intended to deny the public the exercise of those rights which copyright law has not yet denied them. The use of that format for distributing books is not a fact of nature; it is a choice. When a choice leads to bad consequences, it ought to be changed, and that is the case here. I respectfully submit that the Boston Public Library has a responsibility to refuse to distribute anything in this format, even if it seems "convenient" to some in the short term. By making the choice to use this format, the Boston Public Library gives additional power to a corporation already twice convicted of unfair competition. This choice excludes more than just Macintosh users. The users of the GNU/Linux system, an operating system made up of free/libre software, are excluded as well. Since these audiobooks are locked up with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), it is illegal in the US to release free/libre software capable of reading these audiobooks. Apple may make some sort of arrangement to include capable software in MacOS (which is, itself, non-free software for which users cannot get source code). But we in the free software community will never be allowed to provide software to play them, unless laws are changed. There is another, deeper issue at stake here. The tendency of digitalization is to convert public libraries into retail stores for vendors of digital works. The choice to distribute information in a secret format--information designed to evaporate and become unreadable--is the antithesis of the spirit of the public library. Libraries which participate in this have lost their hearts. I therefore urge the Boston Public Library to terminate its association with OverDrive Audio Books, and adopt a policy of refusing to be agents for the propagation of Digital Restrictions Management. Sincerely Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation MacArthur Fellow cc: John Sullivan for posting on http://fsf.org General Reference gref@bpl.org This is a follow-up message to our response to your recommendation that the Library's digital audio book collection be accessible to Mac users. OverDrive Audio Books use copyright protection technology from Microsoft Corporation. Unfortunately the iPod (and Mac) do not currently support copyright-protected Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. OverDrive, along with hundreds of online music and audio book providers, is hopeful that Apple and Microsoft can reach an agreement that would enable support for Microsoft-based copyright-protected materials on the iPod/Mac. We are hopeful too - and in the mean time, we will keep looking for a vendor that will serve a broader audience. There is a workaround, however, that allows you to upload OverDrive content to an iPod, provided your computer is a PC, you have a CD recordable drive, and the title may be burned to a CD. If you would like to try this, follow the instructions in the OverDrive Media Console to burn the downloaded files to CD. Then, rip the CD into iTunes for synchronization with your iPod. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you very much. Sincerely, General Reference Department Boston Public Library 700 Boylston St Boston MA 02116 Phone: 617 859-2270 We thank you for your suggestion. We are forwarding your message to the staff members working on the OverDrive Audio Book and OverDrive eMusic program. Thank you very much. Sincerely, General Reference Department Boston Public Library 700 Boylston St Boston MA 02116 Phone: 617 859-2270 -----Original Message----- Please make http://overdrive.bpl.org/ available to mac users !

Thanks, that's useful.

To be honest, I use either Linux or Windows. I've seen iTunes run nice under Mac, but the Windows version has it's issues.

I like GNUpod ( http://www.gnu.org/software/gnupod/ ). The XML is a little more XMLish and I don't have to deal with iTunes to get songs into and out of my iPod.

But if companies violate the license, the consequences can be more severe than they think. If companies are violating the GPL, they don't have the right to use that software. And if they don't have the right to use the software, they're violating federal law if they claim that they do.

The GPL concerns copyright: the ability to legally distribute the work to others. Companies may use software under the GPL license in any way they see fit; attempts to limit usage are the stuff of shrink-wrap EULA restrictions. The GPL specifically disclaims usage restrictions (see section 0 of the license: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt.

The GPL violations mentioned in the article apply to distribution of embedded systems and derviative works containing GPL code, not to companies using GPL software internally. Keep that distinction in mind to understand the context of the article.

Still doesn't matter, because in 2006 recompiling a program with a native-code compiler targeted to a random ISA (for a given operating system) is practically free—especially if the program was written in a reasonable modern language.

If the Java VM is your beef, check out gcj. Sure, it still has a runtime system. But its performance overhead relative to compiled C code is almost always negligible or better.

Look at me, I can spend money...

More interestingly, does anybody have any suggestions for cheap hardware to get started playing around with GnuRadio and what I can use it for? FM or shortwave radio would be nice...

According to FSF's own definition of free software, for software to be considered free, users must have the "freedom to run the program, for any purpose," and "to adapt it to [said user's] needs."

If users are not free to use GPL3 software as or adapt it for use as a component of a digital rights management system, it is not free software.

Frankly, I don't expect GPL3 to catch on; GPL2 really doesn't have serious problems, and the provisions of BSD-type licenses are much easier to understand.

Only the Unix "wheel" group seems to qualify as DRM: Why GNU su does not support the `wheel' group

Why not just use lapack (http://www.netlib.org/lapack/) or essl(http://scv.bu.edu/SCV/IBMSP/ESSL-howto.html) or gsl (http://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/) ? Read Numerical recipes if you want to understand what the code is doing.

Richard a capella darn near did it for me, and I wasn't even particularly depressed when I hit "play".

It is small! It is efficient! It is scriptable! It works with any termcap, no matter how broken! It works on a 52 bps paper teletype!

Ed is so useful, a very handy UNIX tool is named after one of its internal commands: g/re/p!

Why do you need anything else? And there are no confusing error messages to understand!

(Seriously, there's this "you know you're a real sysadmin when" moment when you actually make it through a VI "open mode" session because the termcaps are still on the disk that hasn't mounted and which you're trying to repair from the emergency single-user session using some strange IBM TTY that doesn't do any VT or ANSI terminal emulation. If you haven't used "open mode", it's only slightly more sophisticated than ed all on its own. Ed is actually easier to use.... And OS X does have ed.)

(For the truly humor-impaired....)

Web services are not covered directly in the license, but are now made compatible through subsection 7d. If this draft is adopted, the AGPL will be compatible with the GPL, and those authors who wish derivatives to remain free will be able to secure that freedom through the use of other licenses like the AGPL (which has been endorsed by the FSF).

Under subsection 7d, the added part may require the program to contain functioning facilities that allow users to obtain copies of the program's Complete Corresponding Source Code. This is intended to enable compatibility with licensing terms that, for example, require modified versions of a program that interacts with users through a network to preserve an opportunity for users to request network transmission of the source code.

intellectual property

No offense, but you need to compare OS/X with more recent systems.

> I mean some of the features like Expose and Dashboard are really convenient once you
> get to use them

Only compared to using nothing to organize your windows. I use desktop manager for keeping my various apps organized by default. I hardly ever used Exposé as result.

> system wide services

Very few applications provide services (in the application's menu). To make applications interact, windows' COM is actually superior.

> How could one argue that having features from one program (or independent of any program)
> that can be used by all other programs. It saves the hassle and overhead from multiple
> programs replicating the same functionality.

This is exactly what Microsoft COM does, and like I said it's more powerful than Apple services. You can integrate application components into your own, like for example an Excel spreadsheet into your own accounting software, whatever.

> apps that are directories

Superior to the windows' way of installing anywhere and modifying the registry, but not as good as something like stow IMHO. Anyway, this is a 1990 NeXTStep feature.

> It will be very difficult to convince me to downgrade to a system where you can't use
> your spellchecker in all applications

System spellchecking is great, but it's not enabled for all applications under OS/X, only certain Cocoa apps. Firefox doesn't have the system spellchecking at all for example. Word comes with its own spellchecker (incompatible with the system's). None of the Adobe apps, all built with Carbon, have system spellchecking.

> I can copy a program onto a flash drive or an ipod and it works just fine. I can back up
> programs without worrying about installers.

For some apps yes, for others, no. Usually the large applications require an installer.

> The UI is great and more consistent,

Between Cocoa (white and brushmetal), Carbon and X apps, I tend to disagree.

> but more importantly for me is the multitasking. It actually works under high loads.
> I have a dozen applications running right now, and that is normal.

Windows since 2k has no problem with this. Under Linux I typically run 2-3 users at once, 10-20 apps each with no problem, and Linux is faster and much better than OS/X at memory management.

> My uptime on my laptop right now is 45 days,
> even though I carry it back an forth to work every day and
> used it to game at a LAN party last weekend.

This is true that I love this aspect about my iBook.

> I can run the vast majority of software designed for Linux, including X apps,
> as well as most mainstream software, since most things have a mac port.

Have you tried OpenOffice 2.0 on Mac yet? It's pretty terrible, whereas it works great on Linux and Windows. The truth is the Mac port of F/OSS is usually behind and of lesser quality than what is found under linux. Moreover Apple's X11 server is slow and poorly integrated.

> I guess what I'm not seeing is how you consider another OS to be superior.

For me, I don't much like Windows, but it is unmatched for games. Games suck on OS/X, they are usually older and more expensive, except for a few. For file and compute servers, I like Linux, especially on 64-bit machines. OS/X is not 64-bit despite what Apple pretends, and Linux is much more efficient on the same hardware (see Berkeley link above).

I like my little iBook - OS/X, but I'd love it more if I could have a decent CPU in it and if OS/X were more efficient.

> Maybe if you need some specific, resource intensive application that only runs on
> Windows, you're stuck.

It's all a matter of compromises. Mac + OS/X is a good platform but not perfect. It

Hi; you ask: "So is it ethical, in this case, to restrict their freedom to restrict their own freedom? Or is that nanny statism? It's a bit of a quandry, really." Its a very good question. So good, in fact, that we wrote a paper on it :). Here is a link. We'd love to get comments from folks. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html#Thir dPartyIdeas (Its the last paper on that list - titled "A Comparative Ethical Assessment of Free Software Licensing Schemes") We consider precisely the question you ask above, comparing the GPL to BSD/MIT style licenses.

I wish authors releasing good libraries under GPL would also assume that is OK to make money with it too.

from : http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL
---
Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license?
        You can use the GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you call your license by another name and do not include the GPL preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar).

        If you want to use our preamble in a modified license, please write to for permission. For this purpose we would want to check the actual license requirements to see if we approve of them.

        Although we will not raise legal objections to your making a modified license in this way, we hope you will think twice and not do it. Such a modified license is almost certainly incompatible with the GNU GPL, and that incompatibility blocks useful combinations of modules. The mere proliferation of different free software licenses is a burden in and of itself.
---

I guess that implies that I was indeed correct.

You can find many answers here: http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html

The text of some of the talks is online in the links.

If you wish to watch a video of the talk he gave in Calgary 2005 May 18 then you can find it here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html#CCA LG (its one of the TOP speeches! The TOP of the TOP in fact. hint - look at the top.)

The complete list if talks is found here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html

I would post an answer to the question but to be thorough would require a couple hours and I think Stallman has said it better than I can - so watch the video.

-----------------

In answer to the quesiton of why software patents are more serious than hardware patents - a very simple explanation is that software products incorporate many more ideas than are incorporated in a hardware product. Typically very large companies are behind the manufacturing of hardware and they often can afford the protracted litigation process whereas software companies are small and often undercapitalized.

However the hardware issues also exist and an example of this is the latest patent attack on Toyota on the variable speed transmission used in the Prius. First patents on this idea were issues in 1916 or 1918. Yet a superficial analysis suggests that using two electric motors to drive the planetary gears is considered innovative enough to warrent a patent in the 1980's. Toyota may get around this because they used a gas motor and an electric motor in the Prius.

But this illustrates how silly the patent system has become.

Its not about what is necessarily provable in court - in many respects it is about how much of a financial burden can be imposed through the threat of litigation and for how much the victim can be milked.

A cynic would observe the business of law is conflict and litigation and creating an environment which encourages litigation is good for [the legal] business. Whether this benefits society is not taken into consideration any more than any parasite questions whether its activities are a benefit to its prey. A related example of this phenominon is that non-payment of invoices for goods delivered is considered criminal fraud in Europe whereas in North America it is considered civil and matters that could and should be handled by police in a 1/2 hour end up dragged through the courts for close to a decade at a cost of 10's of 1000's of bux.

Part of this is the legal community serving its own self interest of course. But there are other factions who benefit by supporting a broken patent system and among these we have those who are looking for ways to prevent fair competition as well as those who are just looking for victims to shake down.

You can find many answers here: http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html

The text of some of the talks is online in the links.

If you wish to watch a video of the talk he gave in Calgary 2005 May 18 then you can find it here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html#CCA LG (its one of the TOP speeches! The TOP of the TOP in fact. hint - look at the top.)

The complete list if talks is found here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html

I would post an answer to the question but to be thorough would require a couple hours and I think Stallman has said it better than I can - so watch the video.

-----------------

In answer to the quesiton of why software patents are more serious than hardware patents - a very simple explanation is that software products incorporate many more ideas than are incorporated in a hardware product. Typically very large companies are behind the manufacturing of hardware and they often can afford the protracted litigation process whereas software companies are small and often undercapitalized.

However the hardware issues also exist and an example of this is the latest patent attack on Toyota on the variable speed transmission used in the Prius. First patents on this idea were issues in 1916 or 1918. Yet a superficial analysis suggests that using two electric motors to drive the planetary gears is considered innovative enough to warrent a patent in the 1980's. Toyota may get around this because they used a gas motor and an electric motor in the Prius.

But this illustrates how silly the patent system has become.

Its not about what is necessarily provable in court - in many respects it is about how much of a financial burden can be imposed through the threat of litigation and for how much the victim can be milked.

A cynic would observe the business of law is conflict and litigation and creating an environment which encourages litigation is good for [the legal] business. Whether this benefits society is not taken into consideration any more than any parasite questions whether its activities are a benefit to its prey. A related example of this phenominon is that non-payment of invoices for goods delivered is considered criminal fraud in Europe whereas in North America it is considered civil and matters that could and should be handled by police in a 1/2 hour end up dragged through the courts for close to a decade at a cost of 10's of 1000's of bux.

Part of this is the legal community serving its own self interest of course. But there are other factions who benefit by supporting a broken patent system and among these we have those who are looking for ways to prevent fair competition as well as those who are just looking for victims to shake down.

Really, why not make a license that I don't need to be a lawyer to understand?

They did. The license is written in this way so that lawyers (and judges) don't have to be programmers in order to understand them.

Can I use GPLv3 software in a company (it's not private, usually)?

The GPL doesn't invalidate other reasons why you wouldn't be able to, but otherwise yes.

Can I modify it, but not distribute it outside the company?

If you're acting as the company-entity then yes. If not, then the normal rules apply.

All the quoted paragraph says is that if you take advantage of the freedoms the GNU GPL v3 gives you, you cannot use Patent Law to take those freedoms away from others that are taking advantage of the same freedoms that you did.

What other posters said is true, and you can confirm it from the source. From the GNU General Public License:

"If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."

So the solution is to SPECIFY A VERSION NUMBER. i.e. you would write:

"This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License (version 2 exclusively) as published by the Free Software Foundation."

i for one am sick of dealing with classpaths and 250 jars inside of jar files inside of war files inside of ear files - catch my drift.

i'm also sick of J2EE containers with class loaders schemes that are more complicated than my senior year algebraic structures course.

build a linker into java just like .net has, and something like a GAC.

then allow versioning of libraries.

then get rid of checked exceptions so i don't have to do try/catch/wrap/rethrows(or do nothing) in 90% of my J2EE code.

then get rid of stateful, local session beans - how redudant is that???

then find a way to get rid of the 14 million defines i need in my server.xml to specify which implementation of each 'open, standard' interface i need

so, java as a language - it's ok
java as a platform - SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

left java for .net after 6 years of dealing with Sun's bullcrap and i have never looked back.

GNU Classpath, has completely implemented over 98% of JDK1.4 and is building steam. Most packages are now 100% complete, and momentum is building.

GNU Classpath, Essential Libraries for Java, is a GNU project to create free core class libraries for use with virtual machines and compilers for the java programming language.

More discussion is here.

People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware, asking for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are already working this way successfully.

That may have been true around 1984, before the widespread popularity of the Internet. It's not true that you could make a living from this now.

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.

These insights were penned by the same Richard Stallman who championed the GNU Hurd, which 16 years later hasn't even entered alpha. When Linux rose in popularity, Stallman tried to take credit, and insisted that everybody call it "GNU/Linux". That's sort of like Microsoft trying to tell everybody to prepend the name "Microsoft" to whatever applications they build with Microsoft products.

Now, did Richard Stallman suffer? No: he received a quarter of a million dollars from the MacArthur Foundation for the creation of FSF, and invested the dough in mututal funds; he's living off the interest. (Plus, he has no children, no wife, and no car... ) If Richard Stallman had his way, nobody would " be able to make a living from programming." He would rather hear you say "Do you want fries with that?"

Remember when Eric Raymond wrote "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", and convinced a dwindling Netscape to open-source its code? The net benefit was predicted to help Netscape and AOL destroy Microsoft. How wrong those naive optimistic projections became. Netscape is long dead, AOL's customers are deserting to broadband provided by other ISPs, and AOL and its clientele are still reviled by most computer professionals as unwashed trailer trash. Good PR stunt move, oh Netscape and AOL.

Around 1876, author Mark Twain wrote the immortal "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". In Chapter 2, Tom finds himself stuck whitewashing a fence -- hard work he doesn't want to do. But then he comes upon a brilliant idea: Get other people to do the work for him for free! In fact, by feigning interest in his work, he managed to get other people to PAY HIM to do the work:

Tom went on whitewashing -- paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hi-YI! YOU'RE up a stump, ain't you!"

No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:

"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"

Tom wheeled suddenly and said:

"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't not

"That is not even neccesarily true. Someone made the claim that linking obligates you to GPL you code as part of FUD scare campaign."

Well, when the "someone" that claims that "linking obligates you to GPL" is the legal arm of the very one that wrote down the license, maybe there is an issue.

"That is not even neccesarily true. Someone made the claim that linking obligates you to GPL you code as part of FUD scare campaign."

Well, when the "someone" that claims that "linking obligates you to GPL" is the legal arm of the very one that wrote down the license, maybe there is an issue.

People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware, asking for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are already working this way successfully.

That may have been true around 1984, before the widespread popularity of the Internet. It's not true that you could make a living from this now.

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.

These insights were penned by the same Richard Stallman who championed the GNU Hurd, which 16 years later hasn't even entered alpha. When Linux rose in popularity, Stallman tried to take credit, and insisted that everybody call it "GNU/Linux". That's sort of like Microsoft trying to tell everybody to prepend the name "Microsoft" to whatever applications they build with Microsoft products.

Now, did Richard Stallman suffer? No: he received a quarter of a million dollars from the MacArthur Foundation for the creation of FSF, and invested the dough in mututal funds; he's living off the interest. (Plus, he has no children, no wife, and no car... ) If Richard Stallman had his way, nobody would " be able to make a living from programming." He would rather you be saying "Do you want fries with that?"

Remember when Eric Raymond wrote "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", and convinced a dwindling Netscape to open-source its code? The net benefit was predicted to help Netscape and AOL destroy Microsoft. How wrong those naive optimistic projections became. Netscape is long dead, AOL's customers are deserting to broadband provided by other ISPs, and AOL and its clientele are still reviled by most computer professionals as unwashed trailer trash. Good PR stunt move, oh Netscape and AOL.

Around 1876, author Mark Twain wrote the immortal "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". In Chapter 2, Tom finds himself stuck whitewashing a fence -- hard work he doesn't want to do. But then he comes upon a brilliant idea: Get other people to do the work for him for free! In fact, by feigning interest in his work, he managed to get other people to PAY HIM to do the work:

Tom went on whitewashing -- paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hi-YI! YOU'RE up a stump, ain't you!"

No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said:

"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?"

Tom wheeled suddenly and said:

"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing."

"Say -- I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd druther WORK -- wouldn't you? Course you would!"

Tom contemplated the boy a bi

...or to distribute copies, or link to libraries, or produce derivative works. the reason for the up-front presentation of the GPL, like any license, is so that folks know what the is or is not allowed in a given case.

That's a good point, and one I hadn't considered. You've convinced me that displaying the GPL is a good idea, but I think the way in which it's presented is bad. It's presented the same way all of those rights-limiting EULAs are, and which hardly anyone bothers to read.

Instead, I think programs should display a very brief, plain language notice explaining the permissions the user has been granted. Something like (but better-written):

Thank you for using XYZ. XYZ is licensed under the GNU GPL, which means you are allowed to do almost anything you want with this program, with only a few minor restrictions. In particular you can:

• Run the program. Anything you create with the program is yours.
• Make all the copies you want for your own use.
• Distribute copies to other, either for free or commercially.
• Make changes to the program, so it fits your needs better.

If you decide to give the program to others, or make changes to the program, then you must agree to the terms of the GNU GPL, which basically say: If you give modified or unmodified copies of this program to others, you are required to give them all of the same rights that you received.

If you want to give copies of this program to others click here to read the license. If you only want to use the program, you don't need to agree to anything.

It should probably be pared down more, to make it even simpler. The point is: present people with something short enough and simple enough that they may read it, and make it clear that the license is giving them permission to do things they normally don't expect to be able to do.