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Will the young learn anything about software freedom? Will it be allowed to give GNU a share of the credit? If "Linux[sic] for Young Human Beings" and asking "Do you run Linux[sic]?" is the state of things, it would appear not. How sad that such effort is being put into misinformation by omission as well as aggrandization of a figure that is remarkably hostile to software freedom, and being done in the name of educating the young (precisely the audience that ought to be taught about software freedom, valuing such freedom for its own sake). How ironic that GNU is left out while we benefit so much from GNU licenses (the GNU GPL is the most popular free software license), GCC (still widely used to build a variety of FLOSS programs), and other GNU programs (which are widely distributed with most GNU/Linux distributions, including Ubuntu GNU/Linux derivatives).

The worst that can happen is that someone can re-close their derivation of your code if RMS ever loses his mind.

Not nice, but hardly catastrophic.

From the perspective of the FSF, that would be catastrophic. Consider that one of the reasons the GPL was written was not just to give people software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify covered programs) but to make sure the programs remain free as well. If any part of the GPL allowed sublicensing or somehow allowed incorporation into a proprietary program, those freedoms would be lost to users of that derivative work. Software proprietors seek to effect this change through software patents—another reason the GPL is being revised. Variants of the new BSD license allow both sublicensing and say absolutely nothing, not even in an introductory sentence or framing sense, about patents.

What matters here is not whether anyone else shares this view, but to understand the license in the context in which it was written—securing software freedom for all computer users. This focus on a user's software freedom is one of the reasons the FSF doesn't describe making proprietary derivatives as "closing" a program. The Open Source Movement focuses on a programmer's ability to help businesses (chiefly) improve their programs. As the FSF says:

Describing non-free software as "closed" clearly refers to the term "open source". In the Free Software Movement, we want to avoid being confused with the more recent Open Source Movement, so we are careful to avoid usage that would encourage people to lump us in with them. Therefore, we avoid describing non-free software as "closed". We call it "non-free" or "proprietary".

The worst that can happen is that someone can re-close their derivation of your code if RMS ever loses his mind.

Not nice, but hardly catastrophic.

From the perspective of the FSF, that would be catastrophic. Consider that one of the reasons the GPL was written was not just to give people software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify covered programs) but to make sure the programs remain free as well. If any part of the GPL allowed sublicensing or somehow allowed incorporation into a proprietary program, those freedoms would be lost to users of that derivative work. Software proprietors seek to effect this change through software patents—another reason the GPL is being revised. Variants of the new BSD license allow both sublicensing and say absolutely nothing, not even in an introductory sentence or framing sense, about patents.

What matters here is not whether anyone else shares this view, but to understand the license in the context in which it was written—securing software freedom for all computer users. This focus on a user's software freedom is one of the reasons the FSF doesn't describe making proprietary derivatives as "closing" a program. The Open Source Movement focuses on a programmer's ability to help businesses (chiefly) improve their programs. As the FSF says:

Describing non-free software as "closed" clearly refers to the term "open source". In the Free Software Movement, we want to avoid being confused with the more recent Open Source Movement, so we are careful to avoid usage that would encourage people to lump us in with them. Therefore, we avoid describing non-free software as "closed". We call it "non-free" or "proprietary".

The worst that can happen is that someone can re-close their derivation of your code if RMS ever loses his mind.

Not nice, but hardly catastrophic.

From the perspective of the FSF, that would be catastrophic. Consider that one of the reasons the GPL was written was not just to give people software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify covered programs) but to make sure the programs remain free as well. If any part of the GPL allowed sublicensing or somehow allowed incorporation into a proprietary program, those freedoms would be lost to users of that derivative work. Software proprietors seek to effect this change through software patents—another reason the GPL is being revised. Variants of the new BSD license allow both sublicensing and say absolutely nothing, not even in an introductory sentence or framing sense, about patents.

What matters here is not whether anyone else shares this view, but to understand the license in the context in which it was written—securing software freedom for all computer users. This focus on a user's software freedom is one of the reasons the FSF doesn't describe making proprietary derivatives as "closing" a program. The Open Source Movement focuses on a programmer's ability to help businesses (chiefly) improve their programs. As the FSF says:

Describing non-free software as "closed" clearly refers to the term "open source". In the Free Software Movement, we want to avoid being confused with the more recent Open Source Movement, so we are careful to avoid usage that would encourage people to lump us in with them. Therefore, we avoid describing non-free software as "closed". We call it "non-free" or "proprietary".

Oh yes... Something good can come of it...

Feeling now empowered with a sense of ownership, code gurus everywhere (but mostly at fortune 500 companies) will actually improve the code, make java smaller, faster, and more easily deployable. Then they will really recommend it instead of pointing to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html, and the adoption rate will increase even more.

Then, of course, the Sun version will become obsolete (too slow, too buggy, etc) and everybody will use GNUJava and the world will be a Much Happier Place.

Of course, at that point, a plethora of existing software will start getting into the language. Java will support XML-RPC, REST, and SOAP out-of-the-box. It will support a whole bunch of things that now Sun won't put in.

But best of all, the bugs will be cleaned out. Slava Pestov, the lead developer on jEdit (http://www.jedit.org/, which I use daily as my primary editor), will be able to write applications without feeling like this: http://www.jroller.com/page/slava?entry=java_1_5_w indow_focus.

You don't have to take my word for it. Just find out what real java programmers are saying. Also, take a look at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/beyondjava/.

Sun is not currently able to maintain the level of language development to compete against python, ruby, smalltalk and a veritable army of smaller, nimbler tools. Java is fast becoming the COBOL of the internet age: yes, lots of companies use it for mission critical stuff, but newer technologies have gobbled up the geeks. It's only a matter of time before it's obsolete. See http://paulgraham.com/pypar.html.

I am not against Java. I am against Java staying the way it is today. I want java to grow. The hacker community at large will do a better job than Sun Microsystems. Period. Besides, Sun is going down. Larger companies have completely disappeared. I just went to their web site, priced a workstation, and priced an equivalent workstation at hp.com for $1K less. You tell me. They will probably remain at about 1/3 of their size today as a provider of high-end hardware. Like Cray.

Yes, it's so much easier to try and understand the license when every singe application and library has it's own license such as on Windows. Who in their right mind would think a choice between ten or so licenses that are clearly explained here and here is easier to understand?

In any case, Java is Open Enough.
It's not free enough, because it only grants you freedom 0 and freedom 1, the freedom to use it, and to see how it works and improve it.

It still takes away from the user the freedom to help other by sharing the software, and the freedo to share his improvements to the software with a community.
Even though there's the Java community whatever, that takes some pointers by consumers, it's a limited community in its power.

For people who care about "openness", Java is Open Enough. It is great at interoperability, and you can even look at its sourcecode, and licenses are very bussiness friendly.

For people who care about freedom in software, no, Java is not Free Enough.
A short description of freedom in software, from the POV of the user: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

If you actually want to know the answer, most of the flak Sun gets seems to be because they intentionally chose an open source license that's not compatible with the GPL.

I guess then Firefox and Apache aren't open enough for you either. The MPL and Apache license are both incompatible with GPL:

Here is a definition of open source:
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

and Solaris is open source as it has an approved open source license (CDDL):
1) http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cddl1.php

Some folks are concerned that CDDL it is not GPL compatible. The FSF defines CDDL as a FREE license, but incompatible with GPL.
2) http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GP LIncompatibleLice...

Other licences defined as FREE, but also incompatible with GPL (see above reference) include:
Apache License, Version 1.0
Apache License, Version 1.1
Apache Software License, version 2.0
Mozilla Public License (MPL)
IBM Public License, Version 1.0
Eclipse Public License Version 1.0
PHP License, Version 3.0

So it appears that CDDL is open source (see 1)
and free as in speech (see 2)
and Solaris is also free as in beer

I buggered it up. It should be: perl <(cat /mnt/unexecutables/evil.pl)

It's called Process Substitution. It's a great way to avoid the use of temporary files in shell scripts.

The FSF considers ANY kind of linking (dynamic or static) of a gpl program with a closed source one as being a derived work.

Communication between programs when they use a carefully defined stream I/O interface (such as files, pipes, or sockets) is thought not to constitute linking. If you put your proprietary CSS handling software in a separate process, it is "mere aggregation", which does not fall subject to the "viral" aspects of the GNU GPL.

i use GNU emacs for mail reading (and other things). works fine.

i use GNU emacs for mail reading (and other things). works fine.

I don't think that ignoring this bug will make people stop talking about it. I can see that you are annoyed, and it is not clear to me why. Also, you have mis-represented the issue. The bug is easily reproduced and the next step is for a developer to look at why it occurs.

Here's my expression of the story to date:

There is a HUGE, well-known bug in Firefox 1.5, the CPU and Memory Hogging bug. Developers refuse to fix it, even though anyone can demonstrate the bug easily. Apparently there is some kind of social problem. Maybe no one has the authority to deal with a major bug.

This bug has been reported to Bugzilla, and is very easy to reproduce (see below), but Firefox developers have marked it invalid because there is not enough specific information! The bug has existed in Firefox for more than 2 years, and several people report that it is worse in Firefox 1.5. Firefox's Bugzilla does not allow direct links from Slashdot, so copy and paste Bugzilla URLs into a new tab. Remove the space:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131 456
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=222 660

The huge memory use, and 94% CPU use or more with no activity, occur after opening and closing many Firefox windows and tabs, as happens when researching something on the internet over a period of hours or days. The bug symptoms are worse after putting the computer on standby or after hibernating. My experience has been that the memory and CPU hogging always occur together, so they appear to be the same bug. However, the CPU hogging symptom takes longer to appear.

You can demonstrate the memory use problem quickly by loading and closing the following large web page into multiple Firefox tabs a few times:
http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html

To see the memory and CPU percentage used in Windows, right-click on the Taskbar and choose Task Manager. Choose the Processes tab.

The only answer is for a developer who knows the code to reproduce the problem and see what causes it. It is not clear to me why they are unwilling to do so. This bug seems especially interesting to me. It is likely that fixing this bug will fix other issues. It is likely that

The bug has often been reported on Slashdot. Here are a few examples:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169676&cid=141 43632
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 62501
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 62671
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 66613

I posted the bug numbered 222660 in Bugzilla. It is interesting to note that apparently no developer has bothered to read the entire bug report and take the time to understand it. For 2 1/2 years, developers have been saying things like this: 1) Maybe this bug is fixed in the nightly version. 2) Yes, this bug exists, but it isn't important. 3) No one has posted a TalkBack report. (If they read the bug report, they would know that there is never a TalkBack report, because the bug crashes TalkBack, too.) 4) If you would just give us more information, we would fix this bug. 5) This bug report is a composite of other bugs, so this bug report is invalid. (The other bugs aren't specified.) 6) You are using Firefox in a way that would crash any software. 7) I don't like the way you worded your report. 8) You should run a debugger and find what causes this problem yourself. 9) Often someone uses the subject to act out anger; that person only pretends to

There's definitely a problem with open source development. My guess is that more emphasis should be place on raising money. Maybe open source programmers need more support than they are getting.

There is a HUGE, well-known bug in Firefox 1.5, the CPU and Memory Hogging bug. Developers refuse to fix it, even though anyone can demonstrate the bug easily. Apparently there is some kind of social problem. Maybe no one has the authority to deal with a major bug.

This bug has been reported to Bugzilla, and is very easy to reproduce (see below), but Firefox developers have marked it invalid because there is not enough specific information! The bug has existed in Firefox for more than 2 years, and several people report that it is worse in Firefox 1.5. Firefox's Bugzilla does not allow direct links from Slashdot, so copy and paste Bugzilla URLs into a new tab. Remove the space:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131 456
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=222 660

The huge memory use, and 94% CPU use with no activity, occur after opening and closing many Firefox windows and tabs, as happens when researching something on the internet over a period of hours or days. The bug symptoms are worse after putting the computer on standby or after hibernating. My experience has been that the memory and CPU hogging always occur together, so they appear to be the same bug. However, the CPU hogging symptom takes longer to appear.

You can demonstrate the memory use problem quickly by loading and closing the following large web page into multiple Firefox tabs a few times:
http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html

To see the memory and CPU percentage used in Windows, right-click on the Taskbar and choose Task Manager. Choose the Processes tab.

The bug has often been reported on Slashdot. Here are a few examples:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169676&cid=141 43632
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 62501
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 62671
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 66613

I posted the bug numbered 222660 in Bugzilla. It is interesting to note that apparently no developer has bothered to read the entire bug report and take the time to understand it. For 2 1/2 years, developers have been saying things like this: 1) Maybe this bug is fixed in the nightly version. 2) Yes, this bug exists, but it isn't important. 3) No one has posted a TalkBack report. (If they read the bug report, they would know that there is never a TalkBack report, because the bug crashes TalkBack, too.) 4) If you would just give us more information, we would fix this bug. 5) This bug report is a composite of other bugs, so this bug report is invalid. The other bugs aren't specified. 6) You are using Firefox in a way that would crash any software. 7) I don't like the way you worded your report. 8) Often someone uses the subject to act out anger; that person pretends to be interested in the subject.

I doubt this subject will just go away, not after more than 2 1/2 years of discussion. There has been a Slashdot story about it: Reducing Firefox's Memory Use. There's a lot of discussion in the comments to the story that the problem is a bug, rather than just something that needs improving.

Other people have raised the issue, all somewhat inaccurately, since the "memory leak"

Do you experience the Firefox 1.5 CPU and memory hogging bug? Firefox developers say they need more specific information before they can fix this bug. Please report your details.

This bug has been reported to Bugzilla, and is very easy to replicate, but has been marked invalid because there is not enough specific information. The bug has existed in Firefox for more than 2 years, but several people report that it is worse in Firefox 1.5. Firefox's Bugzilla does not allow direct links from Slashdot, so copy and paste Bugzilla URLs into a new tab. Remove the space:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131 456
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=222 660

The huge memory use, and 94% CPU use with no activity, occur after opening and closing many Firefox windows and tabs, as happens when researching something on the internet over a period of hours or days. The bug symptoms are worse after putting the computer on standby or after hibernating. My experience has been that the memory and CPU hogging always occur together, so they appear to be the same bug. However, the CPU hogging symptom takes longer to appear.

You can demonstrate the memory use problem quickly by loading and closing the following large web page into multiple Firefox tabs a few times:
http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html

To see the memory and CPU percentage used in Windows, right-click on the Taskbar and choose Task Manager. Choose the Processes tab.

The bug has often been reported on Slashdot. Here are a few examples:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169676&cid=141 43632
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 62501
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 62671
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 66613

First, Stallman doesn't explicitly state anything in terms of the open source movement. He started the free software movement over a decade before the Open Source Initiative started the open source movement and he explains why he does not agree with the philosophy behind the open source movement.

What you're talking about would be better referenced by reading what RMS actually said about distributing free software for a fee.

To answer your question, there's nothing prohibiting you from distributing free software for a fee (any fee), whether it is modified or not. RMS encourages you to do so for as much money as you can because the money you make doing so can be put right back into making and distributing more free software. But there is nothing stopping you from undercutting others by distributing it for less money than they are. You could do this regularly and thus make a business doing this. RMS distributed copies of GNU Emacs and other free software in the early years of the free software movement and that was how he made his living for a while. Today, there are consultancies that work on particular programs (like GCC, where professional GCC hackers have a waiting list of clients, Brad Kuhn told me), and consultancies that focus on hand-holding services (you'd be surprised how many people have computers and don't know how to operate them).

First, Stallman doesn't explicitly state anything in terms of the open source movement. He started the free software movement over a decade before the Open Source Initiative started the open source movement and he explains why he does not agree with the philosophy behind the open source movement.

What you're talking about would be better referenced by reading what RMS actually said about distributing free software for a fee.

To answer your question, there's nothing prohibiting you from distributing free software for a fee (any fee), whether it is modified or not. RMS encourages you to do so for as much money as you can because the money you make doing so can be put right back into making and distributing more free software. But there is nothing stopping you from undercutting others by distributing it for less money than they are. You could do this regularly and thus make a business doing this. RMS distributed copies of GNU Emacs and other free software in the early years of the free software movement and that was how he made his living for a while. Today, there are consultancies that work on particular programs (like GCC, where professional GCC hackers have a waiting list of clients, Brad Kuhn told me), and consultancies that focus on hand-holding services (you'd be surprised how many people have computers and don't know how to operate them).

Quoted directly off http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html:
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

Since the Yellow Machine is obviously commercial, are you purposely trying to troll by leaving out the latter half, or are there other versions of the GPL out and about?

• If I distribute GPL'd software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge?
  No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.

Also, in the spirit of freedom, efficiency and 'less government' shouldn't the main goal of editing the GPL be reducing the word count and removing all lawyer speek (if there was any)?

RTFL before you speak of things you do not know. The GPL is extremely brief, and extremely free of legal mumbo-jumbo. Believe it or not, a bit on the skimpy side at times. Not to mention it's a license you can read once, and know what it says a thousand times. Try comparing it to any commercial license, and I don't mean just the infamous MS EULAs. I mean to every license ever touched by a company lawyer. And if you had read the other licenses as well, you'd see they are quite different both from each other and from the GPL...

The release notes at http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/1.5 -comprehensive.html say that bug "131456 - Memory use does not go down after closing tabs" has been fixed.

However if you read the bug text you can see that this years old bug has been closed only because, in the eyes of one developer, perpetually increasing memory usage is only a symptom of a memory leak, not the cause. Presumably users should only report problems for which fixes already exist.

Developers explain that the cause of the problem is actually due to several underlying hard bugs, so a "meta bug" like this one should not be open. Separate bugs should be filed instead on all of the undisclosed problems.

Users were also haranged over and over into providing specific test cases for the general problem. Amusingly, when one user suggested using http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html as an example (try loading and closing it into a multiple tabs a few times and look at your virtual memory utilization or the about:cache built-in page) he was berated by a developer for reporting a problem with a website and not the memory leak the website triggers!

Apparently you dont understand the GPL

-everphilski-

Everyone knows that ED is the one true editor!

Do you mean, its memory would need to be de-allocated? In C/C++ you would have to do that too, only with more control and responsability.

No, not that (although I could talk about memory management too :-). In Java an array of structures is technically an array of pointers to structures. If you know C, think about the difference between "Point3D x[100]" and "Point3D * x[100]".

But I still agree with you that Java being interpreted impose serious limitations (compared with non interpreted languages) when you talk about 3D rendering.

The problem is not that Java is often interpreted, but that the definition of the language makes it impossible to generate efficient code for some things (like the example abpve). There are static Java compilers producing native code (e.g. GCJ: http://gcc.gnu.org/java/), but even that is an order of mangitude slower than the equivalent C code (note: for some things only, not for everything!).

It is also interesting to note that the existing Java JITs (like Sun's or IBM's) have much better performance than static Java compilers.

• ion | ratpoision; Pane-based (v. window-based) window managers. Little to no wasted screen real estate. Significantly reduced mouse usage.
• emacs: Wickedly powerful text editor/operating environment.
  • WhizzyTeX: Updates DVI in another window as you edit TeX/LaTeX.
  • AUCTeX: Very powerful emacs extensions for TeX/LaTeX.
• fetchmail + procmail + mutt + spamassassin + msmtp: No-nonsense mail reading and sending.
• bash completions: Quasi-telepathic tab completion.
• Firefox
  • Adblock: Saves an astonishing amount of screen real estate.
• screen: Among many other abilities, screen+ssh can provide VNC-like capabilities for your terminal sessions.

• ion | ratpoision; Pane-based (v. window-based) window managers. Little to no wasted screen real estate. Significantly reduced mouse usage.
• emacs: Wickedly powerful text editor/operating environment.
  • WhizzyTeX: Updates DVI in another window as you edit TeX/LaTeX.
  • AUCTeX: Very powerful emacs extensions for TeX/LaTeX.
• fetchmail + procmail + mutt + spamassassin + msmtp: No-nonsense mail reading and sending.
• bash completions: Quasi-telepathic tab completion.
• Firefox
  • Adblock: Saves an astonishing amount of screen real estate.
• screen: Among many other abilities, screen+ssh can provide VNC-like capabilities for your terminal sessions.

• ion | ratpoision; Pane-based (v. window-based) window managers. Little to no wasted screen real estate. Significantly reduced mouse usage.
• emacs: Wickedly powerful text editor/operating environment.
  • WhizzyTeX: Updates DVI in another window as you edit TeX/LaTeX.
  • AUCTeX: Very powerful emacs extensions for TeX/LaTeX.
• fetchmail + procmail + mutt + spamassassin + msmtp: No-nonsense mail reading and sending.
• bash completions: Quasi-telepathic tab completion.
• Firefox
  • Adblock: Saves an astonishing amount of screen real estate.
• screen: Among many other abilities, screen+ssh can provide VNC-like capabilities for your terminal sessions.

GNU Screen is a featured packed window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes. You can detach from remote screen sessions and the program will continue to run. You can then re-attach later; an essential feature if you use ssh alot.

Funny that you bring up United States Patent 5,960,411, as a quick search shows that it basically patents using cookies for an online purchase. Talk about novel.

If you study FSF's GPL howto, you'll notice how important it is that you first preserve your copyright of the code, then GPL it. This is to establish that you - the copyright holder - choose to do the GPL on your own rights. Notice how this only works because yo own the rights yourself.

You can obviously withdraw this later, but people who have used/copied/improved/whatever'd your code won't be forced to stop using it. This is specifically stated in the GPL. But I can take what I own the copyright for, and release that (or a derivate) under a different (non-GPL-compliant) license.

So the licensor is obviously not bound by his own rules. He defines the rules, because he is the licensor. The code he has released can't be recalled to his command, but he can do what he wants with his own copy. Contributions to a GPL project is often copyright-transferred to the project maintainer, which would make the above apply to them as well. If not, individual agreements would have to be made if Nessus wants to bring them into v3.

`It's free, it can't be as good as the product that costs ${large_amount_of_cash}`

Ubuntu has gone some way to changing that because people have ordered CDs and tried it (just because they're free (beer)) and realised that really, freebies aren't all that bad. But what about the vast majority of people who haven't even heard of linux, or openoffice, or any of the other free(speech) applications?

And then there is the problem of education. Throughout the whole of my education, the institutions were wedded to windows, you weren't able to use a linux live CD, that would be a bannable offence, and just forget being able to work on documents at home if you didn't have windows. The MSDNAA is just another snare to get universities using microsoft products and to try and gain loyalty with students. Still there is the perception that cheap = crap. Just how far does it extend? And how many of the kids in school right now are going to grow up thinking microsoft is the only, or best, choice?

gcc's inlining got much better in the 3.4 release, and got better still in the 4.0 release. If you still see a penalty for inlining in the 4.0 release, please file a bug report as described at http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html. Thanks.

As far as joining the project goes, it is easy. Sign up for the mailing lists, check out the code, and start working. Contributing a substantial patch requires signing a copyright assignment before it can be accepted.

If by free you mean a reference to price, that would be sad. I think you're right—that will almost certainly be the message people use to pitch Firefox. But that message is not unique. Another silly message has been used by the Mozilla Foundation in the past—browser "choice"—when they talk about either Firefox or the Mozilla Suite. This message fails to convince because it is not true.

What separates Firefox (and Mozilla Suite, but nobody is talking about that anymore) from the rest of the popular web browsers is software freedom. Firefox lets users run, inspect, share, and modify the program at any time for any reason. There are many great consequences of software freedom but the freedom itself is what makes the difference and the freedom itself should be celebrated by name. Plenty of proprietary browsers cost the users no money, so being available gratis is no big deal. If all one cares about is price, one has long had the choices of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Netscape Navigator. But if all one cares about is price, before the Mozilla Suite was available, no popular web browser would give the user software freedom.

The following message is still true, so many years after this essay was written:

"Sooner or later these users will be invited to switch back to proprietary software for some practical advantage. Countless companies seek to offer such temptation, and why would users decline? Only if they have learned to value the freedom free software gives them, for its own sake. It is up to us to spread this idea--and in order to do that, we have to talk about freedom. A certain amount of the ``keep quiet'' approach to business can be useful for the community, but we must have plenty of freedom talk too."

I think a marketing drive around Firefox would be a perfect time to introduce users to software freedom, and in so doing, tell users why Firefox matters with a message that is unique, true, and compelling. Let's hope that the Mozilla Foundation's commitment to the Open Source movement is not so strong that they're willing to do as that movement advocates and dispense with talking about software freedom by name and championing software freedom for its own sake.

If by free you mean a reference to price, that would be sad. I think you're right—that will almost certainly be the message people use to pitch Firefox. But that message is not unique. Another silly message has been used by the Mozilla Foundation in the past—browser "choice"—when they talk about either Firefox or the Mozilla Suite. This message fails to convince because it is not true.

What separates Firefox (and Mozilla Suite, but nobody is talking about that anymore) from the rest of the popular web browsers is software freedom. Firefox lets users run, inspect, share, and modify the program at any time for any reason. There are many great consequences of software freedom but the freedom itself is what makes the difference and the freedom itself should be celebrated by name. Plenty of proprietary browsers cost the users no money, so being available gratis is no big deal. If all one cares about is price, one has long had the choices of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Netscape Navigator. But if all one cares about is price, before the Mozilla Suite was available, no popular web browser would give the user software freedom.

The following message is still true, so many years after this essay was written:

"Sooner or later these users will be invited to switch back to proprietary software for some practical advantage. Countless companies seek to offer such temptation, and why would users decline? Only if they have learned to value the freedom free software gives them, for its own sake. It is up to us to spread this idea--and in order to do that, we have to talk about freedom. A certain amount of the ``keep quiet'' approach to business can be useful for the community, but we must have plenty of freedom talk too."

I think a marketing drive around Firefox would be a perfect time to introduce users to software freedom, and in so doing, tell users why Firefox matters with a message that is unique, true, and compelling. Let's hope that the Mozilla Foundation's commitment to the Open Source movement is not so strong that they're willing to do as that movement advocates and dispense with talking about software freedom by name and championing software freedom for its own sake.

Free But Shackled - The Java Trap by Richard Stallman

Agree or not, but that's the gist of the argument. :)

A base Ubuntu-install is based entirely on Free Software (http://www.gnu.org./ As with Debian, you can add non-free sources yourself, for gettings codecs for Windows Media Player etc.

Suse has some parts Free and other parts proprietary, so it is not entirely Free Software. But you can download Suse free of charge (a more concise phrase).

I believe this is the main difference. Whenever you see the word "Free" or "free", you should always have the broader definition of Free in mind to see what fits.

It is surprisingly hard to find out what the current release is from the GCC webpages. The front page has a misleading 4.1. Press "Releases", and you get a misleading 3.4.4. You have to go on to the "Development plan", under Future timeline, to find the actual latest and greatest 4.0.2 somewhere down the ASCII art tree.

You sound like a Jehovah's Witness citing the bible.

Here is a list of contributors to GCC: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Contributors.htm l

I would be quite annoyed with all this talk about initial authorship if I had just worked my butt of to get the current release out of the door.

I'm not sure what gave the person who submitted the story, or the editor who posted the story, the idea that 4.1 was released, but it isn't.

If you are right, and 4.1 wasn't released, then the GCC web page might need to be reworded to better communicate that fact.

First of all, it is true that if one only goes by the definition of open source then the GNU compiler collection does fulfill all the conditions of that definition. GCC also fulfills the Free software definition. Since this software package seems to satisfy both we must therefore look at some other facts to see which group this software appropriately belongs to.

Who started writing it and for what reason?
Richard Stallman did so that we could have more freedom. Not because he thought it simply had more technical merit to publish the code. So GCC would not exist if it were not for the philosophical base upon which it was started continues to rely on. GCC was not started because of any open source philosophy.

What about the name of the software package?
Humm, it appears to have the GNU name right at the beginning. I thus deduce that it is strongly involved with the Free software movement.

In the GCC mission statement it says that GCC is not only a Free software project, but more importanly that one of the main goals is Supporting the goals of the GNU project, as defined by the FSF. Not to mention that the copyright of GCC are kept by the Free Software Foundation.

You can make that group as broad as you want or as narrow as you want, but there is a happy medium where the label is non-offensive and clear to any and all that hear it .

First of all, when talking about open source software you are referring to all software that fulfills the open source definition. That is just as specific and narrow as Free software and the free software definition.
Regarding the non-offensive jib. There is absolutely nothing offensive about free software nor is there anything offensive about open source. Although I feel all warm inside whenever I hear about someone spending their lives work in defending and increasing my freedom in a non-violent manner.

Regarding the clarity of "Free software", that is something which is only a problem in the english speaking world. In most other languages the word for freed(dom) and the word for free(of charge) are different.
Open source is not quite as clear to a non insider of the computer idustry. Freedom is something generally a lot more meaningful then "open source(code)", since most people have no idea what source code is nor how it can be more open or closed but do have some grasp of the meaning of freedom. Many people have certainly heard of open source in the media and such but infer no real meaning from it, except perhaps that it "makes your computer go faster or something" (this is something which I have heard many people say when asked about what open source means to them). If you were to ask those same people if they cared about their freedom, I think you would get at least a little more intelligible answers. Going too narrow may provide more information but at a loss of understanding to your audience.

How can you fail to put across your meaning if you are being as specific, lengtly and clear about your explinations as possible?! This is just nonsense.

RMS is in error here, but not because he thinks that software designated Free Software ought not be referred to as Open Source software, but because he thinks that anyone cares.

Well, the government of my country seemed to care enough for the minestry of education to both endorse his visit and our local LUG (with money and other resources) and to hold a special ministry session were they listened to his recommendations and from that wrote a

First of all, it is true that if one only goes by the definition of open source then the GNU compiler collection does fulfill all the conditions of that definition. GCC also fulfills the Free software definition. Since this software package seems to satisfy both we must therefore look at some other facts to see which group this software appropriately belongs to.

Who started writing it and for what reason?
Richard Stallman did so that we could have more freedom. Not because he thought it simply had more technical merit to publish the code. So GCC would not exist if it were not for the philosophical base upon which it was started continues to rely on. GCC was not started because of any open source philosophy.

What about the name of the software package?
Humm, it appears to have the GNU name right at the beginning. I thus deduce that it is strongly involved with the Free software movement.

In the GCC mission statement it says that GCC is not only a Free software project, but more importanly that one of the main goals is Supporting the goals of the GNU project, as defined by the FSF. Not to mention that the copyright of GCC are kept by the Free Software Foundation.

You can make that group as broad as you want or as narrow as you want, but there is a happy medium where the label is non-offensive and clear to any and all that hear it .

First of all, when talking about open source software you are referring to all software that fulfills the open source definition. That is just as specific and narrow as Free software and the free software definition.
Regarding the non-offensive jib. There is absolutely nothing offensive about free software nor is there anything offensive about open source. Although I feel all warm inside whenever I hear about someone spending their lives work in defending and increasing my freedom in a non-violent manner.

Regarding the clarity of "Free software", that is something which is only a problem in the english speaking world. In most other languages the word for freed(dom) and the word for free(of charge) are different.
Open source is not quite as clear to a non insider of the computer idustry. Freedom is something generally a lot more meaningful then "open source(code)", since most people have no idea what source code is nor how it can be more open or closed but do have some grasp of the meaning of freedom. Many people have certainly heard of open source in the media and such but infer no real meaning from it, except perhaps that it "makes your computer go faster or something" (this is something which I have heard many people say when asked about what open source means to them). If you were to ask those same people if they cared about their freedom, I think you would get at least a little more intelligible answers. Going too narrow may provide more information but at a loss of understanding to your audience.

How can you fail to put across your meaning if you are being as specific, lengtly and clear about your explinations as possible?! This is just nonsense.

RMS is in error here, but not because he thinks that software designated Free Software ought not be referred to as Open Source software, but because he thinks that anyone cares.

Well, the government of my country seemed to care enough for the minestry of education to both endorse his visit and our local LUG (with money and other resources) and to hold a special ministry session were they listened to his recommendations and from that wrote a

GCC is like having a Home Depot down the street that gives their stuff away. For no cost, anyone can use these tools to create just about anything they want. It's pretty amazing, and fitting for Thanksgiving to show some appreciation, that we all have access to these incredible tools for free.

I agree, such free tools are pretty damned amazing. You should also thank the companies who allow their employees to work on free projects (IBM, SUSE and Red Hat at the minimum). Although I personally need to also thank the MingW32 folks for making GCC work well on Windows.

And while you're giving props to the GCC crowd (after you accept that they have some corporate interests), you should also thank Microsoft for their free tools:

(1) The Visual C++ command-line compiler is free.

(2) Visual Studio Express editions are free (C++ / C# / Visual Basic / J# with a full IDE).

Oh, and a big thankyou to Apple as well:

(3) Apple XCode development environment / compiler [GCC variant] is free.

And (as a hint) - if you embrace Microsoft's or Apple's platforms (instead of only Linux), there's a chance that J. Random user will actually be able to run your software (as literally nobody runs Linux except freaky zealots or college kids).

So it's wrong to sneak software Freedom in through a back door?

Free software would be just as free by any other name, but the Open Source movement doesn't work to get people to recognize and cherish software freedom in its own right. RMS is asking people to recognize that his work was done in pursuit of software freedom, not the developmental goals of the Open Source movement. By the way, GCC was initially developed well before the Open Source Initiative existed.

Open Source Software is software that is available also in source code format.

Not according to the first sentence of the introduction to the definition of the term "Open Source" as defined by the Open Source Initiative, which claims credit for coining the term and starting the Open Source movement. That definition tells us that "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.". I take it you mean to refer to the OSI's work since you cite them as an authority on the matter.

Here's a quote from opensource.org:

The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves.

That is a development methodology chiefly aimed at programmers, not a call for defending user's freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify software.

If the OSI is so sympathetic to software freedom, they shouldn't continue to call freedom-talk "ideological tub-thumping" in their FAQ and they shouldn't try to phrase Peruvian Congressman Villanueva's work as pursuit of "Open Source" when Villanueva explicitly told the Microsoft representative that he wanted to call attention to free software (as the OSI does on their front page). Villanueva told Microsoft that his bill doesn't call for "Open Source". Microsoft just uses that term to try and steer the conversation to matters Microsoft's people believe they can address better—price and reliability. Furthermore, I think RMS hit the nail on the head when he talked about the philosophical differences between the two movements and when Eben Moglen talks similarly in his speeches. If the OSI and its defenders are so sympathetic to software freedom, they should be fine with people explicitly engaging in freedom talk, not just (as you say) "inherently" agree with freedom talk but never mentioning it.

It's telling that in an instance where the preeminent Free Software movement advocate, RMS, writes a program to make software freedom a reality, and doing so well before there was an Open Source Initiative, Open Source advocates are arguing that it's okay to associate RMS' work with a movement he "is not against [...] but [doesn't] want to be lumped in with" (quoting his aforementioned essay). These admonitions suggest that even in cases like this one, the objective is to get everyone to remain silent about software freedom so that we can all get on with pleasing business and framing issues in terms of increasing developmental efficiency. I won't go along with that. I will continue to find the ethical and social examinations the Free Software movement raises far more compelling. And I will continue to associate what was initially RMS' work with the movement he started.

So it's wrong to sneak software Freedom in through a back door?

Free software would be just as free by any other name, but the Open Source movement doesn't work to get people to recognize and cherish software freedom in its own right. RMS is asking people to recognize that his work was done in pursuit of software freedom, not the developmental goals of the Open Source movement. By the way, GCC was initially developed well before the Open Source Initiative existed.

Open Source Software is software that is available also in source code format.

Not according to the first sentence of the introduction to the definition of the term "Open Source" as defined by the Open Source Initiative, which claims credit for coining the term and starting the Open Source movement. That definition tells us that "Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code.". I take it you mean to refer to the OSI's work since you cite them as an authority on the matter.

Here's a quote from opensource.org:

The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves.

That is a development methodology chiefly aimed at programmers, not a call for defending user's freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify software.

If the OSI is so sympathetic to software freedom, they shouldn't continue to call freedom-talk "ideological tub-thumping" in their FAQ and they shouldn't try to phrase Peruvian Congressman Villanueva's work as pursuit of "Open Source" when Villanueva explicitly told the Microsoft representative that he wanted to call attention to free software (as the OSI does on their front page). Villanueva told Microsoft that his bill doesn't call for "Open Source". Microsoft just uses that term to try and steer the conversation to matters Microsoft's people believe they can address better—price and reliability. Furthermore, I think RMS hit the nail on the head when he talked about the philosophical differences between the two movements and when Eben Moglen talks similarly in his speeches. If the OSI and its defenders are so sympathetic to software freedom, they should be fine with people explicitly engaging in freedom talk, not just (as you say) "inherently" agree with freedom talk but never mentioning it.

It's telling that in an instance where the preeminent Free Software movement advocate, RMS, writes a program to make software freedom a reality, and doing so well before there was an Open Source Initiative, Open Source advocates are arguing that it's okay to associate RMS' work with a movement he "is not against [...] but [doesn't] want to be lumped in with" (quoting his aforementioned essay). These admonitions suggest that even in cases like this one, the objective is to get everyone to remain silent about software freedom so that we can all get on with pleasing business and framing issues in terms of increasing developmental efficiency. I won't go along with that. I will continue to find the ethical and social examinations the Free Software movement raises far more compelling. And I will continue to associate what was initially RMS' work with the movement he started.

The "changes" document appears to just list the added features, changes in ABI, and changes in the language parsers. The GCC homepage has two links to their bugzilla system: serious regressions and all known regressions. Your bug *should* be in there somewhere.

The "changes" document appears to just list the added features, changes in ABI, and changes in the language parsers. The GCC homepage has two links to their bugzilla system: serious regressions and all known regressions. Your bug *should* be in there somewhere.

Please do take this in the supportive spirit in which it is intended. It's a letter from GCC's initial author, Richard Stallman (also founder of the free software movement) to a CNet article author who referred to GCC as an "open source" programming tool.

Quoting from that letter:

I appreciate the admiration expressed in your article about upgrading the GNU Compiler Collection, but it erred in describing the program as an "open source" programming tool. I developed GCC as part of the Free Software Movement--so that people can use computers in freedom as part of a community.

Free software means software that respects the users' freedom. The philosophy of the movement is that users of software should be free to run it, study it, change it, redistribute it and publish modified versions.

With these freedoms, you're free to engage in cooperative development; you're also free to develop it on your own or to redistribute it unchanged. Describing this as a "philosophy of cooperative development" emphasizes one beneficial consequence of freedom at the expense of freedom itself.

It was impossible in 1984 to use a computer in freedom, since all the operating systems were proprietary. So I launched the development of GNU, a free Unix-like operating system.

A Unix-like system must include a C compiler, so I wrote one: GCC. I designed it to handle other languages, also, so that GNU users could use more than one. GCC, like the GNU/Linux operating system in which GCC is a crucial part, exists because of the ideals of the Free Software Movement--the ideals that are forgotten when speaking of open source.

Of course, this is not a letter from RMS to you or directly pertaining to your article. However, I thought that it was worth mentioning in case people want to tell their friends about the new GCC release. It seems that people who frequent /. go to some length to make sure that they describe Linus Torvalds' initial authorship of the Linux kernel in a manner according to his chosen movement. I thought that the same respect should be due to RMS.

It looks like GCC will merge with LLVM. Follow the discussion thread to see key GCC developers agree to the many benefits of using LLVM. And even if LLVM is not folded into GCC, Apple plans to use LLVM as its backend anyway.

It looks like GCC will merge with LLVM. Follow the discussion thread to see key GCC developers agree to the many benefits of using LLVM. And even if LLVM is not folded into GCC, Apple plans to use LLVM as its backend anyway.

It looks like GCC will merge with LLVM. Follow the discussion thread to see key GCC developers agree to the many benefits of using LLVM. And even if LLVM is not folded into GCC, Apple plans to use LLVM as its backend anyway.