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For those interested, see the "About the GNU GPL" section to learn why the GPL isn't "viral". Brave GNU World

Freedom concerning software or source code and access to source code should not be confused. Allowing inspection of source code by those outside could be beneficial. However, there would be issues such as whether being able to see only parts of the source would be sufficient or whether the source provided for inspection was secretly altered (would the inspectors be able to actually try out the code personally? What exactly would they be allowed to do with the code?) Hopefully this would not lead to a false sense of security. One problem is that some individuals might feel bitter because only a few individuals outside the company received the privilege of inspecting the source code.

The Open Source Initiative company has talked about how problems could arise from a source-access program such as "Shared Source." Namely, these problems would be copyright and trade secret issues if developers viewed the proprietary source code and then produced competing software. It might be necessary to carefully keep track of who has accessed the provided source. They also mention that those inspecting the source code could end up serving as "free labor" for the company that produced the code.

For freedom, free software (free as in free speech) or open source software (under the OSI definition) would be a much better choice.

Others have already addressed much of what you write, so I'll spend time on some other parts.

RMS is a zelot in the worst sense of the word. He feels that any none GPL'd software is immoral.

Please cite a source which shows RMS saying that non-GPL'd software is immoral. RMS says that non-free software is immoral (and he makes a case for this, he does not let the statement hang without justification; the entire story of free software speech he's given on numerous occassions lay out his argument). There are many free software licenses besides the GNU General Public License.

Lets not go into his OCD about Linux being called GNU Linux.

Why not? Because we might discover that it is not obsessive compulsive disorder at all but actually a request aimed at giving credit where credit is due? Or debunking the idea that it is a self-promotional ego trip (nobody is asking you to call the system "Stallmanix" or somesuch)? Or requesting but not requiring that GNU get a share of the credit being given to Linus Torvalds (who is apparently unwilling to correct people who give him credit for work he did not do)?

Or the fact that he wastes interviews where he could be a spokesperson for OpenSource with the Linux is not an OS... GNULinux is...

He has taken many opportunities to tell people in no uncertain terms that he is not a member of the open source movement and he does not represent that movement. One of them appears in the essay where he lays out the differences between the two movements. He has also written to Dr. Dobb's magazine and spoken on this issue at the moment the misunderstanding occurred.

Others have already addressed much of what you write, so I'll spend time on some other parts.

RMS is a zelot in the worst sense of the word. He feels that any none GPL'd software is immoral.

Please cite a source which shows RMS saying that non-GPL'd software is immoral. RMS says that non-free software is immoral (and he makes a case for this, he does not let the statement hang without justification; the entire story of free software speech he's given on numerous occassions lay out his argument). There are many free software licenses besides the GNU General Public License.

Lets not go into his OCD about Linux being called GNU Linux.

Why not? Because we might discover that it is not obsessive compulsive disorder at all but actually a request aimed at giving credit where credit is due? Or debunking the idea that it is a self-promotional ego trip (nobody is asking you to call the system "Stallmanix" or somesuch)? Or requesting but not requiring that GNU get a share of the credit being given to Linus Torvalds (who is apparently unwilling to correct people who give him credit for work he did not do)?

Or the fact that he wastes interviews where he could be a spokesperson for OpenSource with the Linux is not an OS... GNULinux is...

He has taken many opportunities to tell people in no uncertain terms that he is not a member of the open source movement and he does not represent that movement. One of them appears in the essay where he lays out the differences between the two movements. He has also written to Dr. Dobb's magazine and spoken on this issue at the moment the misunderstanding occurred.

Others have already addressed much of what you write, so I'll spend time on some other parts.

RMS is a zelot in the worst sense of the word. He feels that any none GPL'd software is immoral.

Please cite a source which shows RMS saying that non-GPL'd software is immoral. RMS says that non-free software is immoral (and he makes a case for this, he does not let the statement hang without justification; the entire story of free software speech he's given on numerous occassions lay out his argument). There are many free software licenses besides the GNU General Public License.

Lets not go into his OCD about Linux being called GNU Linux.

Why not? Because we might discover that it is not obsessive compulsive disorder at all but actually a request aimed at giving credit where credit is due? Or debunking the idea that it is a self-promotional ego trip (nobody is asking you to call the system "Stallmanix" or somesuch)? Or requesting but not requiring that GNU get a share of the credit being given to Linus Torvalds (who is apparently unwilling to correct people who give him credit for work he did not do)?

Or the fact that he wastes interviews where he could be a spokesperson for OpenSource with the Linux is not an OS... GNULinux is...

He has taken many opportunities to tell people in no uncertain terms that he is not a member of the open source movement and he does not represent that movement. One of them appears in the essay where he lays out the differences between the two movements. He has also written to Dr. Dobb's magazine and spoken on this issue at the moment the misunderstanding occurred.

Others have already addressed much of what you write, so I'll spend time on some other parts.

RMS is a zelot in the worst sense of the word. He feels that any none GPL'd software is immoral.

Please cite a source which shows RMS saying that non-GPL'd software is immoral. RMS says that non-free software is immoral (and he makes a case for this, he does not let the statement hang without justification; the entire story of free software speech he's given on numerous occassions lay out his argument). There are many free software licenses besides the GNU General Public License.

Lets not go into his OCD about Linux being called GNU Linux.

Why not? Because we might discover that it is not obsessive compulsive disorder at all but actually a request aimed at giving credit where credit is due? Or debunking the idea that it is a self-promotional ego trip (nobody is asking you to call the system "Stallmanix" or somesuch)? Or requesting but not requiring that GNU get a share of the credit being given to Linus Torvalds (who is apparently unwilling to correct people who give him credit for work he did not do)?

Or the fact that he wastes interviews where he could be a spokesperson for OpenSource with the Linux is not an OS... GNULinux is...

He has taken many opportunities to tell people in no uncertain terms that he is not a member of the open source movement and he does not represent that movement. One of them appears in the essay where he lays out the differences between the two movements. He has also written to Dr. Dobb's magazine and spoken on this issue at the moment the misunderstanding occurred.

Others have already addressed much of what you write, so I'll spend time on some other parts.

RMS is a zelot in the worst sense of the word. He feels that any none GPL'd software is immoral.

Please cite a source which shows RMS saying that non-GPL'd software is immoral. RMS says that non-free software is immoral (and he makes a case for this, he does not let the statement hang without justification; the entire story of free software speech he's given on numerous occassions lay out his argument). There are many free software licenses besides the GNU General Public License.

Lets not go into his OCD about Linux being called GNU Linux.

Why not? Because we might discover that it is not obsessive compulsive disorder at all but actually a request aimed at giving credit where credit is due? Or debunking the idea that it is a self-promotional ego trip (nobody is asking you to call the system "Stallmanix" or somesuch)? Or requesting but not requiring that GNU get a share of the credit being given to Linus Torvalds (who is apparently unwilling to correct people who give him credit for work he did not do)?

Or the fact that he wastes interviews where he could be a spokesperson for OpenSource with the Linux is not an OS... GNULinux is...

He has taken many opportunities to tell people in no uncertain terms that he is not a member of the open source movement and he does not represent that movement. One of them appears in the essay where he lays out the differences between the two movements. He has also written to Dr. Dobb's magazine and spoken on this issue at the moment the misunderstanding occurred.

Others have already addressed much of what you write, so I'll spend time on some other parts.

RMS is a zelot in the worst sense of the word. He feels that any none GPL'd software is immoral.

Please cite a source which shows RMS saying that non-GPL'd software is immoral. RMS says that non-free software is immoral (and he makes a case for this, he does not let the statement hang without justification; the entire story of free software speech he's given on numerous occassions lay out his argument). There are many free software licenses besides the GNU General Public License.

Lets not go into his OCD about Linux being called GNU Linux.

Why not? Because we might discover that it is not obsessive compulsive disorder at all but actually a request aimed at giving credit where credit is due? Or debunking the idea that it is a self-promotional ego trip (nobody is asking you to call the system "Stallmanix" or somesuch)? Or requesting but not requiring that GNU get a share of the credit being given to Linus Torvalds (who is apparently unwilling to correct people who give him credit for work he did not do)?

Or the fact that he wastes interviews where he could be a spokesperson for OpenSource with the Linux is not an OS... GNULinux is...

He has taken many opportunities to tell people in no uncertain terms that he is not a member of the open source movement and he does not represent that movement. One of them appears in the essay where he lays out the differences between the two movements. He has also written to Dr. Dobb's magazine and spoken on this issue at the moment the misunderstanding occurred.

Amazon sues Barnes&Noble over 1-click

PHP License, Version 3.0

This license is used by most of PHP4. It is a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible with the GNU GPL.

We recommend that you not use this license for anything except PHP add-ons.

The point was that if you do use GPL software, GPL is less free because it compels a course of action in order to use it.

No it doesn't. You do not have to accept the GPL in order to use GPL-licensed software. RTFL:

0. Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted...

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works.

Thanks for playing.

What? How does "as in speech" make your point here? I don't even see how it's related.

There are restrictions on both -- in the US, freedom of speech is not an absolute. Under the GNU GPL, your freedom to share and modify comes with a proviso that you cannot deny recipients of distributed derivatives or verbatim copies the freedoms to share and modify the program.

[...] it's a bit disingenuous to try to convince someone that a more restrictive license is somehow more "free".

Not at all. The FSF uses driving a car to help understand why restricting some freedoms are necessary to preserve others; I'll attempt to paraphrase it briefly: we cannot have all possible freedoms because some conflict. So we make choices and give up some freedoms to keep other freedoms. For instance, we are not allowed to drive anywhere we want at any speed we want. We are not allowed to drive on the sidewalks and we are not allowed to disobey the speed limit. Our freedom to do these things is curtailed because other freedoms are deemed more valuable -- the freedom to walk down the street in safety. The GNU project is about spreading software freedom to more people, so this requires a copyright license which doesn't allow anyone to strip away the freedoms of free software. Hence the GNU GPL (the license under which a lot of the GNU project's programs are distributed) has a strong copyleft.

The FSF argues, quite convincingly, that the ability to restrict what others can do with computer programs is a power not a freedom because "Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom.".

I don't think any free software advocate would object to the use of the new BSD license. Such programs are a gift to everyone, and therein lies the rub. Free software advocates warn against using non-copyleft free software licenses (such as the new BSD license) under most circumstances because doing so has some noteworthy practical problems (like competing against a derivative of one's own code) and because it means treating businesses like charities.

Why should I really care what ESR or RMS thinks about the software I choose to use?

Because they are saying very different things about software and, as a result, they reach different conclusions on some of the most interesting debates about software and how people should be treated.

I mean all this talk about freedom shouldn't I have the right to choose what software I use?

Freedom of choice is deceptively attractive because people who focus on choice can easily be undermined. Consider web browsers, for instance: if we only had 3 browsers to choose from (say, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Netscape) choice would be satisfied. We would not have software freedom, however, because none of those browsers are free software. They are all proprietary programs. Choice is not bad to have but it is not the heart of either the free software or open source philosophies and choice alone will not bring you the ability to share and modify software.

Shouldn't I also have the right to choose how I want to release any software I write? If I want to GPL it great, If I want to BSD it that is good also. If I want to charge ONE BILLION DOLLARS for it well then it is my work and if you do not like it write it yourself.

Nobody is challenging these powers (certainly not any free software or open source advocate). But there are significant differences between the two licenses you mention, so it is important to help people make informed decisions.

I repeat: READ THE GPL BEFORE COMMENTING ABOUT IT!!!

I repeat: READ THE GPL BEFORE COMMENTING ABOUT IT!!!

I repeat: READ THE GPL BEFORE COMMENTING ABOUT IT!!!

I repeat: READ THE GPL BEFORE COMMENTING ABOUT IT!!!

I repeat: READ THE GPL BEFORE COMMENTING ABOUT IT!!!

I repeat: READ THE GPL BEFORE COMMENTING ABOUT IT!!!

The iPod acts like a regular hard drive in an enclosure. There is no need to have iTunes or even a Mac or a Windows box. You can access the filesystem directly and copy your files over.

As far as I know, though an iPod unit's hard drive will store any files, its music player will recognize only those files that have been added to the player's database. Last time I checked, Apple provides no Linux software to update the database nor technical specifications to help the free software community create such software. I'm not so sure that the reverse engineers who developed and published GNUpod will always be able to keep up with the database format changes that come with each new version of iPod firmware.

There are freely available m4a and mp3 encoders out there

It's illegal to use LAME in the United States of America because nobody paid RCA. AAC (the codec used in .m4a files) is also patented. What other lossy format can the iPod play, and no, I don't mean severely downsampled mono AIFF/WAV?

how exactly does the iPod lock you into any platform you don't want to use?

Does the iTunes software run under Wine?

What DRM, aside from the music store?

There exist exclusive rights other than copyrights, such as the trade secret rights and anti-circumvention rights encumbering the format of the internal database and the patent rights encumbering both lossy codecs that the iPod can play.

Funny how putting people out of work is only bad when MS does it. If a bunch of college kids do it in the name of 'free software' it's just peachy.

Right now, I have found a interface feature which i believe would benifit natalus (the windows/mac file browsers too, but they are not of my concern). I realized the need, and thought of the idea. Now did i implement it? Hell no. I'm not about to spend all that time searching through the natalus source code, and coding in my idea, just to have it not be compatible with the next release.

What did I do? I wrote a letter, stating my idea, and am sending that...

What will become of this idea? well i sent a letter, and theres a good chance that the first person wont like it, or wont catch what i was intending if i didn't write my letter elegantly.

If anything happens to it, the next probability is that it gets passed to a bunch of developers, who will argue wether it is the optimum.

What's the alternative? Well, what if the visiable objects were accessable via a scripting language? A language that i could build a new interface to my applications on the fly, as it was running? This is what i've been waiting to see from gnome since i first heard of gnomes CORBA base. guile-scheme (the GNU choice for "extention langage" - see http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html)

But my point of this article is not to prop scheme. It's that by makeing interface design easier to change, that you'll get more moddifications & testing by the users.

Beyond just having the hooks in the scripting language, the next step in reducing teh cost of makeing new interfaces would be to have a builder for all the commonly implemented components. This wouldn't let you do everything you could want (and most of what I usually want) in a interface, but for some people who just want to move a button, this would be a godsend to the end users that can't even figure how to use a interpeted langauge.

Think of building the interface as a activity of the end user, not something to find your optimum interface via sets of prefabricated rules.

(remember... not all "open source" software is free, it simply means the source code is viewable; like java.)

(remember... not all "open source" software is free, it simply means the source code is viewable; like java.)

I am on a notebook that is compiled for a 386 enviroment so I cannot be of any use for compiling this code for a 586 enviroment. However, I would not regard that as a straight up gpl violation, so much as lazy packaging.
here is one instance of linphonecore.h

and here is osipua.h

it is also worth noting: That there have been issues getting linephone 0.8 working, thanks to the latter file.

good luck, and I hope someone with the right enviroment can compile this. :-)

From the article:

OSS procurement "should be based on merits, value for money, transparency, security and interoperability."

And this is why this switch will probably not last long. The open source movement does not champion software freedom, and authors of the Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Software Masterplan have apparently learned this. The Free Software Foundation warns against this kind of thinking:

The main argument for the term ``open source software'' is that ``free software'' makes some people uneasy. That's true: talking about freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as convenience, is asking people to think about things they might rather ignore. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may reject the idea for that. It does not follow that society would be better off if we stop talking about these things.

Years ago, free software developers noticed this discomfort reaction, and some started exploring an approach for avoiding it. They figured that by keeping quiet about ethics and freedom, and talking only about the immediate practical benefits of certain free software, they might be able to ``sell'' the software more effectively to certain users, especially business. The term ``open source'' is offered as a way of doing more of this--a way to be ``more acceptable to business.'' The views and values of the Open Source movement stem from this decision.

This approach has proved effective, in its own terms. Today many people are switching to free software for purely practical reasons. That is good, as far as it goes, but that isn't all we need to do! Attracting users to free software is not the whole job, just the first step.

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.

These users will undoubtedly discover that there are some "open source" programs are better than their proprietary alternatives. But they will also discover the opposite. As people are willing to allow more proprietary software into their lives, the move to anything else will be unpleasant and less likely to occur. When people learn to value the freedom of sharing and modifying programs they will look at proprietary software differently, as a real let-down.

Nope

I use stow for things which are not available via packages. It's not as intrusive as installing custom baked packages and much cleaner than installing somewhere under /usr/local or /opt because you don't have to rely on a make uninstall or clutter these directories with subdirs.

Ironic that the program used by this guy to analyze the intelligence of users based on diction, has misspelled 'sentence' on their webpage. Screenshot of typo. Funny!

You people should really spend more time getting to know what free software is all about. It is getting old seeing OSS advocates misquoting the GPL and other facts about OSS organizaitions. I suggest you read this page entitled Why the FSF gets copyright assignments from contributors

A quick excerpt:

In order to make sure that all of our copyrights can meet the recordkeeping and other requirements of registration, and in order to be able to enforce the GPL most effectively, FSF requires that each author of code incorporated in FSF projects provide a copyright assignment, and, where appropriate, a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer. That way we can be sure that all the code in FSF projects is free code, whose freedom we can most effectively protect, and therefore on which other developers can completely rely.

"In the business world, and a lot of artistic areas too, when you are hired to do a job you relinquish copyright almost every single time. Whatever I do for my company is owned by my company."

Because you have explicitly agreed to those terms. I've done work where I haven't relinquished copyright because the client didn't want to pay a fair "work for hire" rate. We negotiated other terms, they paid a lower rate, they were happy, I was able to use the software for other clients. I generally retain the copyright in certain types of projects and assign the client a right to use, sometimes with source.

"I still don't get why it has to be different with photography."

It's not different. It's just that the majority of software work is work for hire. There are a lot of salaried photographers that work under similar terms. Basically it boils down to a photographer has to make ZZZZZ for a job to be profitable. They split it in XXXX upfront costs and YYYY reprint costs. If they don't make the YYYY the upfront costs now become XXXX+YYYY and you have to deal with the hassle of getting reprints for relatives and guests that ask for them.

"Yes, I asked you your view of my wedding. I'm f#$%ing paying you for it, so at the end it should be mine. Which doesn't mean you can't get credit for it."

Yes your paying me for my view of your wedding but in the form of an album and prints. You own the prints and albums. You want to burn them, feel free. You want to copy them and distribute them without asking and getting permission that's another matter. When you hire someone to write a book for you, do you have the write to all the intermediate steps? the research? the little notes on cocktail napkins? the crumpled pile of work that didn't make it sitting in the corner? Also keep in mind with books, distribution is negotiated seperately in many cases.

"When you hire a contractor, they don't leave with the furniture they built. When you hire a portrait painter, they leave you the frame. When you hire a software engineer, they don't leave with their code."

Contractor, true but you don't have the right to make replicas of his design. Portrait painter, yes you get the frame but you still don't have the right to reproduce it. Software, sometimes they do, but the big issue is, when you buy prepackaged software you don't. You pay less for it. What people want is the cheaper solution with the benefits of the higher priced one. This isn't like software, I can't make it up in "support services". Even with software I don't want to make it up in support. I like developing and not supporting, would rather make my money doing what I like, not what I have to do to be able to do what I like.

"So why when we hire a photographer he leaves with the pictures!"

No, he doesn't leave with the pictures, you get the

So people keep saying, but I don't really see much evidence. You must have heard of gcj and GNU Classpath? What about IBM Eclipse and SWT?

These all address various "issues" that people have with plain Sun Java and tools.

I think Miguel's decision to go for a .NET clone had a lot to do with his personal admiration of Microsoft. Couple that with the fact that Microsoft is pushing .NET heavily as the new official way to develop for Windows, you get the Linux zealots and the Windows people together, hence the apparent explosion in popularity. I say apparent because the hype is bigger than the statistics.

So people keep saying, but I don't really see much evidence. You must have heard of gcj and GNU Classpath? What about IBM Eclipse and SWT?

These all address various "issues" that people have with plain Sun Java and tools.

I think Miguel's decision to go for a .NET clone had a lot to do with his personal admiration of Microsoft. Couple that with the fact that Microsoft is pushing .NET heavily as the new official way to develop for Windows, you get the Linux zealots and the Windows people together, hence the apparent explosion in popularity. I say apparent because the hype is bigger than the statistics.

intellectual property is this countries largest export and it will be the basis of the future economy of the world

Dear fucking god, some people actually think this will be a viable method for sustaining wealth when our manufacuring industries are gone? Will the third world not be capable of generating their own "intellectual property"? You couldn't pay me to sit through 95% of the garbage churned out by film studios and record labels, best not even mention TV programming. How western civilization is expected to survive by producing such trite is beyond me.

1. VIM
2. OpenSSH
3. Cronhttp://www.unixgeeks.org/security/newbie/unix/ cron-1.html
4. Bash
5. Perl
6. TightVNC

1. VIM
2. OpenSSH
3. Cronhttp://www.unixgeeks.org/security/newbie/unix/ cron-1.html
4. Bash
5. Perl
6. TightVNC

You don't want just any old 'ls', you want the GNU Fileutils. The native versions on most other Un*x's are horrible in comparison. 'less' on Solaris is (was) horribly broken.

Life is so much more readable and organized with 'ls --color' and 'mv --verbose', the sensable scrolling commands of GNU less (In comparison to 'less' on Solaris).

Whilst you are correct this works for non-interactive processes, you can't use nohup to keep a copy of say, Lynx, running when you logout. Then return to it later and pick off where you left it.

Instead you should look at GNU Screen which allows this and more.

(It's essentially a windowing system for consoles, with the ability to detach and resume at will, and definately one of my top ten Unix utilities).

Here is one Screen tutorial which explains basic operation well.

"Ed is the standard text editor."

And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

golem$ ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hell o?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.

"Ed is the standard text editor."

Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

This one is pretty neat. It's quite challenging, but I'm still learning all the keyboard combos.

This doesn't matter because the CeCILL license says the program can be relicenced under the GPL in paragraph 5.

1. CeCILL removes rights from the user and requires agreement so it is a contract, not a license (see this post). (Actually it seems to be an illegal contract which violates the European directive on contract law.) To be a "compatible license" it must actually be a license.
2. Assuming it is a valid license (which it isn't), the CeCILL only invokes the compatibility clause (5.3.4) "[i]n the event that the Modified or unmodified Software includes code that is subject to the GPL"; i.e.: it itself says that it only attempts to be GNU-GPL-compatible in cases where the original person to put the software under CeCILL included already GNU-GPL-ed software under CeCILL (i.e.: where the person who put it under CeCILL committed copyright infringement (aka "piracy") on GNU-GPL-ed software--assuming the software they used was only available under the GNU GPL).
3. Most importantly; assuming the CeCILL itself allows merging with GNU-GPL-ed code (which it doesn't); because CeCILL puts many additional restrictions (e.g.: on agreement, running the prgram, downloading the program) on the user (even going so far as attempting to remove the user's pre-existing natural rights), regardless of whether it would violate the CeCILL, it would be "violating" the GNU GPL to link/join/merge exclusively GNU-GPL-ed software with exclusively CeCILL-ed software.
4. Software covered by the CeCILL exclusively does not seem to conform to the FSF free-software definition (or the DFSG or the OSD), therefore can never be likned with copylefted (e.g.: GNU-GPL-ed software).

Article 13 of the English translation says: "The Agreement is governed by French law. ... In the absence of an out-of-court settlement within two (2) months as from their occurrence, and unless emergency proceedings are necessary, the disagreements or disputes shall be referred to the Paris Courts having jurisdiction, by the first Party to take action."

This is very clearly a restriction the GPL does not make (it doesn't define any court having jurisdiction), and the GPL says that no additional restrictions may be added to a GPL'ed program. Defining which law governs the interpretation of the license is exactly why the license of Python 1.6b1 and later versions through 2.1 is not considered GPL-compatible by the FSF.

I haven't read the rest of the license in detail, but given that they didn't even get this one right, which has been a problem with one quite well-known project's license before, I don't have too high hopes...

The licensee shall be deemed as having accepted the terms and conditions of this Agreement by the occurrence of the first of the following events:

- (i) loading the Software by any or all means, notably, by downloading from a remote server, or by loading from a physical medium;

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.

Don't say this aloud, but the GPL is not worth the bits it's written on in France. The FSF states very good reasons not to translate the GPL in other languages, but in France if a contract is not in French, it's not worth anything. There is a law about this, maybe someone will provide a link (sorry my French is not that good).

I was told this by people that have been working on the subject---I help out the KDE-i18n-it team, and the issue of translating the GPL surfaces every now and then, and one point made is what I reported here.

I would really like to know whether this separate licence you mention is in French, any chances you find it?

You should report this to the FSF.

Violations of the GPL, LGPL, and GFDL

WTF are you talking about?

Try this post, on the GCC mailing list, to start with.

The GFDL seems full of arbitrary-seeming and overcomplicated rules about "Cover texts", "Back-Cover texts", "Invariant sections" and so forth that are difficult to 1) understand the reasoning behind and 2) adhere to properly. Read it yourself here. It's also requires you to give credit to the "principal authors", whom exactly that would be for a given wikipedia page is impossible to tell with legal certainty. It just doesn't seem appropriate for something like the wikipedia.

Does that mean I could take some articles [. . .], put it into print [. . .], and profit off of it[. . .]?

And if so, what's stopping anybody from doing it in the first place [. . .]?

Does that mean I could take some articles [. . .], put it into print [. . .], and profit off of it[. . .]?

And if so, what's stopping anybody from doing it in the first place [. . .]?

Seems like it'll take some work to find an OSS-supporting group that can't accept tax deductable donations.

The FSF asks that you not lump their work in with "open source". Considering that their work predates the open source movement by many years and is philosophically distinct, I think it would be reasonable to honor that request. Perhaps this list is better left as "a few of our other favorite groups".

Lots of people are saying you can't build the chip yourself. That's not exactly true.

Go through CMP and you can get say the AMS C35B4C3, a 0.35um 4 metal, 2 poly CMOS process, for 650 Euro/mm2. I'm sure lots of people will cringe at the 0.35um, saying that it is ancient. Well, maybe in digital terms, but it is quite nice for analogue/mixed chips imo. 0.8um is still around (290 euro/mm2)!

Alternatively, if you are part of an Educational Institution or Research Laboratory, how about the ST Microlelectronics 0.18um CMOS process for 990 euro/mm2?

Now get hold of a copy of Electric some spice or other and learn how to design design electronic circuits. geda may also be of interest.

That last step might take a while.

Design your chip, submit it to CMP, wait three or four months and you'll get it back. Now go on to do what the other comments are talking about with pin hole cameras etc.

Let's do a rough price breakdown. Suppose you want VGA (640x480) in grey scale. Let's also suppose you can get your pixel element down to 5um*5um (which would be quite small imho). This gives:

Width: 640*5um + 2*400um = 4mm

Height: 480*5um + 2*400um = 3.2mm

The 400um gaps are for the pads on each side. This doesn't include any other electronics, so let's just say it is 4mm*4mm = 16mm2.

You need packaging as well and are probably limited to JLCC packages because it needs to be exposed to the light. Let's assume a JLCC68 package. You get 20 chips back and each package costs 48 euro.

So, 16*650 + 20*48 = 11360 euro. Put another way, 568 euro per chip. Don't forget to add VAT if you pay it. For the UK, this means 9343 or 476/chip.

Now consider that 16mm2 is still a small chip (and colour would be at least 3 times larger). If you have access to a webcam and can get inside it to look at the light sensitive area, measure it and figure out how much it would cost!

Cheers,

Roger