Slashdot Mirror

"Unless of course she went to the trouble of releasing it gpl it's pretty much copyrighted by default as I understand the laws".

To copyleft a program, we first state that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms, which are a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the program's code or any program derived from it but only if the distribution terms are unchanged.

But I'm willing to make exceptions for Britney Spears.

(for the sarcasm impaired: Stealing Britney Spears music would mean she wouldn't have the master tapes anymore, which would mean none of you would ever have to listen to it again. Wouldn't that be nice?)

Now, violating copyright, that's something I can get behind.

I think I will go read a book now.

When I first read Stallman's story The Right to Read, I thought it was quite far-fetched, but considering events of the six years since it was published, it now seems like a legitimate concern.

If they're going to market to businesses, they really should be more mature than this...

Marconi never knew what he was getting us into.

Your analogy is wrong. If there were a way to miracelously duplicate eggs, then you needn't to have a law distributing eggs, and the price of eggs would have been lowered to the cost of duplication. This is a good thing. There is no sense in creating eggs from hens, if eggs could be easily duplicated. This happens all the time when new technology(I'll ignore patents for now) comes along, making old production techniques obsolete.

In the case of creative works, there is a problem. There is a demand for many different creative works, and thus the original authors must be compensated somehow in order to encourage the creation of works in the first place. However, this encouragement should be the minimum that is required for the work to be created. There is no sense in giving more encouragment to the author, as it serves to discourage him/her from creating additional new works.

For more about this opinion, see Richard Stallman's "Misinterpreting Copyright", especially the section about "balance".

It's a work in progress, but it's there (link)

You are right about Richard Stallman being a zealot, and about him accepting money for programming and not having a problem with that.

You are wrong about everything else. If you had read anything on the Gnu Project Website, you would know that Open Source Software is not Free Software and why that distinction is important. You might say "Important to Richard Stallman" and you woudl be correct and in good company, but I and probably many others think it is important to keep one's terms correct and understand subtle differences in such terms. At least if you are trying to attribute beliefs to someone, take a few pains to at least be sure you understand what their beliefs are. Richard Stallman is most certainly not and advocate of Open Source, but he is of Free Software, and there is a very important reason to call it "Free as in speech," because it is that very freedom he is most concerned about.

And though he does have many explanations of his positions, and has gone on about them at length to anyone who will listen, there are still people (even *gasp!* on slashdot) who are completely ignorant of his basic ideas and philosophies. Really, the articles I linked to aren't that long, and you really have only to skim them to realize the gist.

You are right about Richard Stallman being a zealot, and about him accepting money for programming and not having a problem with that.

You are wrong about everything else. If you had read anything on the Gnu Project Website, you would know that Open Source Software is not Free Software and why that distinction is important. You might say "Important to Richard Stallman" and you woudl be correct and in good company, but I and probably many others think it is important to keep one's terms correct and understand subtle differences in such terms. At least if you are trying to attribute beliefs to someone, take a few pains to at least be sure you understand what their beliefs are. Richard Stallman is most certainly not and advocate of Open Source, but he is of Free Software, and there is a very important reason to call it "Free as in speech," because it is that very freedom he is most concerned about.

And though he does have many explanations of his positions, and has gone on about them at length to anyone who will listen, there are still people (even *gasp!* on slashdot) who are completely ignorant of his basic ideas and philosophies. Really, the articles I linked to aren't that long, and you really have only to skim them to realize the gist.

You are right about Richard Stallman being a zealot, and about him accepting money for programming and not having a problem with that.

You are wrong about everything else. If you had read anything on the Gnu Project Website, you would know that Open Source Software is not Free Software and why that distinction is important. You might say "Important to Richard Stallman" and you woudl be correct and in good company, but I and probably many others think it is important to keep one's terms correct and understand subtle differences in such terms. At least if you are trying to attribute beliefs to someone, take a few pains to at least be sure you understand what their beliefs are. Richard Stallman is most certainly not and advocate of Open Source, but he is of Free Software, and there is a very important reason to call it "Free as in speech," because it is that very freedom he is most concerned about.

And though he does have many explanations of his positions, and has gone on about them at length to anyone who will listen, there are still people (even *gasp!* on slashdot) who are completely ignorant of his basic ideas and philosophies. Really, the articles I linked to aren't that long, and you really have only to skim them to realize the gist.

Or find one that already exists, is well supported and is widely used.

What they should do is remove any legal weight from clauses along the lines of "This software comes with no warranty of any kind, including fitness for any particular purpose..."

Take a look at sections 11 and 12 of the GPL. Or how about the FreeBSD license?

Someone should buy one of these for ESR with RMS on it.

imho, the world's gone to hell in a handbasket when an open source project worries about its brand identity. Stick to writing solid, standards-compliant code and let the community take care of promotion, imho.

Quibbling about whether to call it Phoenix, Mozilla Phoenix or Mozilla is a waste of everyone's time, and when you compose documents like this, you usually find yourself on the receiving end of a large flame attack.

"Why Do People Write Open Source Software?"

They don't. They write Free Software.

Remember, true geeks say it GNU/Linux.

er... Mozilla Firebird

er... Mozilla Browser

B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities
responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified
Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the
Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five),
unless they release you from this requirement.

Any publication in standard (paper) book form shall require the citation
of the original publisher and author. The publisher and author's names
shall appear on all outer surfaces of the book. On all outer surfaces of
the book the original publisher's name shall be as large as the title of
the work and cited as possessive with respect to the title.

No such thing. I suggest you read up a bit more on the history of the open-source movement (or try C-h C-p in your emacs window). Open source was political before the first GPL, back when it was still just a gleam in RMS's eye. And without GNU, once (that is, if) Linus was able to compile his first kernel, he would have had no software to run with it.

If you think the freedoms you have (to code, to compile, to speak, to think) are not the direct result of someone else's politicization some 2, 20, or 200 years ago, then you are sorely mistaken. Similarly, it is our politicization that will preserve those freedoms for our children and grandchildren.

Or not.

-renard

I agree with your overall point, but not everything you said. If we are speaking purely about innovation, then I think that open-source can be quite innovative. EROS works towards an orthagonally-persistant server operating system. Squeak is doing a tremendous amount of multimedia work and research on how to make programming literally simple enough for kids. HURD actually does a very nice job improving on the whole idea of Unix, if you study how it would be used in an ideal world. ReiserFS 4 could be a true revolution in file-system design by assigning no penalty to having millions of extremely small files. Although all of these projects leverage existing technologies, all of them want to take those technologies to what, at least in my opinion, are clearly innovative directions. Perhaps they are not always revolutions, but they are certainly radical evolution.

The problem is that there is that the open-source community never quite manages to turn any of these ideas into actual, practical products. Most people haven't heard of EROS or Squeak. HURD sits perpetually half-finished on a horrible microkernel that it should have left years ago, and efforts to move it to L4 have stalled. When ReiserFS gets here, it will likely be years, if ever, before Linux actually takes advantage of its filesystem approach and obsoletes a million text files. Open-source frequently even has trouble matching truly innovative ideas that do make it main-stream elsewhere. There is, as far as I know, no real open-source equivalent to the QuickTime multimedia architecture (not talking about the movie format; I'm talking about the API) (Mac System 7), Quartz (OS X) or QuickDraw GX (Sytem 7.5), OpenDoc (OS/2 Warp), V-Twin content searching (Mac OS 8.1), live queries (BeOS), register-based virtual machines (Tao Group; in open-source defense, Parrot is indeed a register-based virtual machine, although still lightyears behind Tao's 1993 design)... I could go on, but you get the point.

There are, I think, two reasons for these shortcomings. First, open-source seems incredibly forcused on replacing existing solutions. If that's going to be your focus, then you don't have room to be innovative; compatibility is all that matters, and compatibility inherently means that your innovation options are limited. You can't throw out X11, Unix permissions and configuration files, and classic GUI programming if you want to replace a Sun box verbaitim. That requires gusto and the confidence to say, "I'm going to do that very differently, but this way is better." So why doesn't the open-source community do that? Because it's hard to get a large number of developers willing to spend time on something so radical when they don't have any marketing. Getting out a new paradigm is hard. People get set in their ways. Selling someone on the idea that applications are an obsolete metaphor, or that instead of using a database package, they should use the filesystem directly, can take years, and because open-source developers work as a hobby, they figure that if no one will use their idea anyway, there's never any incentive to polish off those innovative ideas to the point where they're usable. Hence a chicken-and-egg problem built into the system. The best you can hope for are minor improvements on existing ideas, ad nauseum.

Open-source can be innovative. It's just implementing those ideas that trips things up.

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
* a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* 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.)

Yes, because 3.08 fixed the last bug.

Yes, the BSD-license allows proprietary developers to club their users over the head. The GPL does not. One is anarchistic in that regard, the other is not.

If I release something BSD, someone can come along and change it so me or my friends don't have access to it any more?

What I'm saying is that you won't necessarily have access to the source of modifications/additions on your code. Whereas in the GPL, you will. This is why BSD-licensed software simply cannot compete with proprietary software -- because proprietary developers can simply incorporate everything into their own code, and return nothing; thus, always being ahead of FS/OSS developers.

Its guild socialism.

Lets not make up meaningless phrases here. Socialism means that everyone's forced to give what they've worked for and their creations to the community, whether they use community resource X or not. It also means you can't keep anything for yourself, privately. This is not the GPL. Giving aid to a neighbor on the condition that (s)he give aid to another when the other's in need is not socialism; it is simply being a good neighbor, and doing that which will make a good neighborhood. Kantianistic philosophy.

No, it doesn't ensure the end-user of anything.

Wrong. Please turn off your FUD-machine: GNU Public License:

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, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

In fact, users aren't even required to accept the GPL

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.

In other words, by default under the GPL, the end-user has every user right conceivable; no restrictions are placed on the use of GPL'ed software. The GPL guarantees that no restricitons be placed on the use of the software by including such a phrase. The FSF specifically chose not to enumerate end-user rights because that would require many more clauses, and because it would imply that the user does not have the right to use the software unless that right is granted. Also see clause #5: no-one is even required to accept the GPL.

Does the GPL guarantee that you get the software for free? No, it does not (in theory). So what. The FSF and FS advocates are not concerned with getting something for free. That is the slashdot gimme gimme gimme attitude. In practice, however, GPL'ed software tends to be either free or priced at very competitive and affordable prices. The GPL grants end-users many rights by default (that is, it does not place any restrictions on the user of the software) that EULAs deny (refer to /.'s reference to MS' EULA vs. the GPL.

zealot...RMS worshiper...upset your ideologies

Why is it that any time an individual has firm beliefs, (s)he's accused of being a zealot? Simply because I agree with RMS on a few issues does not mean I worship him. I disagree with him on a few issues too; see the Open Software License, and patent-arguments. I form my own opinions on various issues, and change them accordingly as new information and cases present themselves.

Use GPLed code in your code - then your code can only be released under GPL. If your University tried to sell this software they would be breaching the license conditions under which you initially used someone elses GPLed code (ie they would be breaching copyright).

Oh aren't you the clever one. Try reading the damn GPL and checking out the GPL FAQ first. Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?

It just catched my attention that the GNU GPL refers to the LGPL as the `GNU Library General Public License', while the LGPL calls itself the `GNU Lesser General Public License'.

It just catched my attention that the GNU GPL refers to the LGPL as the `GNU Library General Public License', while the LGPL calls itself the `GNU Lesser General Public License'.

I read a lot of folks on here praising Linus and slamming RMS. Why? Linus is saying that the GPL should not be modified to prevent certain uses of the software.

The most adamant supporter of this position is RMS! That's the first and most important freedom of Free software! The freedom to use software for any purpose.

Here's a critique by RMS on a license that prevents certain unethical uses. RMS clearly states that it is not a free software license, even though he agrees with the principles.

Any license that prevented DRM usage would also not be a free software license.

Any license that prevented modification that added DRM would not be a free software license.

So Linus tries to distance himself from RMS.. yet is in complete agreement.

Do we listen more closely to Linus because he puts smileys in his emails or what? Personally I'm going to listen to both RMS and Linus. When it comes to "software ethics" I'll listen to RMS, and when it comes to "kernel locking semantics" and other stuff, I'll listen to Linus.

FYI, prelinking KDE is not easy. On Debian the QT package has OpenGL support compiled in. The OpenGL library is not prelinkable because it is not PIC (Position Independent Code). Since all KDE applications are linked to QT and thus to OpenGL indirectly, this also means that all of KDE isn't prelinkable. I don't know of any KDE app that actually uses QT's OpenGL support, so I don't know why it is compiled in. To prelink KDE I had to compile my own version of QT without OpenGL support. This works to allow prelinking, but using a a version of QT compiled with different options makes QT's style plugins not work and has other disadvantages. There are two real solutions:

1. Compile OpenGL as PIC - I don't know why it isn't already.
2. Compile QT without OpenGL support, and provide separate packages for people who need OpenGL support.

Now if they'd only get rid of Theo The Rat and stop being lame.
[ Reply to This ]

THEO WORKS HIS ASS OFF TO GIVE THE WORLD A FREE OS (WICH HAPPESN TO BE THE MOST SECURE, AS WELL) AND LEECHES LIKE YOU CAN ONLY SIT AND BITCH. MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY DOING SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE. YOU"LL FEEL BETTER. THEN AGAIN, MAYBE NOT. YOULL JUST DO SOMETHING LAME LIKE GNU/TURD!!! LOLL
--
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2003 OSDN.
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. -- Oscar Wilde

According to Mr. Stallman, the MPL software license is a free (libre) software license, but it is not compatable with the GPL.

According to Mr. Stallman, the MPL software license is a free (libre) software license, but it is not compatable with the GPL.

According to Mr. Stallman, the MPL software license is a free (libre) software license, but it is not compatable with the GPL.

Worse, people who wanted to combine GPL'd code with QPL'd code could not do it for legal reasons: even though both licenses had the same basic intent, they both excluded each other.

TrollTech eventually consented to a GPL release of their code. As a result, projects like ksql (which provides a KDE front-end to mysql) are able to exist.

Pragmatically, we'll have more collective freedoms if there's only one viral license in the community, and the GPL is pretty much the 800-lbs. gorilla in terms of its established code base. Is it the absolute best? I doubt it... anything can be tweaked and tweaked further. Don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to tout the GPL or FSF or RMS or copyleft in general... I just don't want to see pointless fragmentation... it causes a lot of uproar, duplication of energy, and an overall loss in freedom. (Note that the community has room for plenty of non-viral licenses and public domain software... those are good too, especially when they are forward-compatible with the GPL).

All of that said, there might come a day when it would be best for the community if Stallman were to release the reins to the FSF and establish a process by which the community could guide future revisions to the GPL. I'm guessing that, for Stallman, that might be difficult...

Nah, thats the LGPL. The GPL doesn't let you link against non-GPL libs IIR.

Not true. The LGPL is for if you want to write a library and allow people to link to it in non-free programs. For example, if I wrote a new math library, but wanted to let anyone use it, regardless of whether the software they were using it in was free or not, I would use the LGPL.

As for linking with non-free libraries in a GPL'd program, it is perfectly acceptable as long as the original copyright holder is the one that makes the exception. See the GPL faq for the full details.

I've never used Walter's compiler, but, I don't think this is the case. If Bright's compiler is GPL'd, they could use his code and not have him assign the copyright. I understand why they've chosen to stay copyright-pure with the core components of the GNU system. They don't have to, but it just makes things easier if the process servers come knocking at the door with a large lawsuit.

Walter's compiler isn't GPL'd -- it's commercial, closed-source. The point is that if Walter _wanted_ to contribute some code under the GPL to GCC, that wouldn't be enough, because the FSF _requires_ that you assign copyright to them for anything added to GCC.

See http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html:

Before we can accept code contributions from you, we need a
copyright assignment form filled out and filed with the FSF.

See some
documentation by the FSF for details and contact us (either via
the gcc@gcc.gnu.org list or the
GCC maintainer that is taking care of your contributions) to obtain
the relevant forms. It's a good idea to send
assignments@gnu.org a copy of
your request.

I've never used Walter's compiler, but, I don't think this is the case. If Bright's compiler is GPL'd, they could use his code and not have him assign the copyright. I understand why they've chosen to stay copyright-pure with the core components of the GNU system. They don't have to, but it just makes things easier if the process servers come knocking at the door with a large lawsuit.

Walter's compiler isn't GPL'd -- it's commercial, closed-source. The point is that if Walter _wanted_ to contribute some code under the GPL to GCC, that wouldn't be enough, because the FSF _requires_ that you assign copyright to them for anything added to GCC.

See http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html:

Before we can accept code contributions from you, we need a
copyright assignment form filled out and filed with the FSF.

See some
documentation by the FSF for details and contact us (either via
the gcc@gcc.gnu.org list or the
GCC maintainer that is taking care of your contributions) to obtain
the relevant forms. It's a good idea to send
assignments@gnu.org a copy of
your request.

I've never used Walter's compiler, but, I don't think this is the case. If Bright's compiler is GPL'd, they could use his code and not have him assign the copyright. I understand why they've chosen to stay copyright-pure with the core components of the GNU system. They don't have to, but it just makes things easier if the process servers come knocking at the door with a large lawsuit.

Walter's compiler isn't GPL'd -- it's commercial, closed-source. The point is that if Walter _wanted_ to contribute some code under the GPL to GCC, that wouldn't be enough, because the FSF _requires_ that you assign copyright to them for anything added to GCC.

See http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html:

Before we can accept code contributions from you, we need a
copyright assignment form filled out and filed with the FSF.

See some
documentation by the FSF for details and contact us (either via
the gcc@gcc.gnu.org list or the
GCC maintainer that is taking care of your contributions) to obtain
the relevant forms. It's a good idea to send
assignments@gnu.org a copy of
your request.

I've never used Walter's compiler, but, I don't think this is the case. If Bright's compiler is GPL'd, they could use his code and not have him assign the copyright. I understand why they've chosen to stay copyright-pure with the core components of the GNU system. They don't have to, but it just makes things easier if the process servers come knocking at the door with a large lawsuit.

Walter's compiler isn't GPL'd -- it's commercial, closed-source. The point is that if Walter _wanted_ to contribute some code under the GPL to GCC, that wouldn't be enough, because the FSF _requires_ that you assign copyright to them for anything added to GCC.

See http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html:

Before we can accept code contributions from you, we need a
copyright assignment form filled out and filed with the FSF.

See some
documentation by the FSF for details and contact us (either via
the gcc@gcc.gnu.org list or the
GCC maintainer that is taking care of your contributions) to obtain
the relevant forms. It's a good idea to send
assignments@gnu.org a copy of
your request.

The GFDL's Preamble states: We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does.

But the reality seems to be that Freedom to the FSF only really matters when it comes to software. A quick look at the FSF's audio section shows that their interpretation of Freedom doesn't extend very far in other areas. Would software released under a license that allows "verbatim copying and distribution" be considered FSF free?

Debian takes a broader view that everything in the distro should be "Free". It may sound a bit anal to expect that manuals, audio and graphics should be covered by the same rights to modification, but the sad fact is that it's not just an academic point. Quake2 may be GPL software, but the graphics, music, etc are not covered by the GPL. Since Debian groups software into Free and Non-Free sections, it's important that the distinction is pointed out...regardless of whether it's Quake 2 or GCC.

The GFDL's Preamble states: We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does.

But the reality seems to be that Freedom to the FSF only really matters when it comes to software. A quick look at the FSF's audio section shows that their interpretation of Freedom doesn't extend very far in other areas. Would software released under a license that allows "verbatim copying and distribution" be considered FSF free?

Debian takes a broader view that everything in the distro should be "Free". It may sound a bit anal to expect that manuals, audio and graphics should be covered by the same rights to modification, but the sad fact is that it's not just an academic point. Quake2 may be GPL software, but the graphics, music, etc are not covered by the GPL. Since Debian groups software into Free and Non-Free sections, it's important that the distinction is pointed out...regardless of whether it's Quake 2 or GCC.

The only way we can really stop being forced to use half-assed converters is to actually boycott the dissemenation of proprietary software formats. No historical illegitmacy has just decided to stop functioning. It takes organized resistance and education. This is definitly a very important issue which warrents enough attention for us all to write a few lines and send to our local publications.

Allen Ginsberg once wrote, "Police agencies have become so vast that there is no turning back from computerized state control of America". Companies like Microsoft can no longer be allowed to maintain monopolies on something like, at the most basic level, how ideas are stored. Corporations do not make morality a very important factor in thier social function. This is stated very clearly in publicly acessible documents. It is known that Microsoft has incorporated security backdoors in several of its products at the request of governmental agencies (you can read abou this on the gnu philosophy website).

We are the only thing stopping the "computerized state control" of the world. Refuse to use windows and office file formats if you truely believe in free software. Sure this may constitute an explaination on your behalf; you may be kicked out of class, fired, marginalized or threatened. The truth is that this is the only way that things change. Stop letting microsoft run you school and community. You're worth more than that.

• 
  "Hey, it says I should try installing a 'New' library"
  
  "Oh, how do you pronounce that again?"
  
  "And does that stand for anything?"
  

The number of people who have no clue about the GPL and how it works is just scary. Especially when they open their mouths and try to engage in a discussion about it. Don't be an ass, try reading up on the GPL and find out why you sound so very silly.

I've been much to nice to many users about this. I think that next time I'm just going to go for the outright flame.

• make sure you're on the net and your MTA is properly configured;
• start emacs;
• type M-x mail RET and enter a short message, like "hi";
• type C-c C-c to loose your missive upon the world;
• retrieve the mail and look at the full headers;
• (here's where it gets cool...) repeat, but add random "X-" headers;
• repeat, but set env var REPLYTO or "Reply-To:" directly;
• repeat, but w/ some elisp to do "M-x emulate-spammer-scum" (it's good to demonstrate wanton misuse of technology to plant the seed of ethics, yaknow);
• repeat, but w/ the tetris high score file (necessarily after playing a little tetris first, of course);
• type M-x gnus and surf alt.religion.emacs;
• etc

(ok that last one is getting into indoctrination but you've already done the corporate damage, why not a little humor in the process... :-)

anyway, i'm always glad to see people teaching others through their good deeds. bravo! (basically the only lesson you need to teach is that you yourself know how to enjoy learning -- that is an example that sticks -- and what better way to learn than to debug --er-- program?)

Actually the reason KDE takes so long to compile is because of GCC. From what I understand, GCC 3.4's hand written C++ parser will make a big difference in compiling things like KDE.

Possessing an Apple computer alone is not enough to guarantee your gay experience. To enhance it, I recommend that you familiarise yourself with an ideology called "free software".

Cheers,

Randy

Someone had to mention it...

Sorry all :-)

Try searching for open source and have to go through 10 pages of proprietory software to get to any relevant site.
Err -- the first three results are the OSI, GNU and SF.

From the GCC FAQ
In April 1999 the Free Software Foundation officially halted development on the gcc2 compiler and appointed the EGCS project as the official GCC maintainers. The net result was a single project which carries forward GCC development under the ultimate control of the GCC Steering Committee

I agree, that wasn't exactly a fair categorisation. The GNU project is not a supporter of open source.

I love people trying to find alternatives to Microsquat[sic], but I hate people trying to foist lazy crap down our throats in the name of Freedom. That baby should either be fixed, or thrown out with its bathwater.

Are you saying Apple's QuickTime player is being suggested "in the name of Freedom"? Apple's QuickTime player costs no money but is not Free Software. In the future one should be able to use Ogg Vorbis + Ogg Theora to functionally replace QuickTime for playing digital video (meaning Ogg programs won't necessarily understand QuickTime data but one could encode digital video with Ogg Theora). At that time you should see a Free Software program you could use.

I agree with your assessment of Apple's QuickTime player. Apple did a particularly poor job implementing their player on Microsoft Windows.