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He doesn't actually say open source software, only free He doesn't actually say open source software, only free.

Amen. I absolutely agree. "open source" != "free software" I wish more people have read GNU Philosophy to know that. Please let me suggest you all (and by "you all" I mean all the people who do not yet understand the difference between open source and free software, not Eht of course) reading these particularly important texts:

1. The Free Software Definition
2. Debian Free Software Guidelines
3. Open Source Definition

When, in 1998, Eric Raymond took Debian Free Software Guidelines and renamed them as the Open Source Definition, he didn't want his new movement being misinterpreted as the Free Software Movement, and especially the strong philosophy associated with the term "free software" since at least 1983. Otherwise he would have used the old "free software" term, not the new "open source." Please let us have some respect to his work.

If you're going to insist on chastizing anyone who dares misuse the term "Free software", perhaps you should limit yourself to going after people who use the capitalized form of Free, which signifies a proper noun and would actually mean GPLed software.

If you're going to insist on chastizing anyone who dares misuse the term "Free software", perhaps you should limit yourself to going after people who use the capitalized form of Free, which signifies a proper noun and would actually mean GPLed software.

If you're going to insist on chastizing anyone who dares misuse the term "Free software", perhaps you should limit yourself to going after people who use the capitalized form of Free, which signifies a proper noun and would actually mean GPLed software.

Recent versions of GCC ship with a version of the Boost Concept Checks embedded in (and adapted to) libstdc++. You can turn it on with a #define, or turn it on all the time with a switch to the 'configure' script. The docs explain how.

My own copy of GCC has the checks turned on permanently. Very useful.

I think the HOWTO should have a reference to obstacks, rather than claiming data stacks are a new invention. (Hint: data stacks have been used many, many times in many, many projects. GNU obstacks are the only one for which I can find a URL at the moment.)

Please avoid using the word "open" as a substitute for "free software". A different group, whose values are less idealistic than ours, uses "open source" as its slogan. If you are referring to them, it is proper to use their name, but please don't lump us in with them or describe our work by their label---that leads people to think we are their supporters.

Please avoid using the word "open" as a substitute for "free software". A different group, whose values are less idealistic than ours, uses "open source" as its slogan. If you are referring to them, it is proper to use their name, but please don't lump us in with them or describe our work by their label---that leads people to think we are their supporters.

THIS IS NOT A TROLL, ITS THE SAD PAINFUL TRUTH. Debian is using outdated software (KDE 2.2, Gnome 1.2), an outdated kernel (2.2). It has NO compelling features, whats the point of apt-get if you cant get good software for it. Other distros have made debian obsolete! Theres gentoo for the geeks, lycoris/lindows for people who think the internets aol, theres red hat for server stuff, and suse for destkop work, and mandrake for multimedia and fun. They all have up to date software, they all support usb mice (unlike debian), and they all get along without crapian. Why dosent the team just fuckget about linux and concetrate on the turd

From the What is TheOpenCD website:

"It also includes a selection of essays about Open Source philosophy, and links to other programs that might be of interest."

I'm sorry, but what is exactly open source philosophy? Open source is about technical and economical advantages. Free software is about philosophy. Please do not flame me for saying the obvious. When Eric Raymond took Debian Free Software Guidelines and published them as Open Source Definition in 1998 he did it exactly because he wanted free software without the strong philosophy associated with the "free software" term since at least the announcement of the GNU Project in 1983.

I think that TheOpenCD project should not talk about philosophy if they want to promote the open source movement. But if they think that the philosophy is important, then they should promote the free software movement and change their name to TheFreeCD. Because the philosophy is exactly the difference between free software and open source movements. If they talk about "open source philosophy" they are being against the main priciples of both movements.

TheOpenCD project people should read these books:

• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond (online version)
• Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams (online version)
• Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman (GNU philosophy website, book CVS source)

Those books are not very long, but they provide enough background to let avoid using such unfortunate oxymorons like "open source philosophy." I strongly respect both free software and open source movements and I can not stay ignorant when people insult any of them, while the term "open source philosophy" insults both.

From the What is TheOpenCD website:

"It also includes a selection of essays about Open Source philosophy, and links to other programs that might be of interest."

I'm sorry, but what is exactly open source philosophy? Open source is about technical and economical advantages. Free software is about philosophy. Please do not flame me for saying the obvious. When Eric Raymond took Debian Free Software Guidelines and published them as Open Source Definition in 1998 he did it exactly because he wanted free software without the strong philosophy associated with the "free software" term since at least the announcement of the GNU Project in 1983.

I think that TheOpenCD project should not talk about philosophy if they want to promote the open source movement. But if they think that the philosophy is important, then they should promote the free software movement and change their name to TheFreeCD. Because the philosophy is exactly the difference between free software and open source movements. If they talk about "open source philosophy" they are being against the main priciples of both movements.

TheOpenCD project people should read these books:

• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond (online version)
• Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams (online version)
• Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman (GNU philosophy website, book CVS source)

Those books are not very long, but they provide enough background to let avoid using such unfortunate oxymorons like "open source philosophy." I strongly respect both free software and open source movements and I can not stay ignorant when people insult any of them, while the term "open source philosophy" insults both.

From the What is TheOpenCD website:

"It also includes a selection of essays about Open Source philosophy, and links to other programs that might be of interest."

I'm sorry, but what is exactly open source philosophy? Open source is about technical and economical advantages. Free software is about philosophy. Please do not flame me for saying the obvious. When Eric Raymond took Debian Free Software Guidelines and published them as Open Source Definition in 1998 he did it exactly because he wanted free software without the strong philosophy associated with the "free software" term since at least the announcement of the GNU Project in 1983.

I think that TheOpenCD project should not talk about philosophy if they want to promote the open source movement. But if they think that the philosophy is important, then they should promote the free software movement and change their name to TheFreeCD. Because the philosophy is exactly the difference between free software and open source movements. If they talk about "open source philosophy" they are being against the main priciples of both movements.

TheOpenCD project people should read these books:

• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond (online version)
• Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams (online version)
• Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman (GNU philosophy website, book CVS source)

Those books are not very long, but they provide enough background to let avoid using such unfortunate oxymorons like "open source philosophy." I strongly respect both free software and open source movements and I can not stay ignorant when people insult any of them, while the term "open source philosophy" insults both.

From the What is TheOpenCD website:

"It also includes a selection of essays about Open Source philosophy, and links to other programs that might be of interest."

I'm sorry, but what is exactly open source philosophy? Open source is about technical and economical advantages. Free software is about philosophy. Please do not flame me for saying the obvious. When Eric Raymond took Debian Free Software Guidelines and published them as Open Source Definition in 1998 he did it exactly because he wanted free software without the strong philosophy associated with the "free software" term since at least the announcement of the GNU Project in 1983.

I think that TheOpenCD project should not talk about philosophy if they want to promote the open source movement. But if they think that the philosophy is important, then they should promote the free software movement and change their name to TheFreeCD. Because the philosophy is exactly the difference between free software and open source movements. If they talk about "open source philosophy" they are being against the main priciples of both movements.

TheOpenCD project people should read these books:

• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond (online version)
• Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams (online version)
• Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman (GNU philosophy website, book CVS source)

Those books are not very long, but they provide enough background to let avoid using such unfortunate oxymorons like "open source philosophy." I strongly respect both free software and open source movements and I can not stay ignorant when people insult any of them, while the term "open source philosophy" insults both.

From the What is TheOpenCD website:

"It also includes a selection of essays about Open Source philosophy, and links to other programs that might be of interest."

I'm sorry, but what is exactly open source philosophy? Open source is about technical and economical advantages. Free software is about philosophy. Please do not flame me for saying the obvious. When Eric Raymond took Debian Free Software Guidelines and published them as Open Source Definition in 1998 he did it exactly because he wanted free software without the strong philosophy associated with the "free software" term since at least the announcement of the GNU Project in 1983.

I think that TheOpenCD project should not talk about philosophy if they want to promote the open source movement. But if they think that the philosophy is important, then they should promote the free software movement and change their name to TheFreeCD. Because the philosophy is exactly the difference between free software and open source movements. If they talk about "open source philosophy" they are being against the main priciples of both movements.

TheOpenCD project people should read these books:

• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond (online version)
• Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams (online version)
• Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman (GNU philosophy website, book CVS source)

Those books are not very long, but they provide enough background to let avoid using such unfortunate oxymorons like "open source philosophy." I strongly respect both free software and open source movements and I can not stay ignorant when people insult any of them, while the term "open source philosophy" insults both.

From the What is TheOpenCD website:

"It also includes a selection of essays about Open Source philosophy, and links to other programs that might be of interest."

I'm sorry, but what is exactly open source philosophy? Open source is about technical and economical advantages. Free software is about philosophy. Please do not flame me for saying the obvious. When Eric Raymond took Debian Free Software Guidelines and published them as Open Source Definition in 1998 he did it exactly because he wanted free software without the strong philosophy associated with the "free software" term since at least the announcement of the GNU Project in 1983.

I think that TheOpenCD project should not talk about philosophy if they want to promote the open source movement. But if they think that the philosophy is important, then they should promote the free software movement and change their name to TheFreeCD. Because the philosophy is exactly the difference between free software and open source movements. If they talk about "open source philosophy" they are being against the main priciples of both movements.

TheOpenCD project people should read these books:

• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary by Eric S. Raymond (online version)
• Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software by Sam Williams (online version)
• Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman (GNU philosophy website, book CVS source)

Those books are not very long, but they provide enough background to let avoid using such unfortunate oxymorons like "open source philosophy." I strongly respect both free software and open source movements and I can not stay ignorant when people insult any of them, while the term "open source philosophy" insults both.

(basically, arguments to functions are covariantly typed, when they should be contravariantly typed. This means that the arguments of a method in a subclass may be further specialized than the arguments of the method overridden in the superclass. This means that at runtime it can throw error. Instead the arguments a subclass method can take should only be allowed to be generalized.)

Sather is very similar to Eiffel, and gets this right. But there is only one compiler (though a couple of variants), and it hasn't been updated in a while.

http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/sather/
http://www.gnu.org/software/sather/
http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~sather/

Sather started as a free subset of Eiffel but then transmuted itself into a related but very different language.

Sather had great support for procedural pre and post conditions (not the aftermarket cheezy afterthought kind of thing that some languages seem to want to adopt), class invariants that could be automatically checked on call and return of a "public" method, class based iterators (not cursor classes, but built into the class itself), constrained genericity, simple (and relatively restricted) overloading ("a + b" became a.plus(b)), unboxed objects and so on....

Without formally measuring it, I'd guess that writing three more or less equivalent programs in Java, C++ and Sather would result in Sather having the lowest LOC count and the fastest development time. Though the tradeoffs were sometimes odd, good pre/post conditions saved me huge amounts of debugging and testing time, but required quite a bit more up front thought on what those conditions were - this resulted in much better code, but sometimes required interesting amounts of redesign.

Sadly, Sather, while still available here is GNU Sather is no longer being developed or supported AFAIK. Were I more of a compiler maven I'd work on it, but I doubt my efforts as a compiler writer would improve things much.

He is involved in the OSS movement. He posts to the LKML, he is at times critical and at times supportive of it.

That does not qualify one for supporting the Open Source movement, a movement which dismisses software freedom. He made his view quite clear in the link I offered. You can see him take on this issue again in his letter to Dr. Dobb's magazine. It's worth a read. You could also listen to the first few minutes of the NYU 2001 talk he gave where he corrects Mike Uretsky for making the same incorrect association you did. Or perhaps you would like to read the transcript of the NYU 2001 talk instead. My point in all this is you have misrepresented his chief work by associating him with the Open Source movement. Please associate RMS with software freedom and with the Free Software movement.

I associate him with GNU. GNU's stated goal is the promotion of Free Software.

The GNU operating system and the Free Software movement were both started by RMS out of his desire to give all computer users freedom. Associating him with the Open Source movement is something he has made (and continues to make) efforts to correct.

He is involved in the OSS movement. He posts to the LKML, he is at times critical and at times supportive of it.

That does not qualify one for supporting the Open Source movement, a movement which dismisses software freedom. He made his view quite clear in the link I offered. You can see him take on this issue again in his letter to Dr. Dobb's magazine. It's worth a read. You could also listen to the first few minutes of the NYU 2001 talk he gave where he corrects Mike Uretsky for making the same incorrect association you did. Or perhaps you would like to read the transcript of the NYU 2001 talk instead. My point in all this is you have misrepresented his chief work by associating him with the Open Source movement. Please associate RMS with software freedom and with the Free Software movement.

I associate him with GNU. GNU's stated goal is the promotion of Free Software.

The GNU operating system and the Free Software movement were both started by RMS out of his desire to give all computer users freedom. Associating him with the Open Source movement is something he has made (and continues to make) efforts to correct.

He is involved in the OSS movement. He posts to the LKML, he is at times critical and at times supportive of it.

That does not qualify one for supporting the Open Source movement, a movement which dismisses software freedom. He made his view quite clear in the link I offered. You can see him take on this issue again in his letter to Dr. Dobb's magazine. It's worth a read. You could also listen to the first few minutes of the NYU 2001 talk he gave where he corrects Mike Uretsky for making the same incorrect association you did. Or perhaps you would like to read the transcript of the NYU 2001 talk instead. My point in all this is you have misrepresented his chief work by associating him with the Open Source movement. Please associate RMS with software freedom and with the Free Software movement.

I associate him with GNU. GNU's stated goal is the promotion of Free Software.

The GNU operating system and the Free Software movement were both started by RMS out of his desire to give all computer users freedom. Associating him with the Open Source movement is something he has made (and continues to make) efforts to correct.

There, I've laid it all out the best I can for you now, tell me where I'm being 'stupid'.

Hmm, where to start...

Here's my line of reasoning. One of the key points of Free software is free redistribution. This book could easily have been made available in digital form that could be freely redistributable. This seems to me like it would be in purest adherence with the Free principles. RMS's book is not available in a free, redistributable format.

That is where you're being stupid. Everything in the book is free redistributable. I wouldn't normally fault you for not reading the comments, but when you start saying with conviction that you know, then I think you deserve to be lambasting for talking of your ass. I quote:

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the book provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified version of the book under the condition for verbatim copying
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this book into another, from the original English, with respect to the conditions on distribution of modified versions above, provided that it has been approved by the Free software Foundation.

So by all means respect and value RMS's contributions. But insomuch as the full potential of the GNU, GPL, and OSS is unrecognized[...]

Please take the time to learn the difference between the Open Source and Free Software movements. It is not at all appropriate or helpful to associate Richard Stallman with the Open Source movement or disassociate him with the movement he started--the Free Software movement.

So by all means respect and value RMS's contributions. But insomuch as the full potential of the GNU, GPL, and OSS is unrecognized[...]

Please take the time to learn the difference between the Open Source and Free Software movements. It is not at all appropriate or helpful to associate Richard Stallman with the Open Source movement or disassociate him with the movement he started--the Free Software movement.

You can check out the source from CVS. Also, most of the essays are already on the GNU philosophy page, and the rest are being put up this week.

Sincerely,
Bradley M. Kuhn
Executive Director, Free Software Foundation

You can check out the source from CVS. Also, most of the essays are already on the GNU philosophy page, and the rest are being put up this week.

Sincerely,
Bradley M. Kuhn
Executive Director, Free Software Foundation

RMS is clearly a leftist. The product of a single person is not something of interest to a communist. He has stated that he doesn't believe we have a right to IP. ANY form of IP. His belief is that an idea once it leaves the confines of your skull in any form is free to be used by anyone in anyway.

As others have pointed out the main problem with FREE software or FREE music or FREE anything is that workers are exploited. Even RMS on some level realizes this or why would he get so pissy about insisting that Linux be called GNU/Linux. He wants to make sure he gets the credit.(i.e. Please don't exploit me! I wrote it. Waaah!) But for ideas to be truly free you've got to surrender that right as well. RMS is a hypocrite. He finds the idea of paying someone for a product to be reprehensive because he fears the power money brings. Money equals ownership and if you don't want money then you can't have ownership. Yet he doesn't like to surrender the power of being the author of GNU gives him. At some level he owns GNU because he wrote it. But when he gives it away you give that right away too. You can't have it both ways.

Start here: Free Software Definition.
Then look here for links to most speeches and essays:Philosophy

Start here: Free Software Definition.
Then look here for links to most speeches and essays:Philosophy

Free software should mean software that can be used freely, without restriction.

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

The act of running the Program is not restricted

Free software should mean software that can be used freely, without restriction.

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

The act of running the Program is not restricted

That's either a troll or someone who is very ignorant about how Stallman uses the term "free". Here's a hint: he is not opposed to selling things.

I'll make this point again. I can easily go to the GNU project page, look at the definition of Free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), and see that freedom to redistribute code is a pre-condition for Free software.

I wonder what would happen if I bought the book, scanned the pages, and started distributing them online... I'm sure it would be interesting, at any rate. My opinion is that if there was a commitment on their part to allow this, it would be available (possibly for fee) in an electronic format. But it's not.

Mods are huffing airplane glue again, but you can probably get most of the Stallman experience by visiting gnu.org, reading the GNU Public License and a couple of essays, and grabbing one or two of his speeches (.ogg format) from here. Or visit your library. No doubt he'll have a few paragraphs in the book explaining why the book costs money.

Mods are huffing airplane glue again, but you can probably get most of the Stallman experience by visiting gnu.org, reading the GNU Public License and a couple of essays, and grabbing one or two of his speeches (.ogg format) from here. Or visit your library. No doubt he'll have a few paragraphs in the book explaining why the book costs money.

Go read the GNU FAQ sometime.

I really would like to donate, but not through PayPal. Could you please offer some other method of payment like the Amazon Honour System [...] - Jucius Maximus

Section 10 of the GNU General Public License provides for negotiation of the license agreement.

Copyright, patent, and trademark are all just forms of IP law.

The use of the term "intellectual property" as a blanket term for copyrights, patents, and trademarks is misleading because copyrights, patents, and trademarks are more different than similar. They are covered in separate Titles of the United States Code. They have nothing to do with one another other than that they grant monopolies to a person or corporation to produce a specific sort of good or service and can be sold or licensed to other parties.

Richard M. Stallman, founder of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation, has something to say about this phrase.

Perhaps Tolkien did not discover "trade dress" and the C&D letter in time.

Or perhaps, " In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work" (17 USC 102). This doesn't apply to trademark law (the foundation for trade dress), but trademark law kicks in only when there's a likelihood of confusion as to the origin of a good or service.

microsoft stole from apple stole from xerox.

Apple licensed from Xerox. Microsoft initially licensed from Apple, but then after Lotus v. Borland weakened look-and-feel copyright, Microsoft borrowed "ideas" (17 USC 102) from Apple.

Yes, you can crack PGP. It's completely unsafe to presume that it can't be done. You can't open an envelope without tampering with it, which is where PGP signatures come in.

I guess if you want to look at the utility aspects, PGP isn't designed to keep multiple items together, that's why we have tar.

Even if it is a bad analogy, isn't this a more reasonable viewpoint than the "fuck it, Uncle Sam's got us by the nuts, I give up" attitude espoused in the original post?

You're obviously a troll, or have no clue about the history of this case. There are many uses for this software besides piracy. Like allowing blind people to unencrypt it to use with text to speech software. Like preserving fair use.

The DMCA is bad legislation, because it makes merely DISCUSSING how to break this encryption illegal! If someone uses the tool to break copyright law, they can be prosecuted under copyright law. Period. The DMCA is a vague, overreaching law that serves no purpose but to quell the freedoms we as Americans supposedly have.

Try reading this.

Adding "GNU/" when communicating on the subject of Linux does absolutely nothing to improve communication.

The correct name is Grub/GNU/Linux.

I don't want to waste what time we have left with the present PC paradigm waiting for open source applications to catch up to the features and quality that proprietary software has TODAY.

How ironic it is then that you're talking about an Ogg Vorbis player--a patent-free encoding scheme invented to provide a competitive alternative to a patented scheme that can not legally be implemented in Free Software.

Peruvian Congressman Villanueva probably doesn't want to wait either, so he's working on Bill 1609 to put Free Software into public administration in Peru. The German government is funding a Free Software replacement for Outlook. These are just a couple examples of the things non-programmers around the world can do to help the cause of Free Software.

Nobody is saying you can't choose which software you want or that you will die if you pick proprietary software, those are straw arguments. I'm saying it is more reasonable to increase the number of people who are allowed to know what's going on with the software you run. We should hold all proprietary software to the same high standard we currently hold Microsoft's (overwhelmingly non-free) software to. Proprietary software, no matter what its ostensible purpose, can do things you would not like it to do. In order to keep the software from doing these undesirable things, we all need to develop and maintain a network of people who will inspect, share, and modify software to suit our needs. Keeping people from understanding how the software works helps these undesirable features stay hidden.

Couldn't geeks have found something better to support than "Free Software"? What was wrong with good old environmentalism or fighting against sweatshops in 3rd world countries?

There is no need to choose just one cause. There are people working on Free Software, the issues you name, and many other socially progressive issues all at the same time. I happen to be adept with computers, I support the Free Software movement, and I work on multiple other socially progressive projects. I think these movements draw like-minded people because their opposites (anti-environment, pro-sweatshop labor, anti-Free Software) usually come as a result of putting more power into fewer unaccountable hands.

Another way in which the anti-sweatshop movement and the environmental movement are both like the Free Software movement is how they all encourage you to think beyond your immediate desires. Sweatshop labor produces cheap goods which are readily available. But sweatshop labor also means people are working very hard and not getting paid a living wage. The anti-sweatshop labor movement encourages you to think beyond buying goods strictly based on price and consider helping poor workers make a fair living. The environmental movement wants you to think more about the car you drive, your heating and cooling system, and the advantages of recycling (amongst other things). In the Free Software movement you are encouraged to think beyond your immediate desire for a particular piece of software (such as the Ogg Vorbis player in this thread) and consider using a Free Software replacement instead. All of these things take a little bit of foresight and a lot of hard PR work to get people to not blindly comply with the latest advertisement.

These causes are not unique in the amount of work it takes to make them practical: it's hard work to make people aware of things and aware of people beyond themselves. It takes a lot of time and effort to provide socially responsible substitutes (competitive fair-wage clothing, low-emission vehicles, and yes, complete free software operating systems). So each of these movements (and many others) want you to volunteer your time and expertise.

MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT NOR EVER WANT TO BE PROGRAMMERS.

That is true, but most people do not want the private information on their computer leaked via a security hole, and most people are unhappy to discover that the secrecy of proprietary software allowed "spyware" (as it is called today) to execute on their machine. We aren't all scientists who understand the finer details of the things we use every day, but that doesn't mean we can't understand that gas hog cars, high pollutant exhausts, certain refrigerants, garbage landfills, and proprietary software are all bad in the long-term.

The Free Software movement has responses to the challenges they face and they target all computer users with their message. The Free Software movement can certainly use help in making their message clearer to non-programmers and getting their ideas out in front of the public. I hope you'll read what the FSF has to say and help them focus their message to reach a wider audience. After having worked on a congressional campaign, I have experienced first-hand how difficult it is to get the media's attention for an ethically-based message. I imagine helping the FSF get their message in front of the public is no easier.

No one is going to di[sic] if they can't copy a piece of software, a song, a video or a book. LIFE WILL GO ON, and it won't be bad.

Ask Lawrence Lessig how bad it will be. He knows a lot about the connections of copyright law, media access, and dissenting opinion. He champions what he calls "free culture", an idea that is well worth hearing. Preserving the freedoms to communicate and increasing these freedoms to allow more dissent to be heard are movements worth fighting for. Criticizing works can require copying portions of works, so if copying is made unavailable, critique and dissent are far more difficult. This might not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to people who want to convey unpopular messages including: not wanting an infinitely long copyright term, not bombing Iraq, and stopping the war of sanctions against Iraq, and no more "software patents". I hope you'll become more politically aware and see the extant connections that govern your life.

Who cares about a movie of a close source proprietary UNIX clone when I can get the same thing for $0.00, with free DVD extras? Even for BS movies like the BSD movie get more value than $olari$. Besides, I can download free Java compiler anyway, so what's the point of feeding these MPAA morons?

Actually, there is. As part of the registration, you agree to provide accurate information:

6.1 As part of the registration process, you will select a password and a subscriber ID. You also have to give us certain registration information, all of which must be accurate and updated.

That's a license agreement, every bit as binding as, say, this one.

Please don't argue that it's not "good" or "fair" for the NYT to have such a license. But please do make any argument about the NYT license that you are also willing to make about the GPL.

tc&gt

The last thing open source needs is divisive political themes attached to products. "Use this only if you support homosexual marriages" ..."Only members of the NRA are allowed to contribute to this product"..."This product can only be used to promote the views expressed by Amnesty International."

I'm going to give you the same answer I give to people who complain that the GPL is viral: "If you don't like the license, write your own damn code."

If I, as a software author, want to release software that can only be used by one-legged people, that's my right. Cuts down my potential audience quite a bit, but hey. :) Remember, it's a gift, not something you have a right to possess -- and I, with my wacky amputee fetish, choose that all those two-legged types don't receive that gift.

Some things should be political, open source is not one of them.

Would you try to argue that Free Software is non-political?

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

In the BSD world, we believe in making available trap-less software
which anyone can use for any purpose. Even if they wanted to put our
operating system into baby mulching machines or cruise missiles. We
expose no ethic except our own of transitive freedom in sharing. We
make no demands except credit.

Theo DeRaadt, OpenBSD

Not everyone is a programmer. Some folks recognize the value of good proprietary software that does what it says it will do and comes at a reasonable price.

But that's just the problem: only the proprietor really knows everything that proprietary program is doing. One cannot truly judge how good the program is without knowing what it does or having someone you trust know what it does. There's no way to assess the trustworthiness of proprietary software. One need not be a programmer to understand the dangers of secrecy.

Remember, software licenses aren't grounds for holy wars for most folks.

I would not be so quick to dismiss the importance of Free Software. Slashdot readers have seen significant failures of proprietors who care more about their bottom line than your privacy and the integrity of your system.

RMS did write a closed source (holding my heart) version of emacs for an os called ITS back in 1976. This is the reason why emacs has its own set of commands which are different then unix. They are ITS based commands that have been ported. He later rewrote Emacs and called it gnuEmacs in 1984 when he left MIT to find "fsf".

Gosling has not touched Vi in over 15 years and considers it obsolete and awkward to use in todays world of ide's. I however use VIM and like the short commands.

This text provides a vision of a future now made rather plausible.

Duh! I hear it's going to blow the socks off of everything else in the market when it comes out. I can't wait! ;)

Read aloud the passages here here and don't be despondant my son. Saint Ignucius hath provided fo thou.