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lilo is at 21.5. Emacs is at 21, but that's only because RMS realized there would never be a version 2.0 so he renamed "1.2" "12".

Luckily, more people have realized just how little can be read into a version number.

http://www.gnu.org/philos ophy/reevaluating-copyright.html

http://www.gnu.org/philos ophy/reevaluating-copyright.html

When you think about it, there weren't all THAT many people using Napster at the same time. Users were redirected to one of many load-balanced servers, with a pre-set capacity. The servers were not networked at all, so your search results were limited to whoever was on the same server as yourself.

A service like Gnutella (not GNUtella, as it's not made by any free software people) is decentralized so that you can become a node in a network of potentially infinite size. Of course, the fact that so many packets are going around makes latency a horrible burden to bear, so it's easy to get downloads that run at miserably slow speeds. (And don't even think about getting more than 1 KB/sec if you're running it on a dial-up connection.)

As bad as this sounds, perhaps this is what is needed to push along technically superior solutions.
Unisys is pushing PNGs with their licensing, Fraunhofer is pushing Ogg Vorbis with theirs, and now, the RIAA is pushing Freenet and Gnutella.
In all three cases, the Free Software world has overcome litigation be creating open, free, superior alternatives.

Which license is more restrictive depends upon whose point of view you're using to consider the license. As someone else pointed out, the MPL retains more rights for the "inital developer" at the expense of the user.

The reason is that proprietary modifications can be made for "internal" use... and this includes web serving. This means that Microsoft could power all of .NET with a modified version of Interbase (see my root-level post) and not have to give up source. The MPL is a bad license.

Er...the GPL doesn't impose restrictions on private modification. Indeed, RMS has criticized other licences for exhibiting such a "Disrespect for Privacy". Many of RMS's problems with the NPL apply to the MPL as well. I won't repeat them all here, but the biggest problem is that it is not legal to mix MPL'ed and GPL'ed code (which comprises a more than 50% of free software today, IIRC).

P.S. Sorry about all the links to the gnu.org website, but when discussing licenses, sometimes it's the easiest way to convey the spirit behind the GPL.

Which license is more restrictive depends upon whose point of view you're using to consider the license. As someone else pointed out, the MPL retains more rights for the "inital developer" at the expense of the user.

The reason is that proprietary modifications can be made for "internal" use... and this includes web serving. This means that Microsoft could power all of .NET with a modified version of Interbase (see my root-level post) and not have to give up source. The MPL is a bad license.

Er...the GPL doesn't impose restrictions on private modification. Indeed, RMS has criticized other licences for exhibiting such a "Disrespect for Privacy". Many of RMS's problems with the NPL apply to the MPL as well. I won't repeat them all here, but the biggest problem is that it is not legal to mix MPL'ed and GPL'ed code (which comprises a more than 50% of free software today, IIRC).

P.S. Sorry about all the links to the gnu.org website, but when discussing licenses, sometimes it's the easiest way to convey the spirit behind the GPL.

Which license is more restrictive depends upon whose point of view you're using to consider the license. As someone else pointed out, the MPL retains more rights for the "inital developer" at the expense of the user.

The reason is that proprietary modifications can be made for "internal" use... and this includes web serving. This means that Microsoft could power all of .NET with a modified version of Interbase (see my root-level post) and not have to give up source. The MPL is a bad license.

Er...the GPL doesn't impose restrictions on private modification. Indeed, RMS has criticized other licences for exhibiting such a "Disrespect for Privacy". Many of RMS's problems with the NPL apply to the MPL as well. I won't repeat them all here, but the biggest problem is that it is not legal to mix MPL'ed and GPL'ed code (which comprises a more than 50% of free software today, IIRC).

P.S. Sorry about all the links to the gnu.org website, but when discussing licenses, sometimes it's the easiest way to convey the spirit behind the GPL.

I said the spirit of the GPL - not the Stallmanesque propaganda.

I know that RMS would disagree with me, and that's fine. He disagrees with a lot of rational arguements.

There is no per-user costs for Interbase 6.0. According to their new license, you are free to distribute and modify the database.

Interbase does provide optional support contracts. Last I looked it was US$100 for 30 days of installation support, US$250 per support incident, or US$3150 per year for unlimited support.

Refer to Interbase.com for more details.

--

No. There exists a solution! The basic idea is to give the people who want to use it the means to observe what others are doing and to secure the system against abuse.

In fact, that is exactly what people did in the ``good old days'' in the AI lab before ``strict security'' was built into systems as a standard.

In a lecture about the history of GNU, RMS even complains about the use of passwords and "strict security". He writes about people damaging the system by accident and about outsiders using MITs computers:

On ITS [the old, anarchist Incompatible Timesharing System -- Yaakov] we evolved other means of discouraging people from doing those things by accident, but on Twenex [the new "secure" system -- Yaakov] you didn't have them because they assumed that there was going to be be strict security in effect and only the bosses were going to have the power to do them. So they didn't put in any other mechanism to make it hard to do by accident.

...That machine wasn't designed also to support the phenomenon called ``tourism''. Now ``tourism'' is a very old tradition at the AI lab, that went along with our other forms of anarchy, and that was that we'd let outsiders come and use the machine.

...The ITS machines had certain ... features that helped prevent this from getting out of hand, one of these was the ``spy'' feature, where anybody could watch what anyone else was doing. And of course tourists loved to spy, they think it's such a neat thing, it's a little bit naughty you see, but the result is that if any tourist starts doing anything that causes trouble there's always somebody else watching him. So pretty soon his friends would get very mad because they would know that the continued existence of tourism depended on tourists being responsible. So usually there would be somebody who would know who the guy was, and we'd be able to let him leave us alone. And if we couldn't, then what we would do was we would turn off access from certain places completely, for a while, and when we turned it back on, he would have gone away and forgotten about us. And so it went on for years and years and years.

Maybe we can reconstruct some of the features that the AI lab used to secure ``tourism''? Maybe we can develop new mechanisms?

Of course, nowadays the job is harder than it was. Now, more people have just bad intentions and the ability to act anonymously and fast. Worse, the ``save tourism'' features haven't been developed for a long time.

Here are some suggestions how ``save tourism'' could be revived.

The following features would give a responsible person an advantage over intruders: First, allow spying what others do and save logs on another server where they can be read but not destroyed.

Second, create alerts and delays when important files are changed: Say, the changes take effect only after ten minutes during which observers have the right to veto the change. Once one person vetos another one, a trusted person can override the veto if it is not a matter of an attack.

This policy would not stop legitimate users from working with and improving the system. But an attacker would be noticed before he can take over control.

A third feature would be to back-up data on a safe account (which just serves the files) so that an original state can be rebuilt quickly after an attack.

One way to combine these features would be to request users to keep their sources and configurations on another (their own) WWW server. 10 Minutes after they notify the free system about changes, the changes are downloaded and installed. Checksums of the installation are stored safely so that the same files can be re-installed without delay when the user wants to roll back.

Finally, we would need some distributed system of trust such that a person can loose his reputation by attacking the system or recommending attackers to be trusted. Here, the PGP trust system springs to mind.

Any more ideas?

Yaakov

2. Not to print extra copies and sell them to your friends...

...it gets right to the SPIRIT of the other licenses out there from the GPL and others.

people who follow RMS's Open Source creed

Ack! No! If RMS were in the habit of going around and smacking people up side the head, then you'd have better run for cover, because RMS unambiguously hates the "open source" creed.

On this note, a link to RMS' article The Right Way to Tax DAT is appropriate here. This essay has been mentioned in conjunction with the topic of the Canadian CD-R levy before.

I am not a supporter of the "open source" movement, however I am a supporter of the GNU free software movement. If you want to talk with me about free software, please use the correct terms. Thank you.

A lot of people think that " Deja can do whatever it wants on its excellent service," but that's the result of a skewed outlook. The fact is that Deja is a very important and powerful business that controls the window through which its users look on the world, a power which they can easily abuse to trick users into making horrible mistakes. While adding a word or two to a post might seem to be a reasonable way to draw users towards companies that want to serve them, it also controls how those users comprehend the very fabric of the world wide web. I'm certainly glad that no such awful lies and manipulations are being visited on me by my MSN!

2. Software License and Restrictions. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Company grants to you a limited, non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free non-transferable license to use the Software solely in connection with your use of the NIC. Except as expressly provided herein, you shall not reproduce, make derivative works of, distribute, rent or lease the Software. You shall not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software. You agree to indemnify and hold Company harmless from and against all liabilities, losses, damages, costs and expenses, including attorneys' fees, which Company may incur or otherwise suffer as a result of your breach of any of the provisions or restrictions of this Agreement.

Please note the phrase in bold. This means that there is no other way you can distribute the source, other than that permission given by the GPL.

This is exactly the same paragraph 4 of the GPL. Does it make this phrase redundant - maybe. IANAL.

Nope, he got locked up in the Eiffel tower, but was eventually cast into the C...
(not very funny, I'll post it anyway...)

In my opinion, working with "pure" functional languages like Haskell which do not allow any form of imperative updating (and yes, I know about monads) is too difficult for most programmers at this point in time. Therefore, I advocate languages like Objective CAML and guile scheme which support imperative programming as well as functional programming. These languages have different niches:

-- Objective CAML is an extremely fast dialect of ML with full static type checking and an object system (and, AFAIK, the only statically-typed functional language that has any object system at all). Timing tests have shown that ocaml can compile to within 25% of hand-optimized C code for many computationally-intensive tasks. Thus, many tasks that would normally be done in C++ can be done in ocaml.

-- guile scheme is a dialect of scheme which is targeted at the python niche: a scripting/extension language. There is no good reason why scheme can't be a superb extension language.

Unfortunately, as of this moment it's not possible AFAIK to build an application using ocaml on the bottom and guile as an extension language, but hopefully this will happen in time. Regardless, the point is to use these languages for your own pet programming projects, get the source out there, spread the word, and let functional programming grow organically, instead of trying to force it down people's throats.

Mike

June 30, 2000: MP3 Summit Ian at MP3 Summit webcast
You can find Ian's hour long talk at the MP3 Summit about 1 hour 8 minutes into the Wednesday webcast.

June 16, 2000: Guardian Free market fight for music moguls
Interesting article in a British national newspaper.

May 27, 2000: LA Weekly Genie 1, Bottle 0
Very amusing article on Freenet and copyright. Highly recommended.

May 24, 2000: Channel 4 News Hackers stay one step ahead
A very cool news item talking about recent attempts by the British government to censor the Internet and how Freenet will make this very difficult. Includes text and streaming video of the item.

May 23, 2000: Libération L'anarchie est au bout du clavier
An interesting French article about Freenet, concentrating on the freedom of information aspects of the system rather than just copyright.

May 12, 2000: National Post Napster secured page in Internet history
Interesting description of why Freenet is not vulnerable in the same way that Napster is, although I must say that their "final thought" is slightly perplexing!

May 12, 2000: O'Reilly Network Gnutella and Freenet represent true technological innovation
A nice article concentrating, for a change, on the technical side of Freenet and Gnutella. Reasonably accurate, although it understates the efficiency improvement that Freenet should provide (describing it as of comparable efficiency to the WWW where it should be much more efficient).

May 12, 2000: Het Nieuwsblad Vrijheid van downloaden
A Belgian article about Freenet.

May 10, 2000: Houston Chronicle Software developer pledges to foil all intellectual property watchdogs
A version of the article below, doesn't require that you register.

May 10, 2000: New York Times The Concept of Copyright Fights for Internet Survival
One of the better articles; concentrates on the copyright issue. Requires free registration.

April 27, 2000: PCFormat Daily FreeNet
A brief article on Freenet.

April 27, 2000: Heise News-Ticker World Wide Anarchy: Netz ohne Kontrolle
A German article on Freenet.

April 26, 2000: CNET.com Free, anonymous information on the anarchists' Net
Entertaining article with some nice quotes.

April 17, 2000: The Irish Times Anarchy Rules Alternative Web
A rather amusing article on Freenet.

April 16, 2000: Freshmeat Client As Server: The New Model
An interesting article discussing distributed systems and how systems like Freenet are actually in a similar spirit to the original Internet.

April 13, 2000: El País Freenet propone una red sin censuras, alternativa a la WWW
A Spanish article about Freenet.

April 10, 2000: Slashdot.org FreeNet's Ian Clarke Answers Privacy Questions
A very informative interview conducted by the readership of SlashDot.org, probably the closest thing to a FAQ, aside from our faq.

March 25, 2000: ABC News Freedom on the Net?
A rehash of the New Scientist article below, but likely to reach a much larger audience.

March 25, 2000: New Scientist Out of control
A "big bad Internet"-style article, but it is reasonably well researched and seeks the opinions of those who might be considered Freenet's opposition.

March 23, 2000: Heise.de Ein Netzwerk, das Zensur unmöglich machen soll
A German article on Freenet.

March 14, 2000: OLinux Freenet, a polemic concept to deal with WWW
An English translation of a Brazilian interview with Ian Clarke. Focuses on the technical aspects of Freenet, and goes into a reasonable amount of detail as to how the system works.

March 10, 2000: Webwereld Anoniem Freenet ultieme schuilplaats voor piraten
A Dutch article on Freenet. My Dutch is a little rusty but it looks like it is primarily inspired by the Wired article below.

March 8, 2000: no spoon FreeNet : le réseau anonyme distribué qui supplantera le Web
An excellent French article on Freenet, draws an interesting parallel between Freenet and the writings of Neal Stephenson.

March 3, 2000: Need To Know sufficiently advanced technology: the gathering
A brief but excellent article again approaching Freenet from a pro-freedom standpoint.

February 24, 2000: PigDog Journal Get in on the Ground Floor of Freedom
A very positive little article describing Freenet and why they think it is interesting using some rather "colorful" language.

August 14, 1999: Brave Gnu World FreeNET
One of the first articles about Freenet back when it was 100% theory. Still an excellent introduction to the way Freenet works.

I completely agree with what you've said, but regarding the above quoted section, I think we already have that...it's known as gnu.org, and the if the FSF really thinks this is a worthy idea, they should take on the administrative duties themselves and start the naming convention of foo.gnu.org ...but what do I know! ;)

Programs that use the GNU GPL but want to give the user additional freedoms have an option open in section 10 of the the GPL: exceptions. The author can add additional freedoms to the GPL but cannot add additional restrictions. For example, most KDE programs now use an exception: "You are permitted to link this program to the Qt library" that may, in fact, be granted implicitly by #includeing the Qt headers.
<O
( \

I suspect you are mistaken. The output of a GPL'd program does not fall under the GPL.

Consider bison (http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/biso n.html (which has (as well as yacc) been around a while so this issue is nothing new)) which generates C code .. this is from the bison documentation:

As of Bison version 1.24, we have changed the distribution terms for yyparse to permit using Bison's output in non-free programs. Formerly, Bison parsers could be used only in programs that were free software.

The other GNU programming tools, such as the GNU C compiler, have never had such a requirement. They could always be used for non-free software. The reason Bison was different was not due to a special policy decision; it resulted from applying the usual General Public License to all of the Bison source code

So there you have it.

a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language.

• The actual code which drives the back end of your application (Enzyme's PHP, and raw bits of static HTML), which is protected by the GPL.
• The data that you're archiving using Enzyme, protected by Copyright (or not, depending on who is collecting the information and the terms under which they acquired it).
• The confluence of the code and database, which produces the actual site with published information.

With that said, I do not believe that running a web-based application is equivalent to redistribution-without-source, as you suggest. If I install a program on a remote computer, then open an Xterm window to interact with it on my local workstation, I haven't redistributed the initial app, despite the fact that my workstation and the remote server are exchanging all kinds of information necessary to my interaction with the application. I'm merely accessing it using another means. If that was really redistribution without source, then anyone taking advantage of the Compaq Test Drive on a Linux server would have caused Compaq to violate the GPL.

Similarly, if I set up an Enzyme driven site and open it up to the world, I haven't redistributed the code, even in binary form. I'm letting people interact with it to produce output specifically tailored for their needs, using an intermediary program (Netscape, Lynx, Mozilla, IE...) of their choosing.

While from a design point of view, it's nice that you can view all of the elements of a web-driven system - database, server, client, network - as a unified whole, it isn't. At least, not as far as the GPL is concerned. Your program rides piggyback on a web server, process requests based on the clients' requests, and transmits information back accordingly. And that's all.

Or, if you believe Richard Stallman re: 'GNU' pronounciation, see:
http://www.gnu.or g/manual/emacs-20.3/html_chapter/emacs_4.html#SEC7

Also... weren't you /not/ supposed to have the acronym within it's own definition?

It's what is called a 'recursive acronym'. To quote Stallman:

The name GNU was chosen following a hacker tradition, as a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix."

oh, and your link doesn't work for me. Try this one.

:-)

it seems the obvious charity, the one that helped get all of this stuff going and continued to work towards freedoms of all people, would be GNU. they could use your help.

Rep. *****,

Congress is presently holding hearings on electronic music formats, such as Napster, to determine how they should be regulated and whether they pose a threat to copyright.

Copyright law has become an issue of essential importance, as it affects not only our economy, but also our fundamental freedom of expression. Congressional regulation of electronic music can have a chilling effect on free speech on the Internet, just as Title V of the Telecommunications Reform Bill of 1996 (the so-called Computer Decency Act) almost had a chilling effect on Internet speech. Please keep the First Amendment in mind when considering any bill that affects electronic music formats -- or for that matter, any other 'intellectual property' bills.

I've included an article from the Oregon Law Review with this email; it is written by free software advocate Richard Stallman and is well worth the consideration of yourself and your peers on this issue.

Sincerely, (name, address, city, state, ZIP+4)

The Second Amendment Sisters

They are selectively choosing the copyright holders and corporate web entities for their discussions.

What they missed were people who've done research on the history and meaning of copyright law in the US. People like RMS writing or Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig. It is critical that the Congress hear from people who actually consider the intent of copyright law (hint - it is not only about making money from one's authorship).

Copyright is intended to pass into public domain after a limited period of monopolism of SOME rights. It is entirely unclear that we SHOULD or CAN enforce draconian copyright laws in cyberspace.

Actually, they are under no GPL obligation to make their software available on the net at all. The GPL only says that they have to make the source available anyone who gets the binaries, and that anyone who gets the source and binaries is free to redistribute them. IOW, you're free to buy the full price distribution and make all of the GPLed software available for free download, but you have no right to demand they make it available for free download.

FWIW, this is exactly what the Free Software Foundation advocates. To quote (from Selling Free Software on the FSF web site.):

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

Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless of the price, because users have freedom in using it.

Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it.

Distributing free software is an opportunity to raise funds for development. Don't waste it!

(Emphasis is theirs.) IOW, the people who wrote the GPL don't just accept the idea of selling GPLed software for what the market will bear, they actually advocate it. Of course the fact that anyone who can get a copy of GPL software is free to redistribute it inherently limits the price anyone can charge, but that's for the market to decide.

Actually, they are under no GPL obligation to make their software available on the net at all. The GPL only says that they have to make the source available anyone who gets the binaries, and that anyone who gets the source and binaries is free to redistribute them. IOW, you're free to buy the full price distribution and make all of the GPLed software available for free download, but you have no right to demand they make it available for free download.

FWIW, this is exactly what the Free Software Foundation advocates. To quote (from Selling Free Software on the FSF web site.):

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

Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless of the price, because users have freedom in using it.

Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free. So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if you do it, you might as well make a profit from it.

Distributing free software is an opportunity to raise funds for development. Don't waste it!

(Emphasis is theirs.) IOW, the people who wrote the GPL don't just accept the idea of selling GPLed software for what the market will bear, they actually advocate it. Of course the fact that anyone who can get a copy of GPL software is free to redistribute it inherently limits the price anyone can charge, but that's for the market to decide.

1. everything is an object (limited by the fact that berlin is a GUI, so no Integer type classes, but thats to be expected in this problem domain), check.
2. the system is unified in the manner you speak of, check.
3. base classes don't really have to do with this, so no check on that.
4. i don't know about berlin having a CodeBlock object, and the http://www.berlin-consortium.org/ site appears to be currently down... (they were up yesterday, dammit!) but it seems like a CodeBlock object (or something close enough for jazz) would be damn good to have; necessary, even. hmmmm... i do remember something about how because of the way berlin uses CORBA, programmers are not restricted to one language in their dealings with berlin objects. that sounds close to what you describe. too bad the site is down. heh. i don't know enough about berlin to give this a checkmark or not.

and i have nothing whatsoever against object manipulation being done visually. shrug. if people dig it, let em. it could be kinda cool looking, although it would most likely end up as a cheesy attempted-gibsonish pile o' shit... aw well. we all know that people will find themselves irresistably drawn back to the command line from whence they came ;)

oh yea: you said "The possibility of a "language that's not a language" isn't meant to turn users into programmers---something not likely to happen"... i gotta disagree with ya there... i think that, as more and more people use open operating systems, the urge to try to change things will take its toll, and the user/programmer distenction will began to grow fuzzier... at least, thats a naive hope of mine :p

And then you have the issue of nomadic machines like laptops and PDAs. When they use your network, you need to assert some administrative control over the resources they use. Has anyone attempted tools to help with these?

Don't suppose anyone even remembers cfengine? Or has looked into GUIs for PIKT? Or any of the other tools that already exist?

ideally, if a program doesn't work properly, you change it so it does work. That's the point of free software

What does society need? It needs information that is truly available to its citizens---for example, programs that people can read, free, adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is a black box that we can't study or change.

Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives.

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

--

• Support multiple executable formats.
• Support non-Multiboot OS's.
• Load multiple modules.
• Support a human-readable configuration file.
• Menu interface.
• Flexible command-line interface.
• Support multiple filesystem types.
• Support automatic decompression.
• Access data on any installed device.
• Geometry translation independent.
• Detect all installed RAM.
• Support Logical Block Address (LBA) mode.
• Download OS images from a network.
• Support diskless systems.

Um, I'm sure you're aware of this, but being able to translate an application's strings without access to the source is not heavy magic. It is, for instance, a standard feature of GNU gettext, the library most often used when translating Linux (and other open source) applications. And since modern toolkits (such as GTK+) doesn't do layout based on pixel coordinates, reflowing is automatic.

I like the Open Source philosophy because it gives all freedom to all society to use the software so it helps EVERYONE and not ONLY ME.

Like this paragraph taken from gnu.org:

Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use software in all the ways that are socially useful. Software differs from material objects--such as chairs, sandwiches, and gasoline--in that it can be copied and changed much more easily. These possibilities make software as useful as it is; we believe software users should be able to make use of them.

So, answering this question, I recommend you DON'T go with open source now, maybe some day... hopefully one day!

--

The above is a good comment. If you visit the GNU website then there is a page off there somewhere listing all (or many) of the other open source licenses. Find one that roughly fits the above model and change it to suit your needs.

I remember when Linus Torvalds himself first posted his announcement about Linux to Slashdot, in 1991. We were all very excited, reading Slashdot in Netscape on our Minix systems, to hear about the Linux project, and the GNU project which was founded shortly thereafter to build a set of userspace utilities around the Linux kernel.

The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system.

Since the QPL is incompatible with the GNU GPL, you cannot take a GPL-covered program and Qt and link them together, no matter how.

However, if you have written a program that uses Qt, and you want to release your program under the GNU GPL, you can easily do that. You can resolve the conflict for your program by adding a notice like this to it:

As a special exception, you have permission to link this program with the Qt library and distribute executables, as long as you follow the requirements of the GNU GPL in regard to all of the software in the executable aside from Qt.

You can do this, legally, if you are the copyright holder for the program. Add it in the source files, after the notice that says the program is covered by the GNU GPL.
.....Updated: 28 June 2000 rms

From what I can see, it would be much harder to release proprietary QTized code that used GPL stuff too (almost impossible, I'd say).

I don't get mad at MS for releasing non-free software. I get mad at them for releasing shitty non-free software and trying to pretend that it's the best there is.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø`ø,,ø`ø`ø

However, it seems that it is not clear that operating a web page with software is considered a distribution under the GPL. I think this is essential if the GPL is to have any meaning whatsoever for web applications. As an example, consider the case of MySQL. Their old "free for non-commercial use" allowed corporations to run a MySQL database behind a webserver for free, because that was considered "internal" use, and not a redistribution. Although that allowed MySQL to get a significant market share among, say, mod_php users, it probably meant a lot of lost revenue for their parent company.

Now, since their parent company didn't really care (AFAIK) about this lost revenue, it was no big deal, but for a small company like mine, this could be utterly disastrous. OTOH, we have a pretty substantial HR application that I think the OSS community could really benefit from. Maybe it could be integrated into a scheme like the GNU Enterprise suite.

But first, we have to be sure the GPL will protect us from being blatantly ripped off. Any suggestions? Should we just take our chances with the GPL? Does it cover this case? Is there another license that addresses this concern?

I'm pretty sure a lot of the KDE developpers don't grasp the difference between Free software and Open Source.

So what is the difference?

I've read Richard Stallman's definition of Free Software, and I've read the OSS's definition of Open Source. As near as I can tell, anything that is Open Source must also be Free Software. Which one of RMS's four points does the OSS definition not cover?

...saying the APSL has a "disrespect for privacy"?

This isn't a hard task, read the license for yourself.

It is a far more subtle document than one would think just reading it, and sometimes it has surprising consequences. For instance here is a summary of Debian's issues with Qt. Can these be addressed? Yes. Are they somehow claiming that Qt is a derivative work of KDE? Nope. They are claiming that KDE is a work that cannot be distributed by the terms of its own license.

But I think that there is a way to solve this problem for once and for all which is not discussed. Produce a GPL-friendly interface to Qt with a GPL-friendly implementation behind it. Have it support the full programming interface, but don't worry too much about it "looking nice" or usability for the end-user. Ship KDE with this and with some easy way to switch from this (bad) default to Qt. Then KDE can ship in compliance with the GPL completely separately from any license issues that Qt may have.

Cheers,
Ben

While it is a great day for the GNU project and hackers everwhere when such an excellent piece of security software has finally made the leap of faith to the free software family, I have certain reservations about the company behind it. They have been statically linking our binary sources with non-GPL source binaries proprietory.

Did anyone else notice that the images on the GNU art site were available as gifs? Doesn't this go against the philosophy of GNU?

Sure -- you need telnet for checking that you installed sendmail correctly, that your WWW server functions properly, etc., etc. And there are more anonymous FTP servers than you can shake a stick at (what would I do if I couldn't reach ftp.gnu.org?).

I think the intent is for .edu sites to remove these services to eliminate two common ways for sending cleartext passwords across the net where they can easily be sniffed. And this is only a start. How many .edu sites use unencrypted POP and IMAP servers? Mine does, regardless of how much we yell and scream that this is a Bad Idea. Hence, I run my own SSL/IMAP server. :-(

You'd be surprised how many students use telnet to check mail and ftp to move their files between systems, simply because they don't know any better (or don't care). I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "Oh, no one would care about my account...". <sigh>

Education is [part of] the real answer, definitely, but in the mean time, a little enforcement isn't a bad idea. I'm not saying that this is a total answer -- far from it. Education, proper multi-layered network security designs, and adequate monitoring go a long way to make a network "secure" (as much as it can be, anyway).

This is a clarification that stems from the fact that the english word 'free' has two meanings, so that when you say 'free software' you clarify which meaning you are promoting.

The first meaning is "free as in 'free beer'", refers to getting an item for no monetary cost.

The second meaning "free as in 'free speech'" refers to freedoms and liberties granted by custom or law.

These phrases are usually shortened to 'free-as-in-beer' and 'free-as-in-speech'.

While there is a lot of software that can be had for no cost, Netscape plugins for example, you are usually not free to modify it for your own purposes.

I hope this helps clarify the issue for you.

Further information can be found at The Debian website, The Free Software Foundation, and Eric S. Raymond's site.
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I work at a chip design firm (Theseus Logic) and 90% of our applications run on Linux or Solaris all from a single Linux server (although we looking to add a 2nd server or a NetApp box). Outside of those programs used by 30-35 engineers, I spend 75% (or more) of my time messing with stupid Windows applications for the admin staff, a measly 7 people (even though the Engineers are 90% of the traffic and data).

From a $30K accounting package (Deltek Advantage) with its own NT server that cost more than our Linux box (and may require a 2nd one soon for stupid Citrix Winframe), to stupid little $2-5K/each Windows software packages here and their for inventory, stock options, etc..., I'm going up the wall. Especially when updating software (never goes right, unlike our UNIX EDA and other tools) and I pull my hair out. Everytime I bring up ERP I get told that since we've already spent >$50K plus another $50K on consultants, so we're not changing. Of course I brought up the point before we spent this money so I get the underlying "crying over spilt milk" or "quit rubbing it in my face" attitudes nowdays.

I can argue TOC with ERP, but for companies like mine that have already spent >$100K on disseparate Windows packages and don't want to pay anymore, a free/OSS package is the only way to get it in house. I sure wish companies would realize that maintaining disseperate little (and even big) Windows programs are just a pain in the @$$. I'm sorry but all it takes is 6 months of UNIX administration and sysadmins realize that UNIX maintainance is just 10x easier (thank God 90% of our engineering apps run on UNIX).

Thank God projects like GNU Enterprise and the Java-based Kontor Project have sprung up. I'd say if you want to help Linux get inside corporate America, look to donating your time on these projects. And you don't have to even be a developer to do so, I'm sure both projects are looking for a lot of bookeepers and accountants for most of the design.

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith