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IIRC, they said their Ghostscript software was used as an "integrated component".

What I'm saying is that their "integrated component" idea doesn't make any sense. The GPL doesn't anything about "integrated components." This FAQ entry may be relevant. What's clearly not allowed is linking non-GPL code to GPL'd code. All Diebold did was to put both GPL'd and non-GPL'd software on a special-purpose Windows machine, and sell the Windows machine.

TFA is talking about the OFX interface to their bank not working. OFX in GnuCash is handled by the aqbanking library, which switched to using gnutls rather than OpenSSL a while ago. I didn't find any specific mention of EV certificates on the GNU TLS web page, but since it does support X.509 certificates I wouldn't expect there to be a problem.

I suspect the post you labeled a troll is in fact just someone who has an earlier version of GnuCash and/or aqbanking that's not setup correctly, because it's only very recently that all that worked like it's supposed to out of the box. For example, you need Ubuntu Intrepid for OFXDirectConnect to work--it takes a backport to even make the Hardy GnuCash work correctly here. This code is pretty new, and as you can see on that wiki page it can be difficult to setup, so I wouldn't be surprised to find it still doesn't work for some people.

excellent book about programming, starts off with lower level asm programming first and later on explains what the higher level stuff like c does in assembly.

here is where you can download it.

Go ahead and accuse me of not being libertarian, but yes, I think making and enforcing standards for CAs is a good role for the government.

Governments have a vested interest in keeping things insecure; they want MitM to be achievable, and making CAs answer to government means you can't trust them as introducers. Go ahead and have government-regulated CAs, if you want, but we need the capacity to have multiple signers for any identity so that we don't depend on that inevitable single point of failure.

I would never put my money in an unregulated bank, or send premiums to an unregulated insurer, or go to a back-alley doctor.

Switch to OpenPGP and you have a situation analogous to using the best bank/insurer/doctor. If one is untrustworthy, the other signatures remain. No government can possibly match that level of integrity. But they could become a part of it.

Could you please notice that? It's not Linux. It's GNU/Linux. (See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html. [gnu.org])

Not true! God wrote in LISP Code.

How does the Novell/Microsoft deal affect your rights? You have not signed it.

If it did affect your rights in some nefarious way, how would not using Suse counteract that?

But still, being aware to look after your rights is a good instinct. Just make sure it is based on facts not FUD. The Free Software Foundation has a list of free distributions which meet their standards. The FSF is generally the most legally conservative and ideologically pure outfit in the free software world, so if you use something they have approved you can be pretty certain of peace of mind.

A reasonable alternative is to use a distribution which keeps a clear distinction between free software and non-free. Debian is famous for this, but Fedora (which is what I use) also has a policy to include only free software (in recent releases anyway). The difference with the FSF-approved distributions lies in loadable firmware, but you may not be concerned about that.

(If you don't want to use Suse because you dislike Novell's business practices and their deal with Microsoft, that's your choice, but just say so rather than inventing stuff about 'legal risks'. Or if you do know of legal risks, please explain what they are so that people can fix the problem.)

No it's not the truth, it's a very bad troll (I mean, feeding your own post? No points for you!).

Are you arguing that /.ers would try to defend someone who ripped off MS code and shipped it in their own product? Or are you muddying up the water when it comes to the whole MPAA/RIAA situation which is itself objectionable for reasons wholly unrelated to whether or not violations took place in particular cases e.g. UMG v Lindor.

There's also alternative views on copyright held by people such as RMS in his Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks and a wide spectrum of other copyright reformists that post here. No position on copyright that I'm aware of is hypocritical in the fashion you describe.

Of course, it's always much easier to fling names around rather than engage with someone who has different ideas. I've at least tried that with you meaning I get the moral high ground and I get to call you a stupid idiot troll.

I was under the impression that if you used a GPL library (statically linked or not) your program must be covered by the GPL. On the other hand, if the library was LGPL your assessment would be fine... I think.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL

I recommend GNU Robots. It's a game/diversion where you construct a program for a little robot, then watch him explore a world. The world is filled with baddies that can hurt you, objects that you can bump into, and food that you can eat. The goal of the game is to collect as many prizes as possible before are killed by a baddie or you run out of energy.

The GNU Robots playing field is filled with food (increases energy), prizes (to increase your score), walls (which you can bump into), and baddies (which can inflict damage.)

The robot program is written in Scheme. Fairly simple for kids to pick up. Heck, I don't even know Scheme, and I wrote several successful robot programs. (I also wrote GNU Robots.)

I second this and you can use Octave http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/ which is nicely compatible with Matlab. Which help with matrices as well.

Linux was created by Linus "Just for fun". Linus wrote a book describing why and how he created the Linux kernel. It's actually a good read and short enough to finish in a few days. ahref=http://www.amazon.com/Just-Fun-Story-Accidental-Revolutionary/dp/0066620724rel=url2html-1756http://www.amazon.com/Just-Fun-Story-Accidental-Revolutionary/dp/0066620724>. It's cheap.

GNU was created (this is where most of the useful apps come from) for educational purposes AND to be an alternative to closed-source, commercial software. "The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system." http://www.gnu.org/

GNU doesn't have a kernel, so they are using Linus' kernel.

You are supposed to make music because you like to do it, not as a full-time job.

Stallman is that you? Are you serious?

Are you an asshole? Are you serious?

Stallman wrote: "Some people write useful software for the pleasure of writing it or for admiration and love; but if we want more software than those people write, we need to raise funds."

Almost, but not quite. The GNU C library, for example, will use mmap to allocate larger requests, and, when freed, will give that memory back to the system and allow the process to shrink.

... it is also pertinent to note here that the GNU standards document, section 3.1: "Which Languages to Use" strongly advises plain old C for both performance and absolute maximum cross-platform compatibility.

I remember for years C being considered faster on systems than C++, although I believe over the years the gap, if there still is one at all, has narrowed? What is true, someone share it with me as I am curious? Are there any incompatibilities when using C++ and migrating to different Operating System environments any more like their use to be in the dark ages?

Can you compile C++ down small enough to use in embedded devices or does C++ still pull in libraries that are not needed or too big? My guess is you can exclude the libraries that you do not need, correct? (Not trying to start anyone flaming, I honestly do NOT know.)

If you're writing web software use PHP, but it will make you feel dirty inside.

I know there are Ruby on Rails camps and Python advocates, however does not PHP still run faster than either? (Take the same programmer, writing code with expert knowledge with all three programming languages, would not his final product , from a strictly performance issue in PHP be faster than Ruby or Pythong?)

Considering that PHP was written with the web in mind and delivering web pages...do you really want anything else from strictly performance issues?

Granted I understand that you can probably prototype in other languages much faster...

Also your feel dirty comment, is that because of the ease in which a poor programmer can create unstructured code? If so would it not be the fault of the programmer and not the language specifically? (i.e. Assembly for the 8088, ..286, ..386 and IBM Mainframe made me feel dirty sometimes with they way you were forced to branch, but it was fast...and no I am far from an expert Assembly programmer.

Also from a modularity, library, procedure / function, object perspective, if you have been coding in any of them PHP, Python or Ruby on Rails, would you not have a significant library built up where the library issue becomes a non-issue?

FYI, personally I do not have a preference and simply choose what is convenient for me to use that will get the job done, period. I honestly do not know the nuances between them...and I am sure that there are some.

I do not have any Ruby on Rails or Python experience and am looking forward to learning more about them. To date I have been able to do everything I need to do with scripting and PHP...so my knowledge is very limited and I admit that freely. Further my Perl knowledge has been with simple scripting only, I have not had a 8 hour a day, 5 day a week Perl coding job.... Further when competing in an ACM Programming contest at college, of the 40 programmers who competed, I was 20th...so I have no delusions I know I am an average programmer and am okay with that. I always get the job done one way or another regardless.

Funny off-topic story...the ACM Programming contest: I finished my first problem in a little over 2 hours. A friend of mine who placed, with his team representing our university, second in the world at the international contest in a previous year, finished his first program and had it judged correct in 27 seconds. (Since he had already officially represented the University twice over the years, he was ineligible for that years team and was competing just for the fun of it.) They give you the programming packets and allow you to look at them 10 minutes before the official start time, thus when the clock started he started typing and he was much, much faster typist than my 30 wpm with 5 mistakes, lol. I have nothing but respect for all of you who can put me to shame with your incredibly fast and excellent programming skills. As f

... it is also pertinent to note here that the GNU standards document, section 3.1: "Which Languages to Use" strongly advises plain old C for both performance and absolute maximum cross-platform compatibility.

Since operating system and hardware platform independence are both key factors of code re-usability and really what open source software is all about I personally think this is a strong call.

However the parent post is correct in that application intent trumps all. If you are just writing shell tools you never intend to use outside of Linux then PERL is likely fast enough and probably much easier/faster (bottom line: cheaper) for the average developer to work with.

If you're writing web software use PHP, but it will make you feel dirty inside.

Hmmm... I wonder who would have the most to gain by undermining Apple

No, no. The ultimate target isn't Apple. The ultimate target is anyone who tries to apply restrictions on their software via copyright and license.

It's all about legal acquisition without obligations. For example, Evil, Inc might want to acquire software that happens to fall under this license: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html It might be neat to take all that stuff, tweak it to run a settop box/game system/file server/toaster and not have to worry about those pesky restrictions like making source code available.

Not that anyone would actually do something like that...

You could always start with GNU Hello World:
  http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/

No, you can charge as much as you want for distribution, and you only have to give source to those to whom you, personally, have distributed binaries:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

However, as you noted, all it takes is for one customer to put the source up for download, and you're screwed.

That's one of the best features of the Windows command-line - being able to use networked resources the same as local files, completely transparently.

The advantage is that you don't have to mount the file systems before you access them. In Windows that is only possible for CIFS; you can't cd http://www.gnu.org/ in Windows. With automount you can do exactly the same for CIFS and NFS in Linux, with the same limitations. The new filesystem abstraction libraries make it possible to go much further than that.

You are in a trap, you believe in short term gain for individuals who will not have to pay for some specific content without having to wait for prices to drop, while sacrificing the long term gain of having content generated at all.

I believe we can agree to disagree on this completely.

No, we really can't. You know why? Because you can't even state my thesis correctly. Look at what you wrote, it is barely coherent and from what I can make of it, is completely off base. You keep saying that without copyright there will be "no content generated at all" - which:

(a) ignores the fact that content gets generated all the time without copyright even today and has for centuries
(b) ignores the point that any mechanism which encourages creation of content by definition does not "sacrifice the long term gain of having content generated."
(c) you do not take into account that enforcement of the economic part of copyright has become effectively impossible with the creation of the internet

Since that is obviously the best you can do, then clearly we will always disagree. But I certainly will not agree that you even understand why we are disagreeing.

Since you are so enamored of the GPL, I suggest you read some of the other things that RMS has written. Maybe he can do what I have not - make you see the blatantly obvious: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyright.html

Here are some answers

1. Linux has ACL support and all of the major distributions I've used recently include it by default. You may however need to modify your fstab to enable it. From there you can use setfacl and getfacl to set and get ACL entries. I use command line 99% of the time so I can't say if gnome or KDE will allow you to manipulate ACL entries.

2. While I understand what you're saying I don't agree. As a person who also administers Windows networks one thing that always bothered me is there was no way to be "god" and be able to access anything without jumping through some hoops. There has to be some way to access anything or you run the risk of being able to access nothing. You can however create users and grant different permissions to create levels of access. Or use sudo to give granular access to commands. As it always is with Linux, it takes some time to break away from what works for 99% of the users out there.

3. Everything *is* a file, *you* have to build the tools to deal with how the file is formatted. In your specific example, http://www.gnu.org/ is NOT a file on your system, it is a web resource. If you built a special cd that understood the http protocol then you could do what you have described. One of the UNIX philosophies that Linux adheres to is simplicity. Small tools that can be strung together to solve a larger problem. Having cd "enter" a web site doesn't fit in that philosophy. That's why there is wget, lynx, links or what ever.

An example would be that a file should be able to keep a list of all the dates it was accessed.

Fixed already. Extra attributes have been available for a long time. Feel free to use them.

Root is God.

Fixed. SELinux.

Why not extend this to networking resources ('cd http://www.gnu.org/ [gnu.org] would be cool ).

Hard to do in kernel space. We're getting there in user space.

In the sense that there is little originality, and it seems anything added to linux has to have occurred in another operating system.

Linux/Unix has plenty shortcomings, but its evangelists believe it's so perfect it cannot be improved. Here is my short list of major peeves.
1. Filesystem metadata/permissions. Why do files still have to have rudimentary metadata? Drives are massive and a few bytes would not harm. MacOS has added metadata. An example would be that a file should be able to keep a list of all the dates it was accessed. Why can a file only have one owner/group?

2. Root is God. This must really be fixed. There should be a way for root to irrevocably divest its powers, and root does not need to access users file. A user should explicitly grant root permission to read his files. It will always be a major security issue because all one has to do is become root. Plan9 managed to do that.

3. They lie about everything is a file. Why not extend this to networking resources ('cd http://www.gnu.org/ would be cool ). Plan9 also succeeded there.

I am sure linux evangelists are going to propose (hack-filled) workarounds or reasons it can't work, but I don't buy it. That is why I left linux.

Thank you very much.

Creative Commons publishes many licenses which are very different. Therefore, to say that a work âoeuses a Creative Commons licenseâ is to leave the principal questions about the work's licensing unanswered. When you see such a statement in a work, please ask the author to highlight the substance of the license choices. And if someone proposes to âoeuse a Creative Commons licenseâ for a certain work, it is vital to ask immediately, âoeWhich one?â

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#which-cc

I actually go further than these folks, I say "don't use any CC licence".

Copyright 2008 apathy maybe
You are free to use and modify this work, for any purpose, in any medium with the following condition:
This entire licence text is retained and applies to any copy and/or modification.

Simple, to the point, and does the job. Isn't wrapped in legalise, won't confuse anyone and applies no matter where in the world you are.

As I've said before, Creative Commons encourages people not to understand what they are doing. It provides everyone with a simplistic "non-legal" text. For example, even when I just "selected" a licence, it directed me to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ which doesn't contain the full text. If I just use that, I don't know what "rights" I'm giving up! It is only when I go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode that I find this great bit of text... (emphasis added):

Except as otherwise agreed in writing by the Licensor or as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law, if You Reproduce, Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work either by itself or as part of any Adaptations or Collections, You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation. Licensor agrees that in those jurisdictions (e.g. Japan), in which any exercise of the right granted in Section 3(b) of this License (the right to make Adaptations) would be deemed to be a distortion, mutilation, modification or other derogatory action prejudicial to the Original Author's honor and reputation, the Licensor will waive or not assert, as appropriate, this Section, to the fullest extent permitted by the applicable national law, to enable You to reasonably exercise Your right under Section 3(b) of this License (right to make Adaptations) but not otherwise.

Not only is it hard to read (and legal texts don't have to be hard to read), it is putting restrictions upon anyone using the work that I find unacceptable.

Fuck off with "Creative Commons" shit.

(The licence that the book is published under is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ which has the same clause.)

----

On PDF: Sumatra, FLOSS PDF reading software for MS Windows.

The only thing that would happen is that the FSF wouldn't recommend that distro. One major point here is that the FSF has absolutely no power whatsoever, so they are in no power to censor anything

Look at the url that was posted in the story - it's from gnu.org, not the FSF. While they're pretty much one and the same, they decided to issue this as GNU policy, not FSF policy.

Here, I'll make it EASY for you: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

This is more than just a FSF "policy statement."

We list the free system distributions we know about on our links page. If you know about one that isn't listed there, please have the developers write to us at <gnu@gnu.org>. If you have questions or comments about these guidelines themselves, feel free to send those to <licensing@gnu.org>.

What part of "licensing@gnu.org" don't you get?

IOW, gnu.org policy is that including documentation telling others how to recover from a crash of their proprietary system in a dual-boot is a no-no.

http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed.msg.html

But once in a while the manufacturer suggests installing another BIOS, which is available only as an executable. This, clearly, is installing a non-free program--it is just as bad as installing Microsoft Windows, or Adobe Photoshop. As the unethical practice of installing another BIOS executable becomes common, the version delivered inside the computer starts to raise an ethical problem issue as well.

Reyk Floeter, an OpenBSD developer, explains his position like this:

there is a major difference between binary blobs and firmware images; the blobs are loaded as code into the OS kernel, but the firmware runs directly on the device on crappy embedded micro CPUs. asking the vendors for releasing their firmware source code is just ridiculous or a nightmare since I don't even want to see this code

I don't recall the FSF or the free software movement ever arguing that more choices are good when those choices include freedom-denying software. I think they're not going to fall for a bad argument that would end up offering freedom-denying software as a recommended option alongside freedom-respecting software as if they're all good choices. That movement and that organization, after all, focus on how to respect and protect all user's software freedoms. Hence it makes sense that they would not offer documentation that presents proprietary software in the same light as software that respects the freedoms they fight for. And all of this only goes for what the GNU Project will endorse, not what you're allowed to talk about.

The opposite is the case for proprietors: I don't think Apple and Microsoft are interested in offering you documentation on how to liberate yourself from their proprietary multimedia codecs, their proprietary office software, their proprietary operating systems, etc. The difference is in what you're free to do: free software systems don't lock you into their software. Proprietors are always looking for ways to lock out competition and lock you into what they offer. There's even proprietary software where the license claims to restrict your speech: at least one version of Microsoft's Frontpage license includes language that says something to the effect of you agree not to use the program to disparage Microsoft.

Your way of looking at things, where a program's freedom doesn't matter and we should judge by function for a particular task, gets to the heart of the big difference between the open source and free software movements:

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program which is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. How will free software activists and open source enthusiasts react to that?

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but not at the price of my freedom. So I have to do without it. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

I think you're misreading the FSF's article and overreacting.

I'm not sure what label you're referring to with regard to the free software community and I'm not familiar enough with the HRC or what happened there, so it's hard to respond to that. The labels I see most often are free software and open source and members of these movements get along quite well most of the time, they work together and write a lot of great software. The philosophies of these two movements aren't the same and that difference leads to radically different conclusions when it comes to proprietary software.

Except that, by saying "you can't talk about proprietary software", you're taking away freedom. It's called censorship.

except no one's saying that. they are however saying that you shouldn't promote non-free software.

You're wrong. They're saying that your status as a free/libre distro is in question (which ultimately means you can no longer distribute under the GPL). Follow the link ...

Documentation

All the documentation in a free system distribution must be released under an appropriate free license. Additionally, it must take care not to recommend nonfree software.

In general, something that helps people who already use nonfree software to use the free software better with it is acceptable, but something that encourages users of the free software to install nonfree software is harmful.

For example, a free system distribution may have documentation for users setting up dual boot systems. It could explain how to access filesystems of the proprietary operating system, import settings from it, and so on. That would be helping people install a free system distribution on a machine which already has proprietary software, which is good.

What would be unacceptable is for the documentation to give people instructions for installing a nonfree program on the system, or mention conveniences they might gain by doing so.

For a borderline case, a clear and serious exhortation not to use the nonfree program would clearly make it acceptable.

So it "would be unacceptable" - their words - for a distro to give instructions on how to recover the non-free OS on a dual-boot system without having to nuke everything and start from scratch. This is bullshit. It is FUD, since now you supposedly can't include instructions to help users who are making the switch if they fuck up, without risking your distros' status as free/libre? This is pure FUD. It's a damn shame. It's also wrong, in both the "free/libre" sense and on a purely ethical level.

Holding users' data hostage - which is one of the consequences - is just fucked up. Free/libre software doesn't have to, and should refrain from, stooping to that level.

BTW, this clause is also a breech of ethics for members of the order of professional engineers.

... and follow the magic linky.

Documentation

All the documentation in a free system distribution must be released under an appropriate free license. Additionally, it must take care not to recommend nonfree software.

In general, something that helps people who already use nonfree software to use the free software better with it is acceptable, but something that encourages users of the free software to install nonfree software is harmful.

For example, a free system distribution may have documentation for users setting up dual boot systems. It could explain how to access filesystems of the proprietary operating system, import settings from it, and so on. That would be helping people install a free system distribution on a machine which already has proprietary software, which is good.

What would be unacceptable is for the documentation to give people instructions for installing a nonfree program on the system, or mention conveniences they might gain by doing so.

For a borderline case, a clear and serious exhortation not to use the nonfree program would clearly make it acceptable.

This treats users like children who can't make their own informed choices ... "tsk tsk, shouldn't talk about options" ... I believe free/libre software can stand on its' own merits, and doesn't need to employ FUD, especially raising the FUD about how you might not be a free distro if you include instructions on how someone can reinstall their proprietary system w/o having to nuke their whole machine, including their free/libre OS, first. This isn't just a brain-fart on their part. It's out and out wrong.

Fucking soup nazis are everywhere ...

No. This is an ideological statement, in the same vein that the GPL is. Both are intended as an implementation of an ideology. The root ideology at the FSF (up until now, it seems) can be shortly summarized as follows:

It is in everyone's best interest that software be freely available and usable by everyone.

The GPL thus establishes some (in my opinion) reasonable and limited restrictions on software, in the name of protecting the Greater Good.

This guideline set (and, in that respect, it can be viewed as a License, as it will be used in the same way - to control a set of code) goes far beyond that. It makes two additional leaps that I think are enormously harmful, and would be vociferously condemned by the FSF if anyone else attempted to do so:

1. It makes restrictions on code that is NOT part of the original codebase - that is, programs that merely sit side by side with FSF-approved code.
2. It attempts to shut off free information flow, in the name of "correctness". In otherwords, this guideline is in FAVOR OF CENSORSHIP. You can't talk about other "non-Free" code in any way other than to bash it. Yep, that's what it says.

The harsh reality of this guideline set is that it is almost identical in effect to proprietary licenses, which directly contravenes the FSF's founding principle.

take a look at the FSF's own words on what is Free Software.

This guideline is in direct conflict with Freedom 0, and places severe impediments on Freedom 1.

I honestly don't understand who thought these clauses were a good idea. Clearly, they weren't thought through.

-Erik

On http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/ you can find speeches from the FSF. Most of them by RMS, but there are two by Bradley M. Kuhn.

He sells the same message as RMS, more or less, but he sells it with a different tone. Give him a listen in your next one-hour drive to work (and continue on the way back), or whenever you feel like it.

That, I have no idea. I'm hardly a spice wizard or anything. But, have you looked at Gnucap? It's Free and does a lot of what I need it to do.

There is no GPG-like system for the web.

There could be, if we'd just put it into the browsers.

According to him, you don't really exist.

This hypothetical person appears to believe that developing free software is incompatible with being paid. If so, she is misinformed--hundreds of people are now paid to develop free software. Some of them work for Sun. She is challenging us to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.

So take it up with the guy that started it all. He'll patiently explain exactly why you are merely a hypothesis, then you can tell that to the bank and they'll stop bothering you about those hypothetical mortgage payments. Also, hypothetical people don't have to pay for things at the grocery store: you just share them.

If it was any sort of priority for Sun, that project would have actually gotten somewhere after three and a half years. If it's not important to Sun, it's not important to me, either.

Not to mention the fact that Sun is financially circling the drain, which means that the future of OpenSolaris is very much in question. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see Sun try to sue people for distributing the binary bits later on down the road if they ever reach a point of financial desperation (or if they ever get sold off to a SCO-like organisation).

Personally, I'd rather install FreeBSD, which I trust will continue to be here and relevant (-not here in a technical "it's available and there's a usergroup of five people" sense like plan 9 is) and which I am able to compile a working, 100% Free version of.

Emacs under X can do it as well:

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Multiple-Displays.html

The MIT licence is compatible with the GPL, and the Apache Licence v 2.0 is compatible with GPL3 (not GPL2)

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html

I probably used the present tense incorrectly. Here he mentions that he made his living from consulting work for the second half of the eighties (I guess he was available for consulting work if you needed stuff done in the code he maintained):
http://www.stallman.org/articles/texas.html
Here's an interview with him from the time:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/byte-interview.html

I seem to remember to have read about him doing consulting work in the nineties, too, but I cannot give a link and might be wrong. In any case, I once read about or heard quoted what he can charge, and it was a whole lot of money ($1000 per hour? Something like that, I think, but my memory is hazy). That, the MacArthur grant [1], and his priorities (which he made very clear) make me doubt that he ever was jealous about Mozilla's profits.

[1] http://tech.mit.edu/V110/N30/rms.30n.html

You don't have to throw that code away or port it to an entirely different language (though Python rocks, and I wish my day-to-day job let me use more of it) Try GNU Octave - that's what I used to back in college because my department didn't have licensed copies of MATLAB installed/available, so-called student versions were insanely impossible and expensive to get hold of (Indian students can't afford $100), and I didn't want to pick a pirated one like the rest of the class.

Possible the first open-spurce software I practically used (except playing with Linux).

Code was very cross-compatible between Octave and MATLAB, except say constants like "e" and "exp" (and of course the MATLAB-specific toolkits). The toughest part at that time was explaining to the professor (who had no idea what "open-source" was) that I did *not* use MATLAB, but it would run on MATLAB fine if he wanted to check that my assignments work fine.

"AIX-- doesn't much care for the OS, but loves the jackboots. "
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/know.your.sysadmin.html

It's also interesting in its inconsistency -- Stallman has no problem with copyright, or with any work of art being regarded as proprietary -- except in the case of software.

Actually, it is all "works of practical use".

Another useful copyright reform is decreasing the breadth of copyright: works should be divided into categories so they can be governed better independently. There are, Stallman said, three types of copyrighted works today:

1. Works of practical use
2. Works of opinion
3. Works of Art and Entertainment

Practical works include software, recipes, educational material, and typefaces (and more). All of these must be free (as in freedom), Stallman said. "If it is required to do a job, and you don't control it, you don't control your life," he said. Recipes passed from person to person, free software, free typefaces, and Wikipedia are all examples of free practical works. There's "more to do," Stallman said, but we've proved it can be done.

He also calls them "functional works".

I have a dream too
Where people like Stallman stop begrudging others the right to make their own products and sell them.

Stallman encourages people to sell their products.

Your answers:

"Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?

        Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.

        Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons - for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input.

        As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs."

Using non free modules is just like using a non-free compiler

No, it isn't. It is generally accepted that the copyright of user generated output of a program is controlled by that user. Some rare (inevitably proprietary) licenses do claim copyright over output of the program, but no open source license does that.

There really isn't "intellectual property". There are patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks. Patents and trademarks are regulated by one agency, and copyrights by a completely different one (the USPTO and Library of Congress respectively). Trade secret laws tend to be state-regulated and not a federal issue (for the most part).

These are very, very different and unfortunately are lumped together into one big vat called "intellectual property" with the further concept that anything which can be drawn, written down, or discussed can also be "owned". That is so far from the truth that it makes me hurt to even hear this.

More to the point. "IP" doesn't exist. It never has. There are no "intellectual property laws" on the books, as this is just a popular media shorthand for the other kinds of laws I mentioned above... certainly not a legal term.

Richard Stallman does a better job at explaining this issue and concept:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml

No, "intellectual property" really doesn't exist and to claim that it does is a lie. This is, however, a concept that is seeking to expand very narrowly defined concepts to encompass things like databases of factual data which was never covered by these laws.

OCLC can "copright" their catalog of classification codes, but I fail to see how publishing a minor except (aka the bibliographic entry for a book) is necessarily protected. Indeed, it is explicitly permitted under U.S. copyright law (and similar laws in other countries) under the concept of "fair-use". Like I said, this is "copyright law" and not "intellectual property law".

The system they use is not Unix, and it's not Linux. It's GNU, and GNU's Not Unix. (See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html.)

The GPL says share the code, not share the credit.

The GPL has a few requirements to "keep intact all notices".

Now that this Emacs and Vi stuff is out of the system, could we please go on to ed?

After all, it's the standard!