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Consider the GPL - it's approved by both. But Red Hat doesn't publish Free Software, it publishes Open Source - and software written by Richard Stallman isn't Open Source - it's Free Software, and RMS is happy to explain the difference.

I'm squarely in Stallman's camp; my audio project Ogg Frog is definitely Free Software, not Open Source.

You see, the distinction isn't the license - it's the purpose behind making the project either Open or Free.

As Stallman explains, Open Source is about efficiency - volunteer coders, and "many eyeballs" finding and correcting bugs and security holes. Free Software is about creating a community - Stallman has made it very clear he hopes to get back to the way things were back in the day, when source was shared openly with no non-disclosure agreements, copyrights or licenses.

Unfortunately, the English language has a problem: Free can mean "as in Freedom", or "without cost". When I speak of my Free Software project to non-techie people, they think I'm just not going to charge money for it, and question my sanity. They have no clue about the meaning behind Free Software.

Spanish doesn't have that problem: Free as in Freedom is "Libre", free as in beer is "gratis". But those words don't make sense to English speakers.

I have developed a convention, but it's too subtle for most to take notice. Perhaps they will if you join me: I capitalize the "F" if it's "Free as in Freedom", but use lowercase for "free as in beer". I think that emphasizes the difference, and maybe if we all wrote it that way, more people would understand.

Stallman is a great man, IMHO, but he has a marketing and image problem: very few non-technical people have the first clue as to what Free Software means. Most think it means "freeware".

But Open Source doesn't have that problem; many who don't know source code from Shinola do understand what Open Source is all about.

Thus I long ago gave up trying to describe Ogg Frog as Free Software in casual conversation. I only say that when speaking to others who will likely understand. Most of the time I describe it as Open Source, but feel guilty in doing so. I feel like Matthew in these verses:

Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice. -- John 13, 37-38

(BTW - there's no Ogg Frog to download yet, not even CVS or Subversion. Out of consideration for my non-technical target market, I'm not releasing anything until it reaches it's planned 1.0 feature set, and is reasonably bug free. At least for non-technical users, I feel The Cathedral is better than The Bazaar.

"What is C code doing referencing the stack pointer directly?"

Because it is C, and C is designed to be able to do so? How do you think the Linux kernel gets implemented, though it also has Assembly to be sure. C was designed to allow implementation of Operating Systems. The capability to reference the Stack Pointer and do other assemblyie things via the asm keyword is part of its charm ;-)

And how will the people they phone up be able to help them? The professionals users phone up can help in the same way car mechanics help car drivers, the way electricians, plumbers, and roofers help homeowners—all of these professionals (and many more) have the freedom to tinker and share information. In computer software we have had to value these freedoms for their own sake, politically organize, and fight for these freedoms for all computer users against anyone who would distribute proprietary software. We do this by making replacement programs that do the same jobs as proprietary software, making new programs that do interesting new things, and making it easier for people to use the free software we have created and distributed. When proprietors see us do this they clamp down harder by using new legal regimes to try and stop us from competing along side us (proprietors like controlled economy where they are the monopolist, they don't like competition). That has been the reality of the free software movement for over 2 decades now.

Users are not commonly programmers and they don't have the ability to make or fix programs. But users commonly want things simpler than they are, or they want programs that don't spy on them, or they want programs that don't take away what they thought was theirs (not surprisingly users apparently don't like DRM), and users want many other things some of which conflict with what other users want. Similarly most car drivers aren't mechanics, but they want stereos installed, sunroofs put in, oil changed, tires repaired or replaced, and other changes. And not all drivers want exactly the same things in or on their cars. Any homeowner will tell you that no matter how well their house suited its previous owner the house became great because people put time into making changes to that house. And every homeowner knows that their tastes will demand nothing different from them because no single arrangement of anything is to everyone's liking. Even if you have no problems with how government functions today you might have problems with government later. So in all cases we solve the problem in the same way: define and defend freedoms to let people do what they want with their stuff, and foster a culture around the freedoms we defined. You know it would be foolish to relinquish your freedoms of assembly and speech based on what you think and feel now (you might need them later), you wouldn't tolerate a car with the hood welded shut (you might want to get in there later), and you wouldn't buy a house with proprietary plumbing only one plumber could legally fix (you might want to leverage competing plumbers later).

We deserve freedoms to make our computers do what we want. We aren't harming others by inspecting, running, sharing or modifying software, playing our movies anytime we want, or using computers without being tracked (to name a few actions that collide with proprietors' interests). There's no ethical justification for keeping people from software freedom.

You really should listen to any of RMS' talks on the story of the free software movement so you can hear his logic behind why his framing of the debate makes sense and aims at a larger more important social issue: social solidarity.

Are you living under a rock? Go search on Google.

http://www.billparish.com/msftfraudfacts.html

Apparently I am. Apparently so are all of the short sellers out their that would make tons of money by shorting the stock. Apparently the media is under a rock. That's the same media that could be breaking the story of the decade, if not century if these accusations were even close to being true. Apparently the SEC is under a rock. The DOJ is too.

Your evidence is just fantastic. It is also dated from 1999. I don't think there is too much more to say about this other than the fact that it is conjecture that never played out.

What's wrong with "protesting a charity"? The Gates Foundation has been criticized by many people, not just Stallman. And the fact that the Gates Foundation is a vehicle for promoting Windows means that it is highly relevant to FOSS users.

Probably because it just looks very wrong on the surface. You can be as idealistic as you want, but the truth is that it's the laypeople that need to be switched to Linux, not the technical people. To your average retail customer or the manager that chooses which system to go with, RMS is totally self-destructing to the FOSS community when he does things like this. It just doesn't look professional and doesn't gain the trust that is necessary switch people.

That's about as dumb as confusing Switzerland and Sweden

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

Really? You're really going to split hairs over "FOSS" and "free software"? Last I checked, "FOSS" stood for "FREE open source software". Arguing between the two is just a pedantic argument over language. Well, perhaps you and RMS should think about this. When a person hears "free" they tend to only think "free as in beer". When you include the "open source" component, it's easier for the layperson to understand the difference and arrive at the "free as in speech" meaning. Either way though, it really doesn't matter. People just want a system that they can use. Arguing about this point is counterproductive to FOSS in general as it is almost entirely academic.

No, you don't. It seems "extremely literal" to you because you simply know next to nothing.

You don't take the time to thoughtfully deconstruct my statements and arguments to show why you think they are wrong. You just wave your hand and tell me that I'm wrong. That is not an effective means of persuasion.

And, for the record, I never said "open source" by itself.

If free software had been pussy-footing around for the last 20 years, it would be dead and Microsoft would own the entire industry. People need to speak up about how evil Microsoft actually has been and what kind of self-serving organization the Gates Foundation is. Maybe sooner or later, even you will get the message.

Even if I grant your position, you make the assumption that the FOSS community needs to continue to use the tactics of the past 20 years to continue to fight the non-FOSS community. This is just wrong. RMS' behavior turns away those that matter: the people who aren't using FOSS. If you think they won't care, just check out the response to RMS on Slashdot alone. Words and phrases like "shameful", "embarrassment", and "harmful" are being used to describe him. Consider too that Slashdot would have a greater propensity to side with RMS. If you want to have greater adoption of FOSS, the community simply needs better representation. Having someone up there that looks like a ranting lunatic is not going to be the best way to proceed going forward. FOSS needs a change of imagine so that it can be more widely adopted. That change needs to happen soon so that it can progress faster than it is now.

Do you have any evidence for this statement?

Are you living under a rock? Go search on Google.

http://www.billparish.com/msftfraudfacts.html

So, when you have RMS protesting a charity, it builds negative associations that can greatly hurt the community.

What's wrong with "protesting a charity"? The Gates Foundation has been criticized by many people, not just Stallman. And the fact that the Gates Foundation is a vehicle for promoting Windows means that it is highly relevant to FOSS users.

Is this for real or is it a linguistic trick of technicalities?

That's about as dumb as confusing Switzerland and Sweden

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

Your viewpoint is extremely literal. I understand it.

No, you don't. It seems "extremely literal" to you because you simply know next to nothing.

Is RMS the spokesman for theFree Software Foundation? You said so yourself in your own post. Is RMS going to be very closely associated with FOSS? Totally.

If free software had been pussy-footing around for the last 20 years, it would be dead and Microsoft would own the entire industry. People need to speak up about how evil Microsoft actually has been and what kind of self-serving organization the Gates Foundation is. Maybe sooner or later, even you will get the message.

GNU says there is absolutely nothing wrong making money from GPL Licensed as long as you carry the philosophy and keep source open.

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

One can make a GNU/GPL V2 software, keep it open and still ask for money. The idea with Tivo is, Tivo can and will make millions of dollars but the source will be open, changes published in reasonable time and the community will benefit from source.

"Do as I tell you, or you are a dumb slave"

Please explain how having software that works in the interests of the user where the user has the freedom to make the changes they want, limited chiefly by the user's willingness to alter it, is in any way similar to being called "a dumb slave".

[...] more than that [free software] I enjoy software that just works.

Nobody is arguing against powerful reliable software. But when that software is proprietary instead of free one wonders for whom the software "just works"; who benefits from a program that spies on the user, keeps users from adding translations into the user's native language, disallows technical users (like programmers) from fixing bugs or adding features, or makes it a copyright infringement to share any version of the program with their fellows (whether improved or not, whether shared commercially or not). Powerful and reliable software can be bad for the user (see RMS' essay on "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software" specifically the section called "Powerful, reliable software can be bad").

As someone who doesn't really follow the free software movement, I think he should have focused on promoting the advantages of open-source, rather than bashing those that are free to license their software whichever way they choose.

Actually the power of licensing is not a good unto itself. With computer software copyright licensing is used to keep users from controlling their computers and licensing is used to ensure that users have the freedom to control their computers. The difference depends on what the license says. And the FSF has done more to write licenses giving users freedom than the folks behind the open source movement. The FSF would rather you didn't conflate their work with the work of the open source movement. RMS doesn't speak for or encourage anyone to become an open source supporter. He advocates for the older free software movement. The two movements have remarkably different philosophies that both drive the two movements to approve of the same sets of licenses and posit radically different takes on proprietary software.

Utter nonsense - and it reflects badly on the FSF. How exactly are you going to persuade these companies to become more open-source friendly, if all you do is bash them?

You assume that that is his goal and then argue against your own assumption. You also ignore the enormous changes in computing that are a direct result of RMS' and the FSF's actions (their licenses and the powerful body of software licensed under them being one such action). RMS isn't trying to convince any company to "become more open-source friendly". He's fighting for users freedoms by writing and encouraging others to write free software licensed primarily under strongly copylefted free software licenses. When companies do this, and many have, that's great. But history shows us that independence doesn't come from companies it comes from individuals. Lots of people make the mistake of giving primacy to business interests when really corporations ought to be subservient to the people's power.

As someone who doesn't really follow the free software movement, I think he should have focused on promoting the advantages of open-source, rather than bashing those that are free to license their software whichever way they choose.

Actually the power of licensing is not a good unto itself. With computer software copyright licensing is used to keep users from controlling their computers and licensing is used to ensure that users have the freedom to control their computers. The difference depends on what the license says. And the FSF has done more to write licenses giving users freedom than the folks behind the open source movement. The FSF would rather you didn't conflate their work with the work of the open source movement. RMS doesn't speak for or encourage anyone to become an open source supporter. He advocates for the older free software movement. The two movements have remarkably different philosophies that both drive the two movements to approve of the same sets of licenses and posit radically different takes on proprietary software.

Utter nonsense - and it reflects badly on the FSF. How exactly are you going to persuade these companies to become more open-source friendly, if all you do is bash them?

You assume that that is his goal and then argue against your own assumption. You also ignore the enormous changes in computing that are a direct result of RMS' and the FSF's actions (their licenses and the powerful body of software licensed under them being one such action). RMS isn't trying to convince any company to "become more open-source friendly". He's fighting for users freedoms by writing and encouraging others to write free software licensed primarily under strongly copylefted free software licenses. When companies do this, and many have, that's great. But history shows us that independence doesn't come from companies it comes from individuals. Lots of people make the mistake of giving primacy to business interests when really corporations ought to be subservient to the people's power.

This is a completely outrageous lie. Copyright doesn't automatically transfer just because you click "upload", and if any company tried burying that in the Terms of Service, a judge would laugh them out of court with a multi-million-dollar judgment hanging around their neck. You need to sign a contract, in paper and ink like the form letter that the FSF asks people to fill out, sign, and mail to them, and you need to keep that paper contract on file indefinitely in case the previous owner has a change of heart and tries to sue you.

Normally I'd assume somebody asking what vim is was trying to troll, but from the rest of your post, I'm guessing you really don't know, so...

Vim is Vi Improved. It's a highly configurable, very powerful text editor aimed at programmers. Virtually all Linux programmers are familiar with it, and there are constant wars over whether it or emacs is the better editor. Personally, I prefer vim.

Also, just so you know, LCDs do not "refresh" like CRTs do. CRTs constantly redraw the entire picture a certain number of times per second, and that's their refresh rate. 60 Hz is a bit on the low side; that is generally the lowest that's considered acceptable, and there are a lot of people who can see a noticeable flicker. Good CRTs support refresh rates of up to 85 Hz. LCDs do not need to constantly redraw the entire picture; pixels are only changed when their color is changed. The concept of a "refresh rate" is meaningless for LCDs, although it is useful to measure how long it takes a pixel to turn from pure white to pure black.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

You know,when I first read the right to read I thought it was a paranoid fantasy. I now believe like Orwell and Rand RMS has given us a glimpse into the future. I believe that the big desktop PC will eventually go the way of the 8 track,replaced by "media appliances" in the same way that cell phones are phasing out the landlines. When everything ends up hooked to the Internet it won't be hard to have a "WGA" style check done on all your media to check your usage rights,and sites like IMSLP will be relegated to content so old that Henry Ford was still making his Model T and talkies was still a popular name for a movie.

I truly hope I am wrong,I really do. But with the huge warchests the media corps have to buy our laws,and with the US pushing hard for trade agreements that come with DMCAs for everyone,I honestly don't think I am. But I truly wish them luck,for with the unrivaled greed of these large media companies I think they will need it. And as always this is my 02c,YMMV

a) Does this mean the standard GNU response is now invalid?

b) If someone writes a FOSS implementation of a .doc/.xls viewer, does that mean MSFT could more easily throw their weight to declaring .doc a standard? (Since a standard ought to have multiple implementations, although maybe office 2003 and 2007 counts as two, or office and word/excel/powerpoint viewer :p )

Built in support (i.e. enabled by default for millions of users) for OpenPGP trust model for SSL certs. Kill the CA oligarchy by giving them serious competition, where an identity can be certed by any number of CAs, partially trusted through a WoT, etc.

Vim? Real programmers use Ed, the standard editor.

Yeah, I was just fooling around. I don't actually use Slack but a LFS system that uses Slackware's package management. On my system it would actually be just:

Slackware distro:
cd /usr/src/tar
wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/screen/screen-4.0.2.tar.gz
cd ..
tar -xzf tar/screen-4.0.2.tar.gz
cd screen-4.0.2
CFLAGS=" -O2 -march=pentium-m -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"./configure --prefix=/usr
make
mkdir /tmp/screen_install
make DESTDIR=/tmp/screen_install install
cd /tmp/screen_install
mkdir install
vim install/slack-desc
makepkg screen-4.0.2-i686-1.tgz
installpkg screen-4.0.2-i686-1.tgz
cp screen-4.0.2-i686-1.tgz /usr/src/packages
cd ..
rm -r screen_install

What? Difficult? What are you talking about, that's the only good way.

Gnash is getting quite usable these days.

OK, it's not from Adobe, which is what you meant, but thought it was worth a mention anyway ;)

none of us real software nerds (flattering myself again) would ever have thought of writing a program that lets you track your finances, write documents and typeset them

I think you need a couple of history lessons.

Just what about Ada is restricted by licensing? There is a longstanding gnu project GNAT http://www.gnu.org/software/gnat/gnat.html

BZZZT! Not based on Yacc's source code:

from http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/manual/html_mono/bison.html:

Bison was written primarily by Robert Corbett; Richard Stallman made it Yacc-compatible. Wilfred Hansen of Carnegie Mellon University added multi-character string literals and other features.

Sorry try again.

> In fact, if you still think the BSD is a "good license", read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html

Not everyone agrees with GNU's communist philosophy. Personally, I release all my open source code under the MIT license (which is what this new 2-clause BSD license really is), and would not even consider contributing anything to a GPL project. If you got out more, you might have met some people who disagree with you like I do.

You've never read The Java Trap?

This is a parody of it.

I invite you to read Can I put the binaries on my Internet server and put the source on a different Internet site?, from the GPL FAQ. If you were redistributing my code under the GPL and tried to pull that stunt, I would consider your actions to violate the license.

I invite you to read Can I put the binaries on my Internet server and put the source on a different Internet site?, from the GPL FAQ. If you were redistributing my code under the GPL and tried to pull that stunt, I would consider your actions to violate the license.

What does the s/java/flash/g trap mean? (the s/ and /g)...

I think the quiz is borked or doesn't apply to the latest versions of the L/GPL. I can't see how the LGPL says that modifying a version of the lib means you have to GPL all your code. You just distribute a modified lib under LGPL and keep your code somewhere secret [assuming that's what you wanted to do, you are allowed to keep it secret under LGPL].

#

Peter creates a library called LibIdo licensed under the Lesser General Public License. FooCorp distributes a modified version of the LibIdo library linked to their proprietary program Frobber. Which of the following is not an obligation of FooCorp?

      1. FooCorp must provide a mechanism for Frobber to be linked against new versions of LibIdo.
      2. FooCorp must make available the complete source code to their modified version of LibIdo.
      3. FooCorp must note all their modifications to LibIdo.
      4. FooCorp must make available the complete source code to Frobber.

You chose 1, but the correct answer was 4.

You can find out about this issue in the LGPL, sections 2 and 6.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html

If you distribute changed GPL binaries you have to provide the source (with the changes already in it) with it (or on request). If you distribute unmodified GPL binaries you still have to provide the source code (for the unmodified binary) along with it or on request. Even if you are "just" distributing a Linux kernel/busybox compiled by someone else you have to provide the source for it (or a written offer for it)*.

The whole not having to GPL (and thus distribute the source) for any/every userland programs which are running on the Linux kernel issue is clarified in the license file that comes with the Linux kernel. As someone said - just because the kernel is GPL userland programs do not have to be. That doesn't get you off the hook for providing the source for the kernel if you distribute binaries though. If you are additionally distributing userland programs that have you received under GPL (like busybox) you will have to provide the source for those too (but you would have had to have done the later regardless of which license the kernel was under).

As mentioned in previous posts the GPL FAQ covers this and many issues and it is worth reading the GPL itself too to give yourself firsthand knowledge of it. The issue you seem to be thinking of is probably covered by the GPL FAQ entry about unchanged/unmodified binaries.

* There is a bit more to it than this but it's well explained in in the GPL FAQ if you missed it when reading the GPL itself.

If you distribute changed GPL binaries you have to provide the source (with the changes already in it) with it (or on request). If you distribute unmodified GPL binaries you still have to provide the source code (for the unmodified binary) along with it or on request. Even if you are "just" distributing a Linux kernel/busybox compiled by someone else you have to provide the source for it (or a written offer for it)*.

The whole not having to GPL (and thus distribute the source) for any/every userland programs which are running on the Linux kernel issue is clarified in the license file that comes with the Linux kernel. As someone said - just because the kernel is GPL userland programs do not have to be. That doesn't get you off the hook for providing the source for the kernel if you distribute binaries though. If you are additionally distributing userland programs that have you received under GPL (like busybox) you will have to provide the source for those too (but you would have had to have done the later regardless of which license the kernel was under).

As mentioned in previous posts the GPL FAQ covers this and many issues and it is worth reading the GPL itself too to give yourself firsthand knowledge of it. The issue you seem to be thinking of is probably covered by the GPL FAQ entry about unchanged/unmodified binaries.

* There is a bit more to it than this but it's well explained in in the GPL FAQ if you missed it when reading the GPL itself.

If you distribute changed GPL binaries you have to provide the source (with the changes already in it) with it (or on request). If you distribute unmodified GPL binaries you still have to provide the source code (for the unmodified binary) along with it or on request. Even if you are "just" distributing a Linux kernel/busybox compiled by someone else you have to provide the source for it (or a written offer for it)*.

The whole not having to GPL (and thus distribute the source) for any/every userland programs which are running on the Linux kernel issue is clarified in the license file that comes with the Linux kernel. As someone said - just because the kernel is GPL userland programs do not have to be. That doesn't get you off the hook for providing the source for the kernel if you distribute binaries though. If you are additionally distributing userland programs that have you received under GPL (like busybox) you will have to provide the source for those too (but you would have had to have done the later regardless of which license the kernel was under).

As mentioned in previous posts the GPL FAQ covers this and many issues and it is worth reading the GPL itself too to give yourself firsthand knowledge of it. The issue you seem to be thinking of is probably covered by the GPL FAQ entry about unchanged/unmodified binaries.

* There is a bit more to it than this but it's well explained in in the GPL FAQ if you missed it when reading the GPL itself.

If you distribute changed GPL binaries you have to provide the source (with the changes already in it) with it (or on request). If you distribute unmodified GPL binaries you still have to provide the source code (for the unmodified binary) along with it or on request. Even if you are "just" distributing a Linux kernel/busybox compiled by someone else you have to provide the source for it (or a written offer for it)*.

The whole not having to GPL (and thus distribute the source) for any/every userland programs which are running on the Linux kernel issue is clarified in the license file that comes with the Linux kernel. As someone said - just because the kernel is GPL userland programs do not have to be. That doesn't get you off the hook for providing the source for the kernel if you distribute binaries though. If you are additionally distributing userland programs that have you received under GPL (like busybox) you will have to provide the source for those too (but you would have had to have done the later regardless of which license the kernel was under).

As mentioned in previous posts the GPL FAQ covers this and many issues and it is worth reading the GPL itself too to give yourself firsthand knowledge of it. The issue you seem to be thinking of is probably covered by the GPL FAQ entry about unchanged/unmodified binaries.

* There is a bit more to it than this but it's well explained in in the GPL FAQ if you missed it when reading the GPL itself.

If you distribute changed GPL binaries you have to provide the source (with the changes already in it) with it (or on request). If you distribute unmodified GPL binaries you still have to provide the source code (for the unmodified binary) along with it or on request. Even if you are "just" distributing a Linux kernel/busybox compiled by someone else you have to provide the source for it (or a written offer for it)*.

The whole not having to GPL (and thus distribute the source) for any/every userland programs which are running on the Linux kernel issue is clarified in the license file that comes with the Linux kernel. As someone said - just because the kernel is GPL userland programs do not have to be. That doesn't get you off the hook for providing the source for the kernel if you distribute binaries though. If you are additionally distributing userland programs that have you received under GPL (like busybox) you will have to provide the source for those too (but you would have had to have done the later regardless of which license the kernel was under).

As mentioned in previous posts the GPL FAQ covers this and many issues and it is worth reading the GPL itself too to give yourself firsthand knowledge of it. The issue you seem to be thinking of is probably covered by the GPL FAQ entry about unchanged/unmodified binaries.

* There is a bit more to it than this but it's well explained in in the GPL FAQ if you missed it when reading the GPL itself.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistribution

Is making and using multiple copies within one organization or company "distribution"?

No, in that case the organization is just making the copies for itself. As a consequence, a company or other organization can develop a modified version and install that version through its own facilities, without giving the staff permission to release that modified version to outsiders.

However, when the organization transfers copies to other organizations or individuals, that is distribution. In particular, providing copies to contractors for use off-site is distribution.

No, they need to provide it even if it was not modified. It's a FAQ.

The GPL doesn't say customers anywhere..

For a commercial redistributor. the source provision duty can be discharged in ways such as by providing source with the object code (or only source), i.e. on the same CD, or from the same 'place'. Alternatively, by providing a written offer to provide source, valid for 3 years.

For the 'offer' case: The GPLv2 says the source must be made available to "to any 3rd party". The GPLv3 says the source must be made available to "to give anyone who possesses the object code".

See section 3 of GPLv2, or section 6 of GPLv3 for the fine details. GPLv2 would apply to Linux (violation of licence which Harald Welte often sues for); busybox is, IIRC, under the GPLv3.

Both the licences are available from the FSF website, along with a useful FAQ.

"What I have learnt today is: only comment on slashdot if your opinion is positive... or not at all. :("

a better lesson could be gained for the day by reading the text of the GPL. It's written in human-english and not too long. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

If you company bans employees from *running* any GPL software for internal use, be it in an unmodified (or even modified!) state, then that's just dumb and complete silliness on your company's part, and puts them at a competitive disadvantage. It is not at all a shortcoming of the GPL, which is happy to let you do that without further strings attached. It's your company's lawyers imposing dumb rules. It's not like the GPL is tricky legally, it is very clear about this.
A theme for this thread is that you shouldn't blame the GPL for your company getting bad advice.

If your company is involved in writing and distributing software, the legal team may well have a valid point in keeping GPL *source code* away from the software coders so some keen intern/VP doesn't reuse some code they shouldn't to save some time on a project.

You can do what whatever you like with GPL software, just if you distribute copies of it to your customers (modified or not), you must grant them the same right to see, modify, and distribute the source code as you were given. That's all.

You may want to send your legal department a copy of the GPL, and possibly a copy of the accompanying FAQ, which explains things in terms simple enough for non-lawyers or even just really confused lawyers to understand.

You may want to send your legal department a copy of the GPL, and possibly a copy of the accompanying FAQ, which explains things in terms simple enough for non-lawyers or even just really confused lawyers to understand.

Sounds like you need to take the GPL quiz. This particular issue is addressed in Question 1 of said quiz.

Don't worry, you're definitely not alone in any misunderstandings of the GPL...lots of people think they understand all the legal aspects of it completely when they don't. I used to be guilty myself. Now I just don't claim to know everything about the GPL ;-).

While you could use dd, there are other tools designed for this sort of thing.

Try out gddrescue: http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

"GNU ddrescue is a data recovery tool. It copies data from one file or block device (hard disc, cdrom, etc) to another, trying hard to rescue data in case of read errors.

Automatic merging of backups: If you have two or more damaged copies of a file, cdrom, etc, and run ddrescue on all of them, one at a time, with the same output file, you will probably obtain a complete and error-free file. This is so because the probability of having damaged areas at the same places on different input files is very low. Using the logfile, only the needed blocks are read from the second and successive copies."

For new archives, you may want to look at something like http://dvdisaster.sourceforge.net/

Bzzzz wrong! Educate yourself.
Or at the very least site a link to back your statement up. I did a quick google search and didn't find much.

1. the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
   
2. the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors,
   
3. the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, and
   
4. the freedom to share the changes you make.

The alternative is to design devices that don't use their infrastructure. The alternative is to deliver a product to consumers that allows them to flagrantly violate all the monopolistic regulations governing the airwaves, operate mesh networks for communications outside of centralized control, and send these bastards the way of the horse and buggy. These guys can be rendered redundant by simple pieces of hardware placed into a critical mass of hands. And, inevitably, eventually, thankfully... they will. Wonder of RMS will be demanding that they stick a GNU in the name.

Obligatory link is Obligatory: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html More info