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Eben Moglen tells how he enforces the GPL without it being a contract.

Next time do some reading before calling someone a moron.

He isn't exactly an innocent victim and life does tend to suck after you've been caught breaking the law.

Do you ever speed? I mean, really, when everyone else is going 65 to 70 (or higher) miles per hour, are you really going to diligently only go 55?

Do you have any idea what the possible penalties for speeding are? I mean, sure, most people who get caught by the police get a slap-on-the-wrist fine, but do you know what you could face for speeding? Check your state laws; in involves losing your license to drive, facing hefty penalties, and jail time. If you've gotten speeding tickets before, that means that you're a repeat offender and they can really throw the book at you.

Yet still, I'll bet that when you get on the interstate, you go 70 right along with the rest of the cars. By your logic, that means that if a police officer pulls you over and arrests you, throws you in jail for a few months, you lose your license to drive, and have to pay thousands of dollars in fines, even though that may not be the normal punishment that fits the dinkiness of your crime, hey, you're not exactly an innocent victim, and your life sucking from now on is justified, since after all, you were caught breaking the law.

As far as I can tell, this guy was guilty of breaking a law that is just as silly as the one that says I'm supposed to drive 55 miles per hour on a straight road that is 10 lanes wide (I live in Atlanta, we really have interstates 10 lanes wide in 55 mile per hour zones), even if it's a lazy Sunday afternoon with perfect visibility and very low traffic volume.

I don't see anything in the article that says he was selling the modded boxes. I don't see anything that says he was using the modchips to steal games illegally. I don't see anything that says he was using modchips to distribute illegal copies of games. If he's guilty of some or all of those things, then maybe he does deserve a stiff penalty, but that should only happen after he's tried and convicted in court, after that little annoyance called due process runs its course. Right now, all I'm seeing is that he violated the DMCA, which says that regardless of your intent, you do not have the right to modify hardware that you purchased and own to suit your own needs. It says that corporations have the right to tell you what you can do with your own property. It says that if you're suspected of modifying your own property, regardless of intent and without due process, you will lose that property and more, and that's just not right.

Years from now, this law will be looked back upon as one of the most shameful and disgraceful that this country has ever had on the book. (At least, until the DMCA v2.0 is passed and Richard Stallman's dystopian future really does come to pass.) In the meantime, I hope you rethink your ideas that just because something is illegal it is immoral, and that people deserve whatever comes to them for breaking laws that, frankly, need to be broken.

First they came for the filesharers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a filesharer;
Then they came for the modchippers, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a modchipper;
...

(I think you can guess the rest.)

Richard Stallman is a loon, but he's absolutely right. The only mistake I can see is that he was optimistic on the schedule by 25 years or so.

And all this time I thought it was free to do the right thing and not pirate software...

I'm sorry, but the refusal to call a personal audio device that plays mp3s an "MP3 player" is just loony, That link http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html does more to damage freesoftware than 30 MSFT articles in trade mags. Seriously people get over yourselves no one cares if you listen to Ogg files, the rest of the world is still playing MP3s on our MP3 players. Didn't you guys get the memo political correctness is dead, fat people are fat, short people are short, and bald guys are still bald. HTH

"Content" can mean either "happy" or "works of authorship other than computer programs". I'll assume you mean the latter, in which case you still appear to have a misconception. A recent Slashdot story covered a documentary showing how copyright gets in the way of creators as well.

At least, it looks as if the Change Log is still being updated. (Click the link titled "ChangeLog in the main directory".)

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnupod/

Works for me.

Which section of which manual details how to reduce the binary footprint of <iostream> in static libstdc++? I read the libstdc++ FAQ, but it just says that you can replace g++ with gcc -lsupc++ if you need new and delete but not <iostream>. It states that splitting up parts of libstdc++ into individual sections is currently not implemented due to implementation defects in GNU ld's garbage collection; is there a good way to work around this?

Or which query in which Web search engine should I use? I tried iostream binary footprint in Google and iostream code size in Google, but I didn't see anything relevant in the first pages.

That's exactly why the FSF recommend the "or any later version" application of the GPL. Don't hold the FSF responsible for Torvalds' decision to lock himself into GPL2.

You sure about that, GNUpod seems to be able to do that if I am reading the documentation correctly.

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnupod/gnupod.html#SEC 18

Where I work, we let you see all our code.

Download it too, if you like ;)

http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/

You are wrong about 3):

The process of building the new engine went much more smoothly than anything we have done before, because I was able to do all the groundwork while the rest of the company worked on TeamArena. By the time they were ready to work on it, things were basically functional. I did most of the early development work with a gutted version of Quake 3, which let me write a brand new renderer without having to rewrite file access code, console code, and all the other subsystems that make up a game. After the renderer was functional and the other programmers came off of TA and Wolf, the rest of the codebase got rewritten. Especially after our move to C++, there is very little code remaining from the Q3 codebase at this point.

Source: http://archive.gamespy.com/e32002/pc/carmack/

And 4) as well:

Historically, compilers for many languages, including C++ and Fortran, have been implemented as "preprocessors" which emit another high level language such as C. None of the compilers included in GCC are implemented this way; they all generate machine code directly. This sort of preprocessor should not be confused with the C preprocessor, which is an integral feature of the C, C++, Objective-C and Objective-C++ languages.

Source: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.2.1/gcc/G_002b _002b-and-GCC.html

Nope, I mean the two clause BSD licence. Of course it is basically the same as the MIT licence, but is different from three clause BSD and of course the four clause BSD. The Free BSD licence is two clause as well.

Of course, if an OS has a decent driver system, then having a GPL driver shouldn't limit anyone from using it. As well (an I am not an expert in the field at all...), if people can write proprietary drivers using DRI, why can't people use GPLed DRI drivers on software such as FreeBSD? Or do you just mean that people won't distribute it?

And of course, it wasn't me saying "GPL or nothing".

Nope, I mean the two clause BSD licence. Of course it is basically the same as the MIT licence, but is different from three clause BSD and of course the four clause BSD. The Free BSD licence is two clause as well.

Of course, if an OS has a decent driver system, then having a GPL driver shouldn't limit anyone from using it. As well (an I am not an expert in the field at all...), if people can write proprietary drivers using DRI, why can't people use GPLed DRI drivers on software such as FreeBSD? Or do you just mean that people won't distribute it?

And of course, it wasn't me saying "GPL or nothing".

Nope, I mean the two clause BSD licence. Of course it is basically the same as the MIT licence, but is different from three clause BSD and of course the four clause BSD. The Free BSD licence is two clause as well.

Of course, if an OS has a decent driver system, then having a GPL driver shouldn't limit anyone from using it. As well (an I am not an expert in the field at all...), if people can write proprietary drivers using DRI, why can't people use GPLed DRI drivers on software such as FreeBSD? Or do you just mean that people won't distribute it?

And of course, it wasn't me saying "GPL or nothing".

screen rtorrent

ssh youraddress

screen -r -x

But yeah, all our modern stuff should be up there.

http://www.gnu.org/graphics/ - go nuts.

Of course, that assumes such files exist.

For example, I run http://www.gnu.org/ - a lot of our graphics were created in the days before people did drawing on computers.

But yeah, all our modern stuff should be up there.

http://www.gnu.org/graphics/ - go nuts.

Of course, that assumes such files exist.

For example, I run http://www.gnu.org/ - a lot of our graphics were created in the days before people did drawing on computers.

But yeah, all our modern stuff should be up there.

http://www.gnu.org/graphics/ - go nuts.

FOSS != OSS

See the Wikipedia article on Alternative terms for free software and RMS's Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source".

hat is false. "Tivoization" (what a horrible word) still allows you to run your (modified) software for any purpose you wish. It just prevents you from using the original hardware to do so. Call a spade "a spade": The GPLv3 aims to control the distribution of hardware.

Last I checked there is no trademark on the term "open source". So what if it's a descriptive term? Well that means anyone can use it for description. Since you don't have a trademark, you don't get to control the definition of that descriptive term.

Can anyone explain why the V3, which appears to impose more restrictions, actually imposes fewer?

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Prohibiting users to get the source code is restrictive. Forcing users to get the source code is restrictive. Allowing users to get the source code is permissive. The GPL does the third thing, so it is indeed permissive. And any restrictions on distributors are irrelevant.

If you're really arguing that the GPL does not force distributors to provide source code, you don't understand the GPL. The GPL *does* force distributors to provide source code. In fact, the GPL does both: (1) Allowing users to get the source code and (2) Forcing distributors to provide source code. If distributors are not being forced to provide source code, then users are not allowed to get it.

Your argument is trying to put spin on the agreement and only mentions one half of the equation. I would suggest that you try the FSF GPL quiz, particularly questions 1 and 2: link. They detail the requirements that a binary distributor *must* meet in order to meet the licensing requirements of the GPL.

This means that the license is restrictive toward the distributor, and hence can be considered a restrictive license.

Reid

it does dictate the behavior of the person who develops and distributes devices.

Whether amateur or professional.

The FSF also specifically caters to people who are NOT writing software for sale

Except that selling GPL software is specifically encouraged.

I really think the GPL is value neutral on whose rights it protects. The right to view, modify, and distribute is there for everyone's benefit.

http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/Trampolines.h tml

It usually involves stack execution, but that can apparently be avoided with a little extra cost. It's not language specific, but compiler-specific.

Yes, the solution you propose is possible, and indeed, in progress.

You've probably seen something similar when you have to install an ActiveX control in IE (for a bank, or Windows Update). It asks i) if you'd like to install it and ii) If you'd like to trust the publisher in the future.

The binary is cryptographically signed which assures the computer that it is a product of the authorised holder of a particular crypto key. MS already uses this scheme for device drivers on 64-bit versions of Vista - at present, it can be disabled by a technically oriented user, but there's no guarantee that ability will persist.

The downside is twofold - firstly, for this measure to have any teeth, you have to remove the ability of the user to ignore it. Secondly, it provokes ideas like Microsofts "Trusted Computing" initiative (aka "Palladium"), which hands over full control of your computer to a short list of people who know the secret keys embedded in your motherboard. The main motivator for requiring signed drivers in Vista is to prevent the loading of things like virtual devices which can be used to capture perfect digital copies of DRM protected media. A secondary consideration is quality assurance.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html

At some point it is inevitable that MS operating systems will produce an API that permits calling programs to determine the presence of unsigned drivers or software, and refuse to perform certain functions (like playback of DRMed media). Heck, this shouldn't be hard to implement right now with a little effort. With TP, because the only trusted root certificates will be stored in inaccessible firmware, there will be no way for the user to sign drivers himself and mark them as trusted. Therefore MS (and anyone they care about pleasing) will be in control of what your computer can or cannot do.

Here's some source for you..

ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/

We log all our web traffic for http://www.gnu.org/

It's pretty HUGE, but almost our entire website is static HTML served from disk, so we get good performance. I don't perform much analysis on it yet, as it's simply too much data to grep.

> You're holding them hostage. If they rely on your uSTL, they may be
> prevented from moving to a later version of gcc.

Not at all. They are welcome to make whatever changes, if any, that are required to make it work. And, since uSTL is distributed under the MIT license, doing this places no obligations on them for doing so. I think that is quite reasonable and quite a bit more than what you'd get from a GPL'ed project.

> Given that, I'd only use uSTL if I was willing to maintain it myself

That's true of all OSS projects. I will probably keep maintaining uSTL, but there is no reason for you to expect that. Most projects are eventually abandoned. Some get new maintainers, some just vanish into black holes on SourceForge. This is true of commercial software as well. Microsoft could go out of business in five years and then where will your Windows installations be? At least with uSTL, like with all other open source projects, you get the option of maintaining it yourself. It is better than having no such option, as with commercial software, and is one of the main reasons for using open source software in the first place.

> What makes you think there's going to be three people (including you) who will
> boycott new gcc versions because they don't like the license?

The american entrepreneural spirit. In this country we have been traditionally opposed to communism in all its forms, preferring our free market society. It may be changing now, but most people still hold such beliefs, and will instinctively revile GPLv3, which is profoundly anti-business.

> No, they're expected to have at least an occasional desire to contribute,

Or be branded "freeloaders" and face social ostracism from the community. Oh, sure, it doesn't matter much to me, since I couldn't care less what GPL fanatics think, but I'm obviously not a member of that community. If I were, the pressure would be far more real. This is rather beside the point though. The point is that you get no incentive for doing your work. No, "getting excellent software" is not an incentive, because one, it isn't that good, and two, you get it anyway, whether you contribute or not. I was born in the Soviet Union, so I know exactly how this works. Everyone gets paid the same, no matter how much they work, so nobody works. That's communism for you.

> The FSF is quite insistent on the ability to sell GPLed software

In theory, but not in practice. Read my earlier rant on this subject. Hell, you can even get it from the horse's mouth; RMS himself repeatedly states that his most cherished goal is the destruction of all commercial software.

> So, why are you maintaining a free software project (or, if you prefer, open source)?

Because it isn't worth anything. You just go and try setting a reasonable price for uSTL. Would you pay $10? $5? How about $1? No? I didn't think so. You can't compete against free. Sure, I believe my implementation is a very good one, but would anyone really care? Yes, you can reduce C++ overhead by a factor of four if you use uSTL, but in today's world of terabyte hard disks and gigabyte RAM sticks, nobody cares enough to pay any money for such a reduction. Another reason is that it isn't really my work; I only implemented a standard, there isn't that much original work in it. I wouldn't feel correct in charging money for something I didn't do.

I keep it open source because it costs me nothing. I don't really gain anything from it. I've had perhaps less than ten bug reports in the entire lifetime of the project. Nobody contributed any code. So why bother? Because someone might write some good software with it. Something nice, small, and blazingly fast. Sure it hasn't happened yet, but it might, and it costs me nothing to keep the project on SourceForge.

Note that I did not say that the "nice, small, and blazingly fast" project

The real beauty of EGCS history is when RedHat 6.0 shipped with a snapshot version of EGCS instead of tried and true GCC 2.98, and called it GCC 3.0. Of course, since it was just a daily snapshot and not even a release candidate, it was buggy as all hell. Couldn't even compile a kernel because some of the inline assembly and undocumented behavior changed. What a huge piece of shit, thanks RedHat.

It got so bad, FSF had to disavow all knowledge of any GCC 3.0 compiler and jump to 3.1 immediately, since invariably GCC was blamed for this debacle, instead of the true idiots: RedHat.

The more you know.

I read the GCC mailing list. I haven't heard or seen any grumbling. Nothing I'd call significant. The most grumbling I've read is on how to deal with the branching and labeling/versioning which always seems to be a GCC issue; it's a major release number with no new features, when major release number imply new features... Read this. There are closed branches of GCC, ones that vendors may add custom support for their hardware to, stuff like that, those people will have to change things. There was some discussion about how you license patches, purely an academic discussion on licensing though. Like I said, I haven't seen any grumbling and it simply doesn't affect end-users.

I also read LKML and I don't think that that is terribly significant, Linus brings up some points that seem to go un-addressed elsewhere. There is also some disagreement about how something like Linux goes through the process of being recopyrighted, you see there are people that are dead that have contributed large amounts of code. With Linux in particular, nobody was requested to re-assign their copyright to anyone like they are with GCC and a lot GNU projects. Really the only serious disagreement I've seen anywhere is from companies that exploit free software and are worried that they might have to share their substandard source code or rewrite the free components that make up the heart of their applications. Some of the hacks from the magazines are trying to stir the pot a little but that's it. It's unfortunate, some of the folks that really benefit the most from free software, folks that have products that exist because free software makes it possible for them to afford to make software, are now trying to attack and undermine the very software they depend upon.

I follow the GCC list (you know, where all significant contributors hang around), and the only thing I've seen discussed is what should happen to the old branches when GCC goes GPLv3, and if the change should come with a version change. The thread starts here.

Me thinks someone is on crack.

I hate it when RMS is right, but given that he wrote this about 10 years ago and described exactly this situation, it's hard not to take an I told you so. Personally I just thought he was taking things ludicrously far as usual, but now I stand corrected.

Worth reading at least. It's not about music, but this Univ of Kansas's decision can be applied to books just as well.

Students often need to download copyrighted material to support their work. I wonder if Kansas U has considered the implications of their policy: if the RIAA can get you disconnected instantly for downloading an MP3, surely other publishers can do the same.

In my own work, I often have to fetch journal and conference papers from digital libraries, e.g. a good one. Often I will find a paper is not available to me because it isn't covered by my University's subscription, like many of the papers here or here. That situation is supposed to force a trip to the brick-and-mortar library (if it has the document), but sometimes you can find the paper online anyway, using a search engine. It might be on the author's website or Citeseer. Sometimes people seem to "accidentally" leave copies of papers where a search engine can find them. This is extremely helpful for a researcher, saving much time, and it is known that online articles are more likely to be cited.

However, except in special cases (e.g. the author has retained the copyright and distributed it for free), this is technically copyright infringement. The publishers want you to get everything through their paywall. That would be fine if everything was accessible, but the exhorbitant fees charged for full access by some organisations prevent that. Therefore, copyright infringement actually helps scientific research by allowing information to flow. At my University, nobody seems to notice (or care about) students digging up papers from elsewhere. But if the Kansas U management style spread here, a publisher could presumably get students instantly disconnected for "bypassing the paywall". You might lose your Internet connection -- for studying.

Is this close to a situation where research is actively inhibited by greed?

"The content you requested is not part of your subscription, please pay $30 to download this 10 page article".

Keep in mind that he's communist only in the sense that he believes there is (or ought to be) no such thing as private property.

I've never heard Stallman advocate for the elimination of private property. Are you getting confused by the term "intellectual property"?

Actually Stallman does not believe that we should be able to charge money for producing code

Your point about shareware is pretty rubbish

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-versus-com munity.html

That is dated from 2000 with the same topic title for the talk... is he just reciting this old talk?

The transcript also seems to indicate laughter within the audience. I call FAKE on this.

But as we all know, Free Software is not the same as Open Source.

Just to be completely clear: The GPLv3 does not cause any compatibility issue for different programs working together. Your car analogy is nonsensical, because the GNU code and the Linux kernel can happily be under different licenses and still work together fine.

Working together, no... but being combined, yes. The Linux kernel contains a copy of gunzip, for example. Once gzip goes GPL3, new versions are incompatible with being able to be put in Linux so the Linux developers are going to have to take over maintenance of any security problems which come up. The fun part? To get a patch into a GNU project, you need to hand the FSF the copyright to your patch... and the FSF is very likely to only license patches under the same license as the project they are part of and derivative of. There has been a thread on the gcc mailing list about how RMS has given them a date of July 31st to release gcc 4.2.1 as GPL2+ and after that, EVERYTHING is going GPL3+, including any further patches to 4.2.1. The best part is that it HAS to be moved to GPL3 even though they don't know how they want to license stuff like libgcc.

From July 31st on, any patches to gcc from a non-GPL2+ specific source have the ability to taint the source of your gcc to GPL3+. If someone develops a patch to fix miscompiled code against 4.2.2, it is incompatible with 4.2.1 even though it is the exact same code base. Because of that, the gcc steering committee is trying to decide whether or not to EOL all previous versions of gcc even though 4.3 isn't going to be ready any time soon. Now... sure, you can develop your own patches to keep the compiler GPL2, but the minute you start looking over the GPL3 code base, you're tempting yourself to violate licenses and once you become a GPL3 developer, it is hard to be a GPL2 developer lest you risk tainting the code by inadvertently copying over some GPL3 code. The licensing issues are a nightmare, especially because such an important project is having a license changed rammed through in a two week time frame for political reasons instead of technical ones.

However, the result is... yes, GPL2 and GPL3 programs can run side by side on the same box and even be shipped on the same CD/DVD. Outside of that though, they are totally incompatible and that drives a wedge into the community.

This sounds like unsubstantiated FUD. The GPLv3 doesn't force anyone into a political ideology anymore than GPLv2 did. If you have some specific, practical problem with a specific part of the GPLv3 then we can have a reasoned discussion, but your comments are as vague and non-specific as possible.

It most certainly does... if it didn't, there wouldn't be added restrictions to say what you can do with GPL3 software. The GPL2 was all about keeping the source code open, do what you want as long as the changes are available. The GPL3 is much more like a EULA where it dictates where the code can be used. Through the Tivoization clause, it bans use in embedded medical devices, for example.

Just because you don't like having the GNU religion criticized doesn't mean there aren't valid complaints. Throwing the FUD banner out there is just sticking your head in the ground claiming you don't want to hear me because maybe there are problems with incompatibility between GPL2 and GPL3 and that the GPL3's added restrictions are a double edged sword that make it a worse license for a lot of people. The FSF and their followers have absolutely refused to budge on the Tivoization clause though regardless of how much discussion there was about it prior to the official release of the GPL3. To claim it isn't a valid criticism now, or that I'm not being specific enough when I've specifically given my problems with the GPL3 being anti-tivoization and incompatibility with GPL2, reminds me Martin Luther and the Catholic Church. Far easier to excommunicate a supporter who doesn't like the way the church is heading than

Sure.

Ok, one more try...

That credit doesn't extend to kowtowing to RMS's ego and renaming software because he says so.

RMS hasn't said anything about renaming the linux kernel project. He just wants mixtures of Linux and GNU software to be referred to as GNU/Linux. That does not seem unreasonable to me. It doesn't hurt anyone in any way to do that.

is attempts to rebrand Linux as GNU/Linux are effectively trying to brand Linux as a GNU package

No, I think you are letting a dislike of RMS distort your opinion. He is not rebranding the linux kernel. He is not trying to take over anything. He just wants people to know, from the name, that a linux distribution contains software in addition to the linux kernel that is completely separate and has nothing to do with the brainchild of Linus Torvalds. If I wanted to be pedantic, I could say that using the name Linux for the distribution is an attempt to rebrand the GNU software that is included and make it appear like it all came from the same source when it didn't. The GNU project existed long before Linux, after all. But, I think the argument is stupid, so I won't.

Transfer of copyright is transfer of ownership or "take over".

I think you missed (or just ignored) the part where I said why they did this and that other projects do the same thing. If I start a project and you want to contribute code to it, I can ask you transfer your copyright to me. You can, of course, refuse and and in that way I would be excluding a lot of potential developers from the project, but if I want to make that requirement it is within my rights. It's not "taking over" another project because it was my project to begin with. RMS has only asked for transfer of copyright on contributions to GNU Emacs, not XEmacs. Now the naming issue mentioned in the FAQ, I do agree is silly. If XEmacs is indeed largely independent code (I don't know because I haven't looked), RMS doesn't have a claim to the name. Also, it seems RMS has backed off because the emacs FAQ references XEmacs as XEmacs, not GNU XEmacs. Other projects on the GNU website do as well.

Its there, its GPL, nothing prevents you from doing so.

Well, I asked whether it was ok, not whether it was legal. I know it is legal, but I'm not sure I am ethically ok with taking large chunks of another project and not at least mentioning that my project is derived from a different project. I suppose a better question is, would you take the linux kernel and credit Alan Cox for his contributions, but not Andrew Morton?

The kernel contributors still own the copyright to the software they've written. You're use of that software in your project modified or unmodified doesn't change that. And if they didn't want their software used in another project they would not have released it under the GPL. And by releasing your project and adhering to the GPL of the contributed code you are giving the original authors credit. In addition the name of a project has nothing to do with who owns the copyright or who is given credit. Linus is documented as giving credit to the FSF and GNU project for their contributions. That credit doesn't extend to kowtowing to RMS's ego and renaming software because he says so.

What happened with GNU and XEmacs says something completely different.

Not sure what you are referring to here. If you are referring to the debate over copyright assignment, the FSF asks all GNU projects to transfer their copyright so they are better able to prosecute GPL violations. The FSF is certainly not the only organization to do this. Easy Software Products and the CUPS project is a recent example that has received attention lately due to the buyout from Apple. The contention between XEmacs and GNU Emacs is that XEmacs occasionally wants to contribute code back to GNU Emacs, but the FSF wants the copyright transferred. It's a conflict between the two projects, yes, but I think suggesting that the FSF is trying to "take over" XEmacs is a deliberate misconstruing of the actual situation. And what does this have to do with the linux kernel? Where is the posting on LKML where RMS asks all of the kernel developers to transfer over their copyrights to the FSF?

You're starting to catch on: "the FSF asks all GNU projects to transfer their copyright". Transfer of copyright is transfer of ownership or "take over". Another take on XEmacs actually comes from the XEmacs FAQ http://www.xemacs.org/Documentation/21.5/html/xema cs-faq_2.html#SEC54 .

His attempts to rebrand Linux as GNU/Linux are effectively trying to brand Linux as a GNU package; and GNU packages belong to the FSF. So when RMS says GNU/Linux even thought he claims that's he giving credit where credit is due, he's really saying, Linux should be a GNU project. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesUsing TheGPLForAProgramMakeItGNUSoftware

I call bullshit. The FSF's principal philosophies have not changed since GPLv2.

The key point(S) of the GPL...ANY version is the principals that FSF are trying to achieve. You mentioned only ONE.

Try reading the other 4. Pay attention to the first one.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

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

The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity. In this freedom, it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose; you as a user are free to run a program for your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else, she is then free to run it for her purposes, but you are not entitled to impose your purposes on her.

* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Tivo doesn't "dictate terms" - thats just fud. Once you own a unit, you're free to take a hammer to it, or do anything else you want, within the limitations of your country's laws. Like I said, if you don't like the DRM aspects, swap out the main board - you have that fredom, you know. What is the big deal - its only a stupid TV recorder. I swear, for a bunch of "intellectuals" at the FSF to get so bent out of shape over television ...

The "people who provide them with software for free" provided it under a specific licens ... which they are fully honoring, including making available all their source code. There is nothing preventing you or anyone else from recompiling that, and running it on a diferent main board.

Complaining that it won't run on the original board is akin to complaining that your microwave won't run the latest version of Ubuntu.

The GPL was supposed to be about software, not hardware. When it crosses that boundary, dictating what hardware you can and can't run it on, it betrays its own "freedoms". Here's their own list of those 4 freedoms:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom
• Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The only contention is the first freedom - and you're free to run the program on any other hardware, for its original or any other purpose, so the FSF is full of shit with their move into the hardware space, and if they push it too much, watch the "big movers" (IBM, Novell) move to BSD. How long do you think it would be before BSD was the "new darling" if IBM threw a few billion at it?

When Tivo sold you the hardware, they made NO representation that it would support software compiled by others. Don't like it? Build a competitor ... except that the harsh reality is that, without some sort of lock-in, you won't make money off subscriptions, so you'll have to make all your profit from the initial sale ... which will make you uncompetitive, price-wise. For certain products, in certain markets, at certain times, Tivoization is the only economic model. The market will eventually change, but that's something that only time will fix. In the meantime, just build your own mythtv box, and be grateful that not everyone is going GPLv3 - because if the kernel were to go GPLv3, it would not be possible to consider it for applications and appliances that have to meat tightening Sarnes-Oxbey requirements, among other things.

Do you really want to cede whole industries to Microsoft? They would LOVE to see the kernel GPLv3'd. Eventually, no linux for medical devices, banking, finance, traffic control, energy control, process plants, real-time devices, etc. That's the reality, and its sad that people get so wound up in a "jihad" that, like any other jihad, will end up doing more harm than good.

BSD fanboys use to say the same thing about the GPLv2, compared to their beloved BSD license.

So I'm sure they'd agree with me here. ;)

But in this case, there are some general guidelines that basically say that you can't restrict what people use it for. Restricting what people may distribute it for is effectively the same thing (eg, has effects like "cannot be used as firmware"), although some people obviously disagree with this.

• Gnash - (project development page)
  an open-source project which develops a Flashplayer which can be run stand-alone, be swallowed inside web browser using appropriate plug-ins, or integrated in bigger project using extensions. Supports OpenGL and Cairo as hardware accelerated renderer. Also, has an option not to auto-start playing the flash crapnimations.
• SWFDec
  an open-source library for decoding flash, which also comes with a browser plugin.

and TFA has a Flash ad...