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How important is "the anti-copyright crowd" that the blogger writes about? It certainly has nothing to do with the FSF. Far more enlightening than the blog post is anything RMS has ever written. On copyright, read one of RMS's best writings, "Misinterpreting Copyright":

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copy right.html , or
as found in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf , or
as printed in his book _Free Software, Free Society_

Looks like another college sophomore just discovered the GPL.

Welcome, sir. To start, why don't you Read the Fine Manual?

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

The FSF is an organization committed to the advancement of Free Software. The FSF contends that proprietary (non-Free) software development and distribution is unethical and should cease because it fails to satisfy the 4 essential freedoms of software users.

Free software is software that satisfies the 4 essential freedoms of users of software. These freedoms are completely independent of Copyright's existence or non-existence. The definition of Free Software makes no mention of copyright.

Absent the voluntary or involuntary elimination of proprietary software, the Free Software Foundation generally encourages the use of Copyleft. You seem to be confused about the difference between Free Software and Copyleft. Free Software is software that satisfies the 4 essential freedoms of software users. Copyleft, on the other hand, is a licensing strategy employed wherin existing Copyright law is leveraged to further the proliferation of Free Software. There is much non-Copylefted Free Software.

You also seem to confuse Open Source with Free Software or Copyleft. These are all quite different things.

Once again, I refer you to the Fine manual:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-fr eedom.html

Having said all this, please consider taking a few minutes to inform yourself in the future before making wild generalizations about people and organizations you know nothing about. And congrats on completing sophomore year!

Looks like another college sophomore just discovered the GPL.

Welcome, sir. To start, why don't you Read the Fine Manual?

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

The FSF is an organization committed to the advancement of Free Software. The FSF contends that proprietary (non-Free) software development and distribution is unethical and should cease because it fails to satisfy the 4 essential freedoms of software users.

Free software is software that satisfies the 4 essential freedoms of users of software. These freedoms are completely independent of Copyright's existence or non-existence. The definition of Free Software makes no mention of copyright.

Absent the voluntary or involuntary elimination of proprietary software, the Free Software Foundation generally encourages the use of Copyleft. You seem to be confused about the difference between Free Software and Copyleft. Free Software is software that satisfies the 4 essential freedoms of software users. Copyleft, on the other hand, is a licensing strategy employed wherin existing Copyright law is leveraged to further the proliferation of Free Software. There is much non-Copylefted Free Software.

You also seem to confuse Open Source with Free Software or Copyleft. These are all quite different things.

Once again, I refer you to the Fine manual:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-fr eedom.html

Having said all this, please consider taking a few minutes to inform yourself in the future before making wild generalizations about people and organizations you know nothing about. And congrats on completing sophomore year!

The author of TFA is seriously confused about a lot of things, one of those things being the goals of the Free Software Foundation. Stallman is probably one of the most extreme ultra-liberal people to ever sit at a keyboard, and yet I don't think he's ever once pushed for total abolition of copyright.

What RMS and ideologically similar people have proposed is this: software should not be covered under copyright law. You can see this ideal most clearly if you head over to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html and read the two articles called "Why Software Should {Be Free,Not Have Owners}". While I disagree with his philosophy, he makes a pretty solid empirical case for why software should not be "owned" in the same sense that books are "owned" by their author or art is "owned" by the artist.

The author of the article also fails to pick up on a key point about the GPL and why it exists: because there is copyright law, the FSF must use copyright law to accomplish their goals. If software was suddenly declared ineligible for copyright, there'd be no need for the GPL because no proprietary software company could prevent people with access to their source code from modifying or redistributing it, nor could they prevent people from modifying or distributing binary copies of the software. This is a small step back from the current state where the group of people with access to the GPL'd source code includes everyone with a copy of the binary, but it's a giant leap forward in eliminating all the complex legal issues around who can copy what and where.



--K

There is literally no specific freedom that all Creative Commons licenses grant. Therefore, to say that a work "uses a Creative Commons license" is to leave all important questions about the work's licensing unanswered. When you see such a statement, please suggest making it clearer. And if someone proposes to "use a Creative Commons license" for a certain work, it is vital to ask immediately "Which one?"

For example, the nc (no commercial use) and nd (aka NoDerivs, meaning no derivative works) Creative Commons "options" clearly make any license nonfree. Please don't use them.

Apple has a monopoly, you see, on hardware that can run it's OS X operating system, and lots of people want to run it.

Then these people should be taught about software freedom so they don't fall prey to the traps of proprietary software—the monopoly you speak of doesn't just exist for the hardware.

With rare exception, reliable and powerful proprietary software cannot be freed. Free software can be made more reliable and powerful. Thus your priorities should be reversed; help make free software better and we can secure our freedom without giving up power and reliability. The open source movement never teaches you to value software freedom, so you're led to believe that technical proficiency alone should be prioritized. This is one of the reasons why I'm not a member of that movement and I don't advocate on its behalf.

Care to step off of your podium?

The fact that Firefox is open-source in and of itself actually has very little to do with why Microsoft is (rightfully) freaking out.

Firefox is free (as in beer. normal people have been proven not to care about the other kind), and is available for many platforms.

Now granted, these facts are a direct consequence of being open-source under a libreal license. However, microsoft would still be in trouble if Netscape got its act together and developed a free and powerful cross-platform browser, even if it were closed-source.

Simple economics dictate that well-educated consumers will make any choice that results in the best performance per buck. This is what's happening right now with Firefox. It should also be noted that Economics is completely amoral.... just like typical consumers.

I'm not going to say they are the one and only saviour, but things like the Summer of Code certainly help. I also have some colleagues working on GCC, all improvements go straight to the FSF. I'm not voiding my NDA here, because it's visible for anyone. And of course there are some kernel hackers like Andew Morton working there.

I remember there was that early Plone (or Zope, I forget) bug where a password couldn't begin with an underscore or a tilde or something like that. That one was funny. But they fixed it, as I'm sure "M$" fixed this one.

But here you are, using a bug in a compiler that hasn't been used in years as ammunition for your "M$ sux" religion. How painfully lame can you get?

I remember there was that early Plone (or Zope, I forget) bug where a password couldn't begin with an underscore or a tilde or something like that. That one was funny. But they fixed it, as I'm sure "M$" fixed this one.

But here you are, using a bug in a compiler that hasn't been used in years as ammunition for your "M$ sux" religion. How painfully lame can you get?

I remember there was that early Plone (or Zope, I forget) bug where a password couldn't begin with an underscore or a tilde or something like that. That one was funny. But they fixed it, as I'm sure "M$" fixed this one.

But here you are, using a bug in a compiler that hasn't been used in years as ammunition for your "M$ sux" religion. How painfully lame can you get?

how stupid is it for the same folks yelling "Microsoft sucks!" on a daily basis, to turn around and ask for access to some of that suckage for themselves?

That would be stupid, which is why few people really do what you say. Some people foolishly believe they can work with M$ and effortlessly exchange data with their users. M$ tells them this is so, and some people still believe it. Their problems are similar to mine, but their surprise is all their own.

I reject M$ outright. I don't want their shit, I want them to leave me alone. But they don't because they want everyone to pay the M$ tax and shove that agenda every way they can. I tell people exactly how M$ screws them and recommend they use free software instead. The tighter they squeeze their honest customers, the more justified I am.

In this case M$ sucks because they do non free software in the most abusive way possible and pretend to be all the good things free software is. This is what they always do to their competitors and anyone who's followed them long enough will recognize the infantile reasoning they push: Our stuff is everything everyone else claims for their stuff and Everyone else has our problems and worse. You might remember these tactics from kindergarden and remember why they don't really work in a company/customer relationship.

Customers don't the expect abuse which inevitably comes from M$. When people use M$, their data is trapped into the one or two hardware platforms M$ "supports" and M$ regularly breaks that data to sell them an "upgrade". This approach would fail if there were any easy alternatives.

To support the upgrade train, M$ purposefully uses their coercive monopoly power to break alternate implementations, from bios to file formats. If that were not enough, they service providers to make life hard too. ISPs block ports and crimp upload speed to make up for M$ shortfalls. They even try to make it hard to work with business and government without their crappy software. No, I don't really need them and I consider gnu/linux use far easier, despite the roadblocks they have put in place. Their booby traps ultimately harm their customers more than anyone else.

I'd love to just sit back and watch M$ fade away, but they won't unless people who know computing reject them tell others about it. They are out to screw all of us, so tell them to go to hell.

Is there anyone, anywhere who thinks Microsoft will ever do anything that's really free, and therefore portable, cross platform and all that other stuff they would like to say about .NET? The more they hype it, the more obvious the shortfall.

Oh, you're wrong. I've used Linux-based distributions that don't use the GNU coreutils, GCC, bash and so on. Replacements exist for everything if you know where to look. It's pretty arrogant to claim that because glibc and bash are not present then the OS can't be "Unix-like". People actually used Unix systems before GNU, you know.

Listen, go read his silly FAQ. Then come back and tell me that's not a case of simple envy. Stallman is essentially saying "I had the idea for a free Unix. I couldn't write a kernel. The posterboy wrote one, his ideals are orthogonal to mine and everyone ran with it. That pisses me off and I can't do a single thing about it because I hung myself with my own license. Please do as I say or I'll throw a hissy fit"

If he wants more recognition (which again I'm not contesting he deserves), he's going to have to find a better way. He has a better chance of getting people to stop using "google" as a verb than to have them call what they know as "Linux" something else. "noo-slash-leenucks" is never going to stick.

Definitely seconded, although the focus of those projects is not symbolic computation per-say. Both R and Octave are very good tools - R is an industrial strength statistical environment (it probably has the most active user base of any of these projects - certainly its contributed materials are formidable) and Octave tends more toward numerical computation.

R is located at http://www.r-project.org/

Octave is at http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/

For Matlab code, there is Octave, which is an open-source implementation of the Matlab syntax. However, it is only a partial implementation, and I've had mixed results trying to run Matlab code in Octave. (But it's usually worth a try!)

I'm going to have to give SciPy a try--it looks very cool.

Thanks!

Yes, I'm sure that's the case. I mean, I'm going to choose a CLR, compiler and toolset written on Novell's dime instead of the Microsoft one released for free that is fully supported and tested for the past six years. Just like everyone uses half-assed implementations instead of J2EE when they go with Java. I'm sure that's what they're afraid of. After all, it's not like they didn't release an open source version of their own that also builds on OS X.

Or maybe I'm missing the point here - why exactly were they "trembling"?

The meaning of the word "free" as Stallman likes to use it has existed long before Stallman was even born. He's using the language as it currently exists, not redefining it.

So here we have you defending RMS right to use language as it exists, without redefinition, when the original thread arose because of people taking umbrage with someone, uhhh... using language as it exists, without redefinition.

Wow.

Spot a weakness in the above?

That word "IP" ("intellectual property") has no separate existance except as "common resource the government can dole out", AFAIK.
It is not something that exists; it has simply been invented to facilitate the dissemination of information in a society. (Whether this works properly or not is verse 2).
Another thing: when you say "all IP" do you mean copyright, patents, trademarks, or trade secrets? It's a deliberately confusing word. At the risk of considering me a frothing-at-the-mouth zealot now, please take the time to read this: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html# IntellectualProperty.
BTW: if you're insulted that your government is involved, you must be talking only about trade secrets :-) because the other 3 require a government as a party, AFAIK.

LGPL is compatible with GPL in the sense that you can link to an LGPL library from a GPL program, but I don't think the reverse is true (for example, see Why not LGPL).

So KDE's LGPL-ed libraries must be linking to Qt using Qt's QPL license rather than GPL. Otherwise it's a big loophole - I can take any GPL-ed library, wrap it in an LGPL interface that changes the API a bit (or not at all) and presto, I get something that can be used in a commercial application. That can't be the case.

Ah, thanks. I didn't realize KDE uses the LGPL license for its libraries -- do they make use of Qt's QPL, then? I was under the assumption that linking against a GPL'ed library would require your application (or extending library) to be GPL'ed as well.

Qt is dual-licensed. Anything you link to Qt has to be GPL, unless you buy a commercial license from Trolltech.

KDE links to Qt, and KDE is LGPL. KDE's LGPL is compatible with the Qt's GPL. Therefore, you can develop (L)GPL software and link it against KDE's LGPL and Qt's GPL. You can also develp commercial software and link it against KDE's LGPL and Qt's commercial license.

Last time I checked the state of Red Hat et al made not a mote of difference to my project.

Yes. I made a geek mistake in the middle of geek city. I honestly, and truly, never correlated the fact that the GNU mascot was, indeed, a wildebeest. I had even, in the past, remember reading the page on the creation of the image:

http://www.gnu.org/graphics/agnuhead.html

But, I believe thought every mention of "GNU" meant the software. I have never realized -- until today -- that a wildebeest was also called a "gnu" (pronounced "nu"?!?).

What more can I say? I do apologize. I find the liquid vitriol in response surprising -- well who am I kidding.... I have been in IT for a decade and ran Linux servers in production.

Tenneyson thought trains ran on grooves instead of tracks and even put as much in one of his most famous poems -- Lockseley Hall. So, I'll go easy on myself -- you should too....

Heh, I am getting a kick outta this nonetheless....

For one sense, the FSF uses the term "freedom" rather than "openness". For another, what is so non-free about haXe and Gnash?

I don't know if I'd call foul, but according to the article, the default configuration that they test gzip with was 'gzip -5 -v' but according to http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/manual/gzip.html and every other version of the gzip manual I've read, the default compression level is -6. This will make gzip's default setting appear to compress less and run faster than the real default settings. This is incorrect.

Konqueror is GPL'd free software, the exact kind of software RMS encourages. Hell, even the graphical toolkit (Qt) it's based on is GPL'd, and RMS encourages that for most libraries nowadays (and has for several years).

I was expecting something like this...

A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library, but is designed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it, is called a "work that uses the Library". Such a work, in isolation, is not a derivative work of the Library, and therefore falls outside the scope of this License.

However, linking a "work that uses the Library" with the Library creates an executable that is a derivative of the Library (because it contains portions of the Library), rather than a "work that uses the library". The executable is therefore covered by this License. Section 6 states terms for distribution of such executables.

Otherwise, if the work is a derivative of the Library, you may distribute the object code for the work under the terms of Section 6. Any executables containing that work also fall under Section 6, whether or not they are linked directly with the Library itself.

Find and join your local Linux Users Group. Start here on GNU.org's List of Linux User Groups and see what you can find. Most of everything I know from Linux is either:

1. What I learned from my local LUG
2. What I learned from my best friend, the Linux Guru
3. What I learned from reading a multitude of books and websites
4. Through classwork at the local business college with a Linux-friendly IT program

Interact with people who know about Linux. Ask questions. Read HOWTOs. Get reference books and read them.

I still am too... but yeah, when RMS gives up it makes you feel pretty lonely...

Are you referring to the advertising clause?

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_license#UC_Berkel ey_advertising_clause

There's a whole slew of variants of the BSD license, all colloquially referred to as "BSD"; as Wikipeida mentions, even the MIT license is easily confused with it. Depending on what variant of BSD you're using, it may or may not apply.

Now, I don't know if this is what the GP meant, but regardless if the advertising clause is present, you do have to "mention" the original author(s) in the copyright statement within the source, when you compose a derivative work.

For the official Free Software Foundation (FSF) commentary on their GNU Public License (GPL) and other licenses, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html is the place to start. The title of the page is: "Various Licenses and Comments about Them - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)." I have referred to it often over the years.

Just to let you know: if you're used to using Bash 3.x (I use 3.2 for example), Mac OS X uses bash 2.05. Tab completion, colours, and other goodies don't work so well in Bash 2. Therefore, if you want to experience the full Bash, uh, experience, then make sure to download it (along with Xcode in order to compile it).

If you don't mind the differences between the two versions, then you probably shouldn't waste your time with an updated Bash. Since I already had Xcode installed, and I already know how to compile programs from source, it was a snap.

how happy do you think Adobe would be with us engineering a tool to work with their precious format?

Well, there's gnash

Gnash is one that I know of, it seems to be just a replacement for Flash.

You're right that MS can "invent" whatever technologies they want to, but unfortunately anything that relates to the infrastructure of the Internet needs to be open and cross-platform. Companies like Google, from what I've seen so far, at least encourage everyone to keep on standards that everyone can use. MS loves to suggest things are free to use, but then makes them depend on certain things which actually aren't free. So they lay the trap, it becomes popular, then they start strong arming. If you haven't seen this from MS, you've been living under a rock.

Open standards will and should win, closed are a threat. That's the point.

Remember Stallman's vision is a world where everything-- libraries, the OS, programs-- every strip of code is GPL. If you try to introduce a new, non-GPL strip of code, it needs to be a license which is "GPL Compatible" so that as soon as it links to any library it becomes GPL (rather, anything that links to it implicitly links to GPL code by proxy, and thus is forced to be GPL or "GPL compatible").

Right, exactly. As near as I can tell, that is Stallman's vision in a paragraph.

To escape this visionary world, you have to write your own OS, own tools, own compiler, own C library, everything; he's backed down on the C library and compiler (LGPL and GPL with an exception clause) because he knows nobody will use it, but by the same turn if the world was in his vision then nobody would use your new OS stack either. You would have to write a completely new application base; it'd be just like the uptake of Linux, except all your own stuff, i.e. imagine having something like Ubuntu but 100% BSD/MIT licensed and you'll understand how hard this would be to accomplish.

First off, a slight caveat: he's not backed down on the compiler - the compiler's output wouldn't be a "derived" part of the software anyway. He has backed down on the library, exactly as you say.

The rest of your paragraph is (again, IMHO) exactly what the FSF has been trying to achieve for the last twenty years! Way Back When, most of the compilers/operating systems/system utilities/Unix toolkits were all proprietary. The FSF has been recreating all these tools "100% GPL licensed" so that when you buy a new computer, you don't have to rely on XYZ Corp's C compiler, or ZMachine's operating system; you have the option of taking the GNU system and porting it to your new computer, giving you (a) exactly the same experience you'd have on any other GNU system, and (b) the ability to tinker around with the system as much as you like, with (c) a known set of restrictions (the GPL rules). As compared to the proprietary systems, which could have arbitrary restrictions ("you cannot release software written in this program without paying extra for 'distribution'") or - heck - sensible restrictions, too (per seat pricing, vendor lock-in, incompatible formats, etc.)

My point is that while you seem to think that this "visionary world" is a conspiracy of some sort, it is actually exactly the world the FSF has been trying to bring into existence since 1985, and they're pretty open about it. If you disagree, there are always alternatives. The nicest thing about GPL software is that it's so hard to lock you in anywhere.

Stallman's vision is effectively that, in the software world, everyone contributes "for the common good." You write code, you release it, you open the source code to everyone and leave it free for use to everyone. Everyone contributes, everyone benefits. This is the core of Marxism; the only thing missing is that the copyrights aren't all turned over to the FSF (if we claim that everything "should" be turned over to the FSF or some central copyright holder to "ensure that it stays open," then this does become Marxism).

Yes, yes, he does. And as an aside, the FSF does claim that all GNU software copyrights should be turned over to the project. Not all GPL software, just anything with the "GNU" name on it, really.

Personally, I like having an extremist organisation in my corner. I don't think anybody should be forced into this Brave GNU World, but I like the trend that's going on of people working together to improve common pieces of software, while still making money for their effort and knowledge in doing so. Like any large inhabitant in the ecosystem, the FSF makes a lot of noise

If I extend my rights to you to use a copy of my code, I get to decide how you may use it.

I write a license that says

"you only have a right to copy and use this software if you agree to these conditions otherwise you have no right to copy or use this software period"

is perfectly legal and binding on you if you choose to accept these terms otherwise you have no rights whatsoever.

in fact here is a perfect example of a license that specifies conditions.

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

oh and here is another

http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/ ProductPage.aspx?pid=91

Both of these dictate to you what you may or may not do.

other than these licenses you have no rights to the material, software or music, unlucky.

If I extend my rights to you to use a copy of my code, I get to decide how you may use it.

I write a license that says

"you only have a right to copy and use this software if you agree to these conditions otherwise you have no right to copy or use this software period"

is perfectly legal and binding on you if you choose to accept these terms otherwise you have no rights whatsoever.

in fact here is a perfect example of a license that specifies conditions.

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

oh and here is another

http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/ ProductPage.aspx?pid=91

Both of these dictate to you what you may or may not do.

other than these licenses you have no rights to the material, software or music, unlucky.

Right. I am interested in how Adobe "features" like this might affect the popularity of GNASH. Granted, GNASH isn't quite there just yet, but I get the feeling that it won't be long before it's a decent drop-in replacement for Adobe's rubbish. If/when it gets to this stage, I wouldn't be surprised if it gains widespread adoption as a consumer-friendly alternative, with support for such features as skipping annoying adverts in Flash videos, blocking crappy flash pop-up ads and malware on websites, and all the rest.

God knows what's going to be done about Microsoft's "WE MUST OWN THIS MARKET. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE" Silverlight though. I suppose some heroes of Free Software are going to have to sacrifice thousands of hours of their lives to the thankless tasks of reverse-engineering and re-implementing the spec...

Suddenly I feel strong urge to support Free Software
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/

• Java Demonstration of Dvorak and Qwerty Finger Movement Distances
• Letter Frequencies in the English Language - How many of the more frequent letters are on Dvorak's home row, and how many in Qwerty's? Did it ever seem completely stupid that "e" isn't on the home row in Qwerty? That's because it is, and Dvorak fixes that.
• Words Possible on Certain Rows - One snippet: in Dvorak, using the home row alone one can type 99 of the 1000 most common English words. Qwerty's home row allows for only 15.

11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

What the GPL says, is that if you give someone a binary copy of the software, the source must either come with it, or be readily available. Now, the giving of that binary copy is still subject to normal copyright laws. If I for instance create a boxed software product, GPL it, and then put it on the shelves of Best Buy (with source on the CD), you still wouldn't necessarily be able to copy it and give it to friends, because you have no distribution rights on the binary, and therefore whether or not you must include the source with it becomes moot.

What the GPL says, is that if you give someone a binary copy of the software, the source must either come with it, or be readily available. Now, the giving of that binary copy is still subject to normal copyright laws. If I for instance create a boxed software product, GPL it, and then put it on the shelves of Best Buy (with source on the CD), you still wouldn't necessarily be able to copy it and give it to friends, because you have no distribution rights on the binary, and therefore whether or not you must include the source with it becomes moot.

http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/freetype/freet ype2/include/freetype/config/ftoption.h?rev=1.118& view=auto
I am sorry, I'm too dumb to figure out how to get an annotate view, or even something with line numbers.

iTunes uses an embedded web browser to display the iTunes Music Store. Nice try, though. If you actually read the patent, you'd see that it specifically mentions using a browser that displays HTML as the primary interface for interaction with the online purchasing system.

I don't often need to do OCR, but I had passable results with Ocrad recently. Like some of the other respondents, I couldn't get much useful output from GOCR.

Newsflash:- Caring in any way whatsoever about the FSF's definition of freedom is due purely to a combination of a) mind control induced emotionalism, and b) neurological disability. It isn't based on anything remotely close to legitimate reason, and thus, feeling superior because you yourself happen to fall into this category is likewise delusional.