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I don't think I need a plan. If I do it and my position makes sense others will follow. If my position is sensible the chances are that others already have the same idea and are working in the same direction.

By making it sound like my idea, my goals (and consequently that I must have a plan to spread it) you pay me far too much credit. I'm just on a path that thousands of people like Richard Stallman are already walking. A better description is that the actions of my government are causing my path to more closely follow the footsteps of those ahead of me.

Over the last decade, since I first learned of GNU, I've been slowly coming to the realisation that Stallman, FSF and the GNU have got it pretty right. This isn't about software, convenience or better models of development. It's about the philosphy and mind set.

I don't have to convince others. All I have to do is let them know that there is an alternative and what that alternative is. The opponents of copyleft will see to the convincing.

• They try to tell people in very specific terms how to think, including attempting to dictate choice of vocabulary. The latter is one of the elements of thought reform (read: mind control) as documented by Robert Jay Lifton and other psychologists. This is one area where the FSF shows signs of having begun to follow the pattern of a fairly conventional cult.
  
• They have zero tolerance for perspectives other than their own, and believe that they can and should force everyone else on the planet to conform to their dictates if they simply engage in enough belligerent activism. (Although that again is another customary element of cultism)
  
• Stallman is able to rely on his followers to enforce conformity with his dogma, both here and in other places. They bully people, shout them down, and attempt to perpetuate the hive mentality without Stallman himself needing to be directly involved. In this way, they do the less than pleasant work of advancing "the movement," forward, while Stallman himself gets to remain relatively blameless. (Wow, three for three on the cult checklist...and I hadn't even realised before I wrote this!)
  
• Bradley Kuhn has openly stated that a goal of the FSF is to deny software developers the right to use any license, FOSS or otherwise, other than the GPL. It thus follows that they also seek the erradication of the BSDs.
  

• They try to tell people in very specific terms how to think, including attempting to dictate choice of vocabulary. The latter is one of the elements of thought reform (read: mind control) as documented by Robert Jay Lifton and other psychologists. This is one area where the FSF shows signs of having begun to follow the pattern of a fairly conventional cult.
  
• They have zero tolerance for perspectives other than their own, and believe that they can and should force everyone else on the planet to conform to their dictates if they simply engage in enough belligerent activism. (Although that again is another customary element of cultism)
  
• Stallman is able to rely on his followers to enforce conformity with his dogma, both here and in other places. They bully people, shout them down, and attempt to perpetuate the hive mentality without Stallman himself needing to be directly involved. In this way, they do the less than pleasant work of advancing "the movement," forward, while Stallman himself gets to remain relatively blameless. (Wow, three for three on the cult checklist...and I hadn't even realised before I wrote this!)
  
• Bradley Kuhn has openly stated that a goal of the FSF is to deny software developers the right to use any license, FOSS or otherwise, other than the GPL. It thus follows that they also seek the erradication of the BSDs.
  

Isn't there a free clone of Pine? Or did GNU just do a free clone of pico? If not, perhaps pine can be released under a BSD-style license if it isn't going to be maintained anymore.

Nanotechnology (n) : the utilization of the techniques of manufacturing Really Good Drugs(tm) to implement the ideas you had while on those Really Good Drugs(tm).

...and three weeks of manic frenzy later, my molecules of crack cocaine had robotic arms.

If you'd like to know how to do this, it's pretty easy, actually.

Mine a random long-chain organic acid from, say, flax-seed oil.

Next, you need to put in more work than any chemist would want to do... form the amine of the first carbon (HCl + RCOOH -> (R-1)CClCOOH + NH3), the nitroalkane or carboxolic side-chain of the second, the amine of the third, etc...

...finally, halogenate the last carbon... if my vague memory serves, HS2Cl2 tends to show preference for halogenation of the terminal carbon of a carboxolic acid...

...and this is where the fun comes in. "Crack," e.g. freebase coke, is benzoic acid ecognovimide. You can do this with anything with a phenyl group (the benzene of benzoic acid), or use a different coupling mechanims...

...take two mols of your extremely-modified carboxolic acid with a halogen on the terminal carbon, one mol of your aromatic "body" of the beast, and a dash of a lewis acid catalyst, such as aluminum chloride...

...a bit of heat and stirring later, it'll have these long organic "arms" coming off the side, complete with carboxolic "claw" for the reversable "grabbing" of alkaline groups... and here's the best part...

...in distilled water, the nitrate and the amine groups will try (desperately) to salt with one another -distorting the bond angles and "contracting" the robotic arm... but in saline solution, it will be slightly more likely to "salt" with the electrolyte - extending or "relaxing" the robotic arm...

...and that, my friends, is how you make a series of crack-cocaine molecules with user-controllable robotic arms... or, any other organic group one wants to bind them to. For the really, really, REALLY bored - instead of binding to a phenyl group, you can just wash the end precursor in sodium hydroxide to form the terminal alcohol, and cook with H2SO4 to create long fibers of electrolyte-reactive polymer, which is far more useful, actually, than "robocrack"...

...and now you know some Really Important Things(tm), such as the fact that "(rti)" stands for "Random text inside"... or, that this is how those "burnout druggies" that your mom warned you not to become are ruling your world when they're not programming computers... or...

...nonetheless - I know how to make the "actual nanotech worthy to be afraid of," and it's not anything I posted in this thread. I feel the world would be a safer place if I posted simple nuclear instructions in easy-to-understand arabic, than if I started broadcasting the recipie, structure, or principles of the crap, which is why this is instead a complete recipie for electrolyte-reactive polymer fiber, which is "mostly harmless," and whose use is governed as far as I'm concerned wholly under the GPL.

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

Have fun in your basement, kiddies - though like the GPL says, ya do it at your own risk...

...and as a final random offtopic... the crap in the article doesn't count as nanotech in the average hobbyists book, either. It's a field driven by geekdom on the molecular-hacking level - and "making a fine precipitate" is downright boring (and archaic - dissolve salt, add alcohol)... and more importantly, does not have robotic arms, legs, sensors, or spaceguns which would really turn a geek on.

Now, if you'll pardon me - I, for one, welcome the challenge of designing our eventual nanorobotic overlords. ;)

This is the first released version of the Lesser GPL. It also counts
as the successor of the GNU Library Public License, version 2, hence
the version number 2.1.

Using GNU/kOpenSolaris would enable GNU users to tell the Linux fanboys to take a long hike by helping to settle the long and drawn-out GNU/Linux naming controversy. (Why GNU/kFreeBSD hasn't already done so, I don't know.) Maybe that will let more people know that there are kernels that can be used with GNU other than Linux. Which, in turn, might possibly attract some more people to the HURD, which might get the HURD released a little sooner and get the entire GNU OS packaged and out the door. That makes me smile. :)

for those of us who don't have them, here are the basics:

They absolutely need to agree to a license (not sign a contract) to use the software.

You are not required to agree to anything to merely use software which is licensed under the GPL. You only have obligations if you modify or distribute the software.

You're missing out on the distinction between the letter and the spirit of the law.

In letter, yes, the GPL is the same as every other license. In spirit, however, the GPL is more of a license of empowerment while most others tend to be licenses of restrictions. The history and philosophy of the GNU project, and especially Copyleft, make this distinction pretty clear. If the distinction isn't already known or obvious to you then you will be doing yourself a favor by perusing GNU--which has a snazzy new look to it since the last time I visited.

You're missing out on the distinction between the letter and the spirit of the law.

In letter, yes, the GPL is the same as every other license. In spirit, however, the GPL is more of a license of empowerment while most others tend to be licenses of restrictions. The history and philosophy of the GNU project, and especially Copyleft, make this distinction pretty clear. If the distinction isn't already known or obvious to you then you will be doing yourself a favor by perusing GNU--which has a snazzy new look to it since the last time I visited.

Apple released Darwin under the APSL, which is not GPL comaptible. The difference here is that Solaris code tenatively will be able to be used directly in Linux and other GPL projects, something not possible with Darwin or Solaris currently.

``Also though it is slightly off-topic I also think that Java under GPL would not benefit as much because the model of contribution is really not as easily understood as the OS world.''

With all the complaints about the Java community process being slow and bureaucratic, and the free Java implementations lagging behind in features, I think having a good, open source Java implementation is a Good Thing in it's own right.

Also, I don't know what you mean by the model of contribution for Java not being as easily understood as the OS world. It's not like there aren't any successful open source programming language implementations yet.

``Also though it is slightly off-topic I also think that Java under GPL would not benefit as much because the model of contribution is really not as easily understood as the OS world.''

With all the complaints about the Java community process being slow and bureaucratic, and the free Java implementations lagging behind in features, I think having a good, open source Java implementation is a Good Thing in it's own right.

Also, I don't know what you mean by the model of contribution for Java not being as easily understood as the OS world. It's not like there aren't any successful open source programming language implementations yet.

• 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.
  

One of the many articles mentioned this. http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/license.html

For me, personally, all that apparently remains are ATI drivers and Flash Player.

No, for the class libraries, it's gonna be GPL + classpath exception. Read here, for example.

Java will have the same the same exception to GPL for its classlib as GNU Classpath, so the GPL will not have any effect on code running in the JVM. (It has even fewer restrictions than the LGPL that forces derived works to allow reverse engineering)

Just to make it clear: Java is going to have the GPL with the Classpath-exception, which explicitely allows to create closed source applications when using the standard libraries.

See Gosling's blog:
http://blogs.sun.com/jag/

and here you'll find the mentioned exception:
http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/license.html

Yes, Java Standard Edition libraries are licensed with GPL2 + Classpath Exception

I am really interested to hear what RMS is going to say about this. And I wonder a certain artice of his as had any influence at the Sun top.

the fact that socialism encourages laziness because there is little outside motivation.

Really? I was under the distinct impression that outside motivation often leads to laziness, corner-cutting, and generally reduced performance. You actually hit on a couple very important points in those few sentences, but you got your interpretation backwards.

With a small homogenous population that has a decent work ethic, socialism works fine. The problem is that there are immigrants who don't share the same values

It's not that those populations inherently have a decent work ethic and are thus able to make socialism work, nor does it have anything to do with the size or homogeneity of the population. It's just that societies without a system that stifles a sense of internal motivation produce people with a decent work ethic by default. On the other hand, immigrants who grew up with capitalism have learned to need outside motivation to be productive (read the link above) -- as you essentially state, they're the ones who lack the decent work ethic, not the ones native to socialism.

In other words, the problem is not that socialism doesn't give much outside motivation -- the problem is that capitalists tend to be lazy without outside motivation.

Imagine an analogous situation, where a parent gives their child candy whenever they finish their homework before supper, but of course doesn't allow their child candy under normal circumstances. As the research summarized in the above link suggests, the child becomes focussed on doing the homework as a means to an end -- a way to get candy. Then parent has to go on a business trip for a couple days, and asks a friend to watch the child, but forgets to mention the candy-homework deal. The first day, the child tests the boundaries, and asks for some candy; the friend gives the candy. So, the child doesn't do their homework, and merely pretends to work on it. Is the existence of this situation the fault of the friend for having given the candy without asking something in return, or is it the fault of the parent for teaching the child only to do homework for candy? Your post blames the friend, I blame the values taught by the parent.

I agree with you about MS here but not about Novell. They speak of a community, creating expectations of ethical behavior. How can this be denied?

Are all legal tools ethically neutral? What about the Constitution? Should there be never be expectations of society beyond the letter? How do we draw the line among these tools?

The preamble of the GPL clearly sets up expectations of ethical behavior, so it is natural that the movement holds these expectations and speaks out when the expectations are not met by those who wish to associate with free software.

I cannot deny there are problems with the movement, but you will find that taking issue with its ethical positions will involve taking issue with very reasonable assumptions. Don't read this kind of stuff unless you are willing to have your own assumptions challenged vigorously. Rebuttals to that kind of stuff would be interesting.

There is nothing specific in the GPL that says they cannot make a deal with Microsoft.

I disagree, the GPL prevents them from distributing anything under the GPL that is covered by copyrights that are not completly open to everyone. So they will not be able to distribute anything (GPL'd) that microsoft has a copyright on, even if they have their own agreement with MS. (see section 7 )

The cost of the software is only part of the equation when setting up servers for a business.

Eh you!!! http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath/

a) The GPL allows you to run GPLd code freely, so applications running on top of GPLd code can not be 'contaminated'[1] through the act of running.

Correct. They are contaminated through the act of being distributed together with the GPL'ed Java runtime, something that Linux distributors will want to do. They are "contaminated" in the sense that if you have received them through that distribution channel, you have received them under the GPL and are therefore bound by the terms of the GPL if you do anything else with them. And if their original license is not compatible with the GPL, then you can't do anything with them at all.

The GPLd Linux kernel, for example, rather unsurprisingly does not 'contaminate' the non-GPLd Sun JVM running on top of it.

Let's take that analogy. Then, the Linux kernel is kind of like the JVM. There is no problem with running non-GPL'ed applications on top of a GPL'ed JVM. But on top of that kernel are supporting libraries, and the supporting libraries for the kernel have an explicit linking exception because they need one. Likewise, the supporting libraries on top of the JVM, which means all the Java libraries, need a linking exception. In addition, kernel extensions for a GPL'ed kernel need to fall under the GPL, so, by analogy, a GPL'ed JVM would cause problems with non-GPL'ed native libraries.

b) The GPL does not talk about linking at all, actually. It talks about derivative works.

That's correct. And RedHat Linux, Debian, SuSE, and Ubuntu are derivative works of the works they include. Furthermore, if Java applications on those CDs run on Java implementations on those CDs, then they don't clearly meet the "mere aggregation" test of the GPL.

c) Neither the source code, nor the resulting bytecode of an application written against the standard Java APIs is a derivative work of a particular implementation.

No, but the distribution containing both the Java implementation and the Java application together is a derivative work, and it's a derivative work that does not clearly meet the "mere aggregation" test.

d) GPL allows you to redistribute GPLd works with other works that aren't derived from GPLd works, without imposing obligations on them.

It does that provided they are "merely aggregated". If you ship a Java application intended to run on a Java implementation, then they aren't "merely aggregated", they are intended to run together.

The intent of the GPL vis-a-vis linking is explained here:

This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License.

RMS has also been quite consistent and vocal about the fact that this is his view and intent for the GPL. So, if a Linux distributor decides to include a GPL'ed Java implementation without linking exception, then the GPL implies that any code that runs on that Java implementation must itself be distributed under the GPL. For a lot of Java code, that's not possible because it already falls under GPL incompatible license, so there is a lot of Java code the distributor can't ship. I don't see how any Linux distribution, no matter how committed to the GPL, can live with that. The fact that there are some other ways in which a GPL'ed Java implementation and a non-GPL'ed Java program can find their ways onto your harddisk and you can combine them there yourself without violating the GPL doesn't change the fact that for many uses, this would be a serious problem.

Now, you can wave your hands and try to construct legal arguments why the GPL can't or doesn't actually achieve what RMS wants it to achieve (there are lots of people like you who have tried), but the fact is that a lot of people sh

I'm no fan of EULAs or any software licensing (not even the GPL)

Not to defend EULAs, but you know you don't have to accept the GPL to use GPL'ed software? It even says right in the license that you don't have to accept it. See clause 5. (So now we have the irony of brain-dead installers saying "You must accept the license to install the software" and the license says "You do not have to accept this license".)

If you don't like the GPL, you can just let regular copyright law define your rights. Which means no derivative works without permission, no distribution, and so on.

Most other EULAs add restrictions. And many of them say you should return the software to the place of purchase for a refund if you do not agree--at least, the ones I've read recently. Hmmm. If Windows has a clause like that, there's a good reason for taking it back and getting a refund....

The problem being, of course, once you've read the EULA and found out you should return it and ask for a refund, most retailers won't give you one because the box is open.

IMO, java is a better server side language. Please don't use it for desktop applications! :(

Look at GCJ http://gcc.gnu.org/java/. When they finish XLib/GTK/AWT/Swing support you will have a nice native Linux RAD environment.

Enjoy,

Thinking about it, this is probably pretty much useless. GNU Classpath and other open source Java libraries have a special exception to the GPL, see here. That exception is there because without it, the only software that man people could run with an open source Java implementation would be GPL'ed software. Realistically, that would make an open source Java implementation largely useless, since so much Java code out there is not under the GPL.

If Sun's source code is released under the plain GPL without that exception, then it is largely useless. Sun's JVM and libraries could be reused as part of FOSS implementations, but FOSS Java already has better implementations anyway. The big parts of Sun Java that would have been useful are Swing, but those can't be incorporated into Classpath if Sun doesn't have the exception.

My guess is that Sun has deliberately chosen not to include the exception, in an effort to appear open but deliver little of real value.

If Sun releases both the Java VM, and (more importantly) the Java class libraries under the GPL, it will be huge, because important packages will now be able to include Java functionality out of the box

Example: Distros can ship Firefox (a.k.a. Iceweasel/Firesomething/whatever) with a Java plugin. On every architecture. Running OpenBSD. And it'll be reliable, because weird OS-specific bugs will actually get fixed.

Another example: Debian et al. can start shipping OpenOffice with Java support.

If Sun plays its cards right, it will have eliminated the so-called Java trap, which can only serve to render Java more ubiquitous.

That said, I'll believe it when it happens.

Well, since the GPL 3 is not going to be ready until January 15, 2007 at the earliest I guess the question is if the licensing is going to include the "either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version" part of the copyright notice for GPL 2. My guess would be that they won't include it, so that they can know exaclty how it's going to be licenced in the future. Once the GPL 3 is out, thay may change it.

Because of Red Had success, those commerical boys doesn't show enough respect to us "The hard core GNU/Linux zealots"

You're assuming fanatics deserve respect. Some of us might say that that's a debatable assertion. ;-)

We are Penguinistas you mindless IT barons. So you got tons software Patent's. Oh WE ARE SO SCARED, come and SUE US.

Hint:- If respect is something you want, you might also want to look at developing some maturity. Making negative generalisations about corporations, taunting them, and bragging about being a member of Linux's answer to the Mousketeers doesn't exactly make you look like an adult...or mentally stable, for that matter.

You cannot defeat us, we came after you and beat you and we take your market share pice by piece when our job finished, we raid your enterprises, we rape all your code and patents. Do what ever you do best, you cannot beat us.

*sigh*

Some of us are interested in seeing Linux become an operating system that is used by normal people. The FSF (other individuals like you) are still working on a kernel you've probably heard of, called the Hurd. Why don't you go and help them with that? It also isn't something which that portion of the population who live above ground are ever likely to hear about, either...so it's doubly perfect. You get to spend time with kindred spirits developing an operating system that works entirely according to your own liking, and the rest of us get to see Linux become mainstream, and also forget that you exist. Everyone wins.

you need to inspect the compiler and other tools as well

So use an open source toolchain, and have it audited thoroughly and then frozen before use. Each change has again to be carefully audited. The federal govt is supposed to have expertise on tap about such things.

You do not control the hardware,

You do if you (the government) bought it and mandated standard, easily verifiable hardware. This is a non-issue with the proper controls, so long as you don't hire cowboys interested in delivering the lowest quality for the highest price to do your work. Start from a known standard base and each change has to be audited. If your machines aren't running the latest, cheapest hardware, so what?

How do you trust that the version you reviewed is the one used?

This is a logistical issue, and is eminently fixable - no last minute patches, all-party oversight, and all changes audited well in advance and then the release frozen.

Paper ballots can be stuffed too, very easily if you corrupt or coerce the officials (how do you think Musharraf got 98% of the vote in the last 'free' election in pakistan?). Indeed you saw this in the last election in the states in Florida with so-called hanging chads being discounted. The issue with electronic voting is not with electronic voting per se (as your objections illustrate), but with the disorganised, slipshod, negligent manner in which it's been carried out in the US at present. It's perfectly possible to design a system that works well and is audited, verifiable, and very difficult to influence, but that's not really in the interest of any parties involved except the voters, is it?

write gorgeous apps in C# that everyone wants, encourage competing distros to integrate those apps, then laugh as Microsoft takes out their competition in court. And coincidentally distract developer and user attention from the steadily emerging Free Java which is swimming along nicely with the addition of SWT on to the base of GCJ with the recently merged GNU Classpath libraries. And coincidentally helps to put extra pressure on Red Hat after their JBOSS acquisition. I think we're looking at a convergence of multiple interests antagonistic to Red Hat here and Microsoft is going to eat up the Linux distributors one at a time. Right now Red Hat is the biggest threat and so Oracle and Microsoft want to acquire or destroy. Either will do fine.

...because it made me switch to Linux! Somebody ought to write a law against EULAs. Software should be purchased, not licensed.

If you'd like to hear a very well-spoken argument to explain how unique the GNU/Linux system is in the market for small portable computers, listen to Eben Moglen's talk from the 2006 FSF Associate Member meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This talk was a hit in its own right and a highlight of the day's events. This talk is called "The Hardware Wars and the future of free software". Other talks from the meeting are online as well.

While it's a shame that the entire OS isn't free software, I would love to discover that Microsoft is distributing a free software kernel to its users; the more free software distributors, the merrier.

My desktops have slowly, but surely, converged into one screen session.

0: stuff: Just a standard shell, yeah.
1: emacs: Text editing. Usually about eight buffers open, depending on what I'm doing.
2: irc: I'm always using irssi, productivity drainer of our time.
3: songs: ncmpc gives me music.

Other than that, there are usually two or three other windows open, again depending on what I'm doing. Usually, they are terminals. I also have both a web browser and Gaim open, neither of which translate very well to a terminal.

That said, I am very picky about windows, and judging by the comments that I have seen so far, no-one is being kind to the window pushers. Emacs buffers get killed if I'm not using them, or haven't used them for a while (half an hour or so). I have the annoying habit of closing chat windows, making searching in the logs quite annoying. Terminals usually get opened for one particular purpose, then I close them again straight after.

I hope I haven't failed some sort of test, that would be awful.

too bad god hasn't GPL'ed the bee DNA like he did humans: http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/dna.html

Answers to your "questions" here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Sounds revisionists to me, I'm pretty sure the slogan was always "software should be free." Well, it is. Now he wants to make it less free.

Well, there's your error: you heard a slogan and assumed you understood the idea. Here's an excerpt from The Free Software Definition, which I'm fairly certain was one of the earlier things RMS wrote on the subject (emphasis added):

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software

Note that it very explicitly speaks of freedom for the user, not for the software itself.

If you ever have any trouble figuring this kind of thing out, think back to the original motivation for the whole thing: a printer that RMS couldn't control. Do you think that if the driver had been DRM'd, rather than merely proprietary, he would have been any less outraged?

the GPL v.3 has exactly the same purpose as the GPL v.2

Not for people who really like the simplicity of GPL 2, and don't like the political directions of GPL 3.

The purpose of the GPL is exactly whatever GNU says it is, as GNU is the organization that wrote the license. If you think it has some other purpose, you're wrong. Sorry.

The point is, I should have the freedom to encrypt/DRM something before I sell it to you, as long as I tell you it's encrypted/DRMed before you pay.

If you believe that, you must necessarily not believe in the Four Freedoms, and therefore must not agree with the GPL. You can believe in one or the other, but not both as it would be a contradiction.

First of all, you might be misunderstanding me: it's the user's rights that were violated in that scenario, not the DRM'd thing's (which, as you correctly but uselessly pointed out, is an inanimate object and therefore has no rights).

Second, that statement was predicated on acceptance of GNU's "Four Freedoms", which are as follows:

• 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.

If you believe that the user should have these freedoms, then you must necessarily believe that anything that removes them should be disallowed. DRM is designed to destroy all four of these freedoms, and therefore cannot be allowed. To do so would be logically inconsistent -- it simply wouldn't make any sense!

I think you give Sun a little more credit than they deserve. Sun is just panicking, not being enlightened.

Sun needs, desperately, to make their implementation of Java the defacto standard with Linux distributions. Their problem is Java is becoming open source right now. That's a comparison between a cleanroom, GPL implementation of Java and Sun's JDK 1.4. That's approximately 99% compatible aside from the swing api. And for a Tomcat or Jboss, that's all you need. Debian already distributes this in the main repository with SableVM. Red Hat favors GCJ.

Right now Sun is on the cusp of becoming irrelevant. They wanted so badly to prevent a fork of Java but it is already forked right under their noses. They need to dump a superior, complete, open source version of Java on the market RIGHT NOW and sweep support out from under these other projects and kill them with extreme prejudice. Lets face it, Solaris has no takers outside hardcore enterprise customers because we open sourced around them. In another year Sun's JDK will be just "that JDK that comes with Solaris" if they don't do something really soon. Then Java is forked and Sun has lost the standards battle with Microsoft in their eyes.

Personally, I think an independent Java Foundation needs to get spun off. That way IBM, Sun, Oracle, Red Hat, Intel, HP, and Apple can dump research money into Java without all the discomfort of working with a direct competitor. And finally, fast VM technology will enter the public domain and we can get rid of all this slow ass interpreted shit.

I've watched Stallman in several interviews (techtv, etc.), read his stuff, etc. From my novice pov, most notably, I remember his presence in Revolution OS. Torvalds had just finished speaking, was remaining on stage, and Stallman gets up to give a rambling "talk" about open sournce. The gist of what Stallman was trying to say, to me, was, "I made open source! Not Linus! It was mine! I wanted herd to be the kernel! Rosebud!..."

This information cannot possibly be correct. How do I know? Stallman completely disavows the "Open Source" movement, much less claimed to have created it. Open Source came long after Free Software and is an entirely separate movement that has little ideological in common with the Free Software movement.

take a look at this

Actually, somebody wrote a java backend for gcc. Problem is, RMS didn't want it in. The idea was, java bytecode might be used as an intermediate language, so that a manufacturer of proprietary hardware could write a proprietary bytecode-to-machine language compiler for their architecture, and then take advantage of the nice GCC toolchain to promote their proprietary stuff.

Now, this seems a little paranoid to me, but there you have it. However, the little known mono competitor, dotGNU claims to have a c to .net compiler, and will eventually suppor java too. might be worth checking out.

Complaining that RMS is not a successful evangelist is missing the point: he is a prophet. He is not here to make you feel good about yourself; he is here to tell the truth, however uncomfortable that may be.

His prophecies are already coming to pass. And you will be cast into the pit on the day of judgement.

Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.
Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.

Anything released by me in the future will carry a modified GPLv2 that does not permit the use of any future version of the GPL simply because this is a deliberate railroading of the purpose of the GPL.

If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. (GPLv2)

Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.