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"Technology?" Give me a break. They're looking at what authority signed the cert, and if the web browser has been told to dogmatically trust that authority more than others, then it turns something green.

Actually, it's not a bad idea. There are degrees of trust, and showing it to the user is fine. But you bet your ass this is mostly just a cashgrab from Verisign.

A Firefox implementation of extended validation can only be a matter of time, since the Mozilla Foundation knows in order to compete it cannot afford for its browser to be just as good as IE7; it has to be better.

Good news. There's a way to do this, that will absolutely embarrass MSIE, making its version of https look completely insecure by comparison, and screw Verisign over, in the process.

Support an OpenPGP-based cert model (perhaps using GNU TLS library, perhaps not). Suddenly, you can have certs that are signed by multiple authorities, including users themselves, and display a whole spectrum of trust metrics. Equifax can make mistakes and issue an incorrect cert to a bank, but can three CAs all make the same mistake, without a conspiracy? And what if you get the bank's fingerprint on your snailmail statements, or there's a sign showing the fingerprint when you walk into it, and thus you can cert it yourself? What if you haven't ever been to the bank (ok, I can't imagine that) but you have 3 friends who have, and you have certified them, and told your computer they are each marginally trusted, and they all certify the bank? Three friends are sure as hell a lot more trustworthy than some faceless corporation named Verisign, whose identification policies you don't even know, whose private key storage policy you don't even know, and in fact doesn't have a single employee you have even met, assuming they have any employees at all and aren't a robot in the basement of a building at the NSA.

"Technology?" Give me a break. They're looking at what authority signed the cert, and if the web browser has been told to dogmatically trust that authority more than others, then it turns something green.

Actually, it's not a bad idea. There are degrees of trust, and showing it to the user is fine. But you bet your ass this is mostly just a cashgrab from Verisign.

A Firefox implementation of extended validation can only be a matter of time, since the Mozilla Foundation knows in order to compete it cannot afford for its browser to be just as good as IE7; it has to be better.

Good news. There's a way to do this, that will absolutely embarrass MSIE, making its version of https look completely insecure by comparison, and screw Verisign over, in the process.

Support an OpenPGP-based cert model (perhaps using GNU TLS library, perhaps not). Suddenly, you can have certs that are signed by multiple authorities, including users themselves, and display a whole spectrum of trust metrics. Equifax can make mistakes and issue an incorrect cert to a bank, but can three CAs all make the same mistake, without a conspiracy? And what if you get the bank's fingerprint on your snailmail statements, or there's a sign showing the fingerprint when you walk into it, and thus you can cert it yourself? What if you haven't ever been to the bank (ok, I can't imagine that) but you have 3 friends who have, and you have certified them, and told your computer they are each marginally trusted, and they all certify the bank? Three friends are sure as hell a lot more trustworthy than some faceless corporation named Verisign, whose identification policies you don't even know, whose private key storage policy you don't even know, and in fact doesn't have a single employee you have even met, assuming they have any employees at all and aren't a robot in the basement of a building at the NSA.

I'm trying to understand what you're in favour of here (and what the article is all about). As I understand it, Windows Vista 64bit Edition will simply not allow kernel drivers to load unless they are signed with Microsoft's private key. Which means that you'll need to either exploit kernel bugs to load your own code (which they'll plug eventually) or boot off a CD and patch the kernel files on disk to disable this checking (which will be hard to do without destablizing the whole system). If that's what we're talking about (and I have no idea if it is) how can you possibly be in favour of it? I mean, it sounds like The Right To Read all over again.

But does it come with GNU Iceweasel?

"When someone takes our property, without our permission through a license, we have no option but to protect it through every means available to us," said John Kelly, IBM's Senior VP for Technology and Intellectual Property.

Would some IBM legal staffer care to qualify what "property" has been taken from IBM? I doubt I'd consider these patents valid, however I'm not prepared to risk "willfull infringement" by reading them.

Richard M. Stallman is a 53-year-old anticorporate crusader who has argued for 20 years that most software should be free of charge. He and a band of anarchist acolytes long have waged war on the commercial software industry, dubbing tech giants "evil" and "enemies of freedom" because they rake in sales and enforce patents and copyrights--when he argues they should be giving it all away.

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer".

"Free software" does not mean "non-commercial". A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important.

I only needed to read the first paragraph of that article or so to realise those people have no idea what they are talking about. Points for this argument: 1. Linux isn't an operating system, it is an operating system kernel. 2. As far as I know there is no such thing as the "Linux movement". 3. Richard "RMS" Stallman doesn't argue that software should be free of charge, but free for peoples freedoms, hence the term "free as in free speech not free as in beer". 4. They make ridiculous accusations that the Free Software Foundation attacks commercial software, when there is nothing wrong with commercial software, it is proprietary software that is targeted, as is made completely clear here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html and I quote "Free software does not mean non-commercial. A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important.". 5. From what I have read, the Linux kernel will be released under GPLv2 with no change in license. Without reading the entire article, it seems this was just a pathetically bigoted, insulting and upsetting attack on RMS, a man who has dedicated his life to helping computer users retain their freedom. So no change to Linux will affect anything regarding the license.

Actually, there's a lot of GNU on your typical Linux system (which is, not surprisingly, why Stallman insists on GNU/Linux). There's coreutils (ls, rm, so on and so forth), which is, I assume, what you mean by heirloom utilities. Then there's bash, a couple of editors, binutils (linker, compiler, assembler, so on and so forth), the make system, the C library, GNOME and all the official GNOME utilitites, autotools, bison, some games, a bunch of misc. system utilities and a bunch of stuff that few people will give a rat's ass about but will tend to use alot and a handful of stuff that would be best if everyone forgot. Hell, from what I understand, Linux itself relied heavily on gcc and the GNU C extentions at one point (it may still well, this wasn't long ago), so there's that too.

Assuming the HURD weren't such a massive train wreck the GNU System would be a remarkably complete *nix environment, which is why Linux has done so well. There's a lot of GNU left on any given Linux system. Nothing to sneeze at, anyway.

Here is, by the way, the full listing of the GNU Project Software.

This has happened before. A while back I tried without success to convince Richard Stallman that continuing to promote a license (the GNU Free Documentation License or GFDL)
        http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
which was incompatible with the GPL was a bad thing. :-)
See for example some reasons at:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentatio n_License
    http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html
My particular interest was to use information from the GFDL-licensed Wikipedia in GPL programs. I'd go further and question the very reasons the GFDL was created in the first place -- just to make dead tree book publishers' lives easier? Where is the emphasis on freedom there?

I think it is easy for any technologist to underestimate community issues and then to see a license as a program for individual behavior instead of a constitution for a community. The GPL works. It has problems, sure, but it works well enough as a constitution for cooperation. More variants of licenses mainly just make more problems IMHO.

a shameless attempt by Hurd to keep from being further sullied by the scandal.

Well, there's no way the Hurd can escape further criticism for the scandal of being twenty years overdue when there's still no usable code.

Oh, that Hurd.

"If every FOSS project behaved as Mozilla does then almost EVERY piece of software in most Linux distros would have to be renamed. Just how does this help with public perception and branding?"

How would you feel if someone started distributing shitloads of copies of a GUI for *nix systems, based on Gnome, that they called "Gnome" but which was extremely buggy, messed with other critical software on a user's box, phoned home to the people who are behind it and did a core dump of all sorts of information about the user along with anything that looks like it might identify the users of said system? Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention they made sure it could not be easily uninstalled.

Right now, if I get something based on the Linux kernel, I know I can expect the core part of the OS to behave in certain predictable ways. When I decide to use Gnome rather than KDF (for example) I have a good idea of what I will get. What is wrong with that? It works rather well, I'd say.

I've taken a look at the proposed GPLv3 and, at first glance, I don't see where it prohibits anyone who decides ti use such a licensing scheme from keeping control of the brand name of whatever they create and distribute -- it just says that source code must remain open source (free as in free speech). I'm not going to get into a technical legal thread discussion (I still want to be an IP lawyer, but am not one yet).

GPL makes heavy use of terms such as "unmodified program". But, more specifically, the proposed GPLv3 says, "Developers that use the GNU GPL protect your rights with two steps: (1) assert copyright on the software, and (2) offer you this License which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software." Since GNU is certainly a major source of great FOSS, I'm using that as a case in point.

Debian wants to modify a program without distinguishing their version from the original. Bad Debian! If they don't like it the way it is and can't live with whatever legal restrictions there are on use of the name "Firefox" to refer to a browser, they should come up with their own name. Hmm, somebody has come up with Iceweasel which is apparently based on the same code that Firefox is. Funny that! Sounds like excellent /. fodder. :-)

When I think of FOSS, I do not assume that all brands of software that have the same roots under an open source license are created equal, nor that I should not be sure to distinguish between them. 0Look at all the flavors (brands) of Linux people can choose from. The only think they have in common is the Linux kernel (thanks, Linus!). At least we know that whoever builds a complete OS around a Linux kernal had enough of a clue to start with a good foundation. Things differ from that point, as most Linux users realize. I want to know whose derivative software I am using.

"All beer is good beer. Some beer is better than others." That describes exactly why brand names matter and why they ought to enjoy protection under the law, expecially when the underlying product can be made and distributed by almost anyone.

Copyright Infringement Alarm!!!

A bit amusing in the context, but let's be fair here, when you post someone elses work, please give them credit!

This is RMS's 'Right to Read'. It is copyrighted under a very free license. All you have to do is give credit to the writer. That is something most people do without thinking, because it is the Right Thing to Do.

Anyway, in case the AC gets modded into copyright infringement hell, the orignal text, aswell as some updated comments are available here. It's an interesting read.

The latest OSS Flash player, Gnash, still seems to be actively developed. I do believe there were other attempts before Gnash that have since died out though.

Last time I checked, Firefox was open source. You are more than welcome to fork the project and make a "lite" version. I would probably give it a try.

It's free as in freedom. no it doesn't work perfectly yet, but Flash sites suck anyway

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

No, but GNASH might instead

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

At least it doesn't run on my Linux :-) had enough stupid ads jumping allover my screeen at work.

I'll bite...

And yet, Linux continues to be the same impossible-to-use monstrosity it has always been.

My wife and kid do fine with it, thank you very much, and we do a lot more with our computers than most folks I know.

It is truly fascinating how the open source community can stand there like deer in the headlights congratulating themselves on how their most powerful competitor is learning so much from them. Microsoft is now creating open standards, open formats, even open source applications - not one hundred percent of the time, but hey, they're doing it! They're starting to look more and more like us.

You are correct, not 100% of the time. In fact, not even 0.1% of the time. But if they open up at all, that's a good thing. It's not a competition in the traditional sense of snarfing up market. It's a competition to be Free, which is a win-win, always. If they become more Free, good. It's not like Free has to try to be less Free in order to 'compete'.

Hey, wait a minute. Why don't we look more like Microsoft? Where's our readily accessible documentation localised in dozens of languages?

Here.

Where's our toll-free licensing hotline?

Not necessary. We don't compete on their terms! But if you must, this will do...

Where's our reliable and knowledgeable tech support team?

Choose your interface. I like this. BTW, it is very difficult and unwieldy to get MS tech support (human, not website) for the average user. I have never heard anyone say, "Gee, MS tech support is so reliable, knowledgeable, and easy to use!"

Our software assurance subscription that actually sends a disc in the mail when there's an update?

1990 called, they want their software distribution model back!

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

You know what really bugs me? That last one. I used to pay $4.95 a month for a quarterly package of three major Linux distributions. I liked that. So how come now I only get that from Microsoft?

Apples and oranges. MSDN releases are limited. Linux distributions are free to use as you please.

Honestly, people. Why is Microsoft getting so much better, while *we're* really starting to SUCK?

ROTFLMAO!! We continue to get better all the time, certainly at a faster rate than the 'competition'. I would know, I actually -use- Free software, instead of trolling about it.

And on a more pressing note, just look how much closer those headlights are getting! So how many seconds to *SPLAT*?

There is no splat. Free is pretty tough to make go away.

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

Displaying it as information, "The software herein contained is distributed under the GPL which you may read by clicking this button", is fine, but prohibiting the installation of GPL software seems somewhat against the licence. Not illegal as such but kind of silly and definitely not enforceable.
And not in the sense of "should EULAs be legally enforcable?" but in the sense of even if EULAs were enforceable, the GPL outright says that someone who isn't distributing or modifying the source, doesn't have to agree.

I guess its time for me to step in and end your confusion:

ed

I don't know of any other company that develops GPL code that asks users to sign an additional license.

"The LGPL was originally created for STATICALLY linked libraries." Beg to differ. "Distribute your executable, plus the obj files for your executable which would be needed to relink with a new library, plus the sources for the LGPL'd library, and then you were in compliance with the LGPL. (This was the agreement reached in 1988-89 between the lawyers for the FSF and those for the company I worked for at the time.)"

You just reinforced my point. The LGPL is for dynamically linked libraries, which is why you couldn't distribute a statically linked binary, but instead needed the workaround whereby the user had to link it himself. Had your executable linked at runtime with the LGPL library, you wouldn't need that kluge. Go to the gnu site and check out the difference between a 'work that uses the library' and a 'work that contains the library'

The technical problem isn't gathering metadata on the player, there are perl programs to build an iPod track database without iTunes. The problem is with the user having to select, drag, and drop 3,000 songs to fill up a 20GB player.

It works when the player can hold your entire music collection, you can just drag&drop everything at once. It breaks down when you want to fill a 20GB player from a 32GB music collection. Building an iTunes playlist for all tracks rated 3 stars or more and syncing it to an iPod takes about 5 mouse clicks. Putting the same set of songs onto a drag&drop player requires spending hours of quality time with Windows Explorer, Finder, or "man rsync".

No, it should not! It doesn't need "GTK version 2.10", it needs a library with the SONAME "libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0". You can read more about this (very tricky) topic in the libtool documentation, among other places. http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html#Ve rsioning

Changing the SONAME for every API addition, rather than only when changes are made that break backwards incompatibility is a bad idea because it requires every binary linked against that library to be recompiled. http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html#Re lease-numbers.

The only library I know of that does this is OpenSSL, and it is universally despised because of it. Imagine if GTK did such a thing!

$ apt search ~Ddepends:'libgtk2\.0-0' | wc -l
1033

Every time GTK was updated, all 1033 packages that depend upon it would have to be recompiled.

No, it should not! It doesn't need "GTK version 2.10", it needs a library with the SONAME "libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0". You can read more about this (very tricky) topic in the libtool documentation, among other places. http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html#Ve rsioning

Changing the SONAME for every API addition, rather than only when changes are made that break backwards incompatibility is a bad idea because it requires every binary linked against that library to be recompiled. http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html#Re lease-numbers.

The only library I know of that does this is OpenSSL, and it is universally despised because of it. Imagine if GTK did such a thing!

$ apt search ~Ddepends:'libgtk2\.0-0' | wc -l
1033

Every time GTK was updated, all 1033 packages that depend upon it would have to be recompiled.

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.

Um, I use the application 'screen'.
See: http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/

Given the choice between inserting the GPL into the EULA section of commonly used installer software, or opening themselves up to huge potential liability,...

Of course, this isn't a binary choice. You're perfectly free to excerpt the disclaimer and display just that. Indeed, the example offered for people adding the GPL to their program is quite short. The GPL's "How to apply" section specifically suggests showing this short message when your program starts. For reference, here's the suggestion. It's short enough that mroe people will read it, it clearly warns that users get no warranty and provide directions on how to see the full disclaimer. It also tells users of their free software rights, and gives directions on learning about that as well.

Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

(Obviously you're supposed to change the "show w" and "show c" to something else if appropriate, say "Select Help > Warranty" and "Select Help > License".)

...is that if people want to add clickwraps, they're going to whether the GPL allows it or not.

I don't like clickwraps myself, but that's irrelevant. The point is that commercially minded types (and especially commercially minded types who've had development experience on Windows) often *are* inclined to use them. I also (unlike certain hard leftists we know about who will remain nameless, at least for the moment) do not fundamentally object to people making money from software. For those of you who are going to point me to this, it'd be great if it was still true...but from what I've read recently, Stallman's position on commercial software in any form seems to have changed to one of opposition.

If the GPL was really a license all developers wanted, we wouldn't be seeing (at least conscious) violations. This is yet another logical inconsistency inherent in referring to this license as free. (unless of course you subscribe to the Stallmanite definition of that word, which I do not)

A license which genuinely allowed people to do what they wanted would not have or need a website like gpl-violations.org associated with it. (Note to the usual Stallmanite zombies reading this; I am not interested in hearing a regurgitation of Stallman's "total freedom devolves into feudalism," line...primarily because said line is utter bullshit. This can be proven by the number of projects which have managed to survive and function well with non-copyleft licenses...or did until some of them caved to pressure from Stallman to "harmonise" their own licenses with the GPL)

The bottom line is that for as long as the GPL legislates downstream use, it will continue to be violated, because legislation of downstream use (for good *or* bad) is not in accordance with the greater balance of human desire. It might be something which a certain number of people are willing to tolerate, and which a Marxist minority actively want, but it isn't something that the majority want. Of course, believe otherwise if you want...but you might notice contrary evidence continues piling up.

Ask yourself...and think long and hard about this. Do the FSF currently endorse that which you really want? It could be just me, but there honestly seems to have been a change in their behaviour in the last 2-3 years. The tone of the gnu.org site to me has become a lot more strident.

Not only is Linux becoming more popular anyway, but with the Vista release looming, and Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage and other DRM having been reported as being parts of it, I wouldn't be surprised to find that Stallman (at least secretly) could feel as though he potentially has almost the entire computer using population of the planet over a barrel right now. It would certainly explain a few things...the extra stuff in the GPL v3, and the change of the FSF's tone to one that is becoming far more aggressive and confrontational. The mask is coming off, because they're feeling large and in charge...and as though they've got nothing to lose.

Once again, I know I'm going to get the usual response from Stallman's supporters on here that I have no idea what I'm talking about...and for once I will concede, they could be right.

Most of the time, Stallman appears to be the kindly, altruistic, slightly eccentric genius that his followers think he is, and which they want the rest of us to see him as. Every so often though...and I've noticed it happens more regularly lately...the mask cracks ever so slightly.

What I (and some others, I know) see through those cracks truly is not pretty.

There is a Free flash-alike: Gnash.

And by the way, both license are approved by the Free Software Foundation as Free Software Licenses. Do your homework, zealot. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

Actually if you look on distrowatch.org over 10 of the top 20 distros are based on Debian.

Are KDE3.5.5a, Xorg 7.1, beryl, OpenOffice2.4; in Ubuntu?

People get too caught up on the whole release idea.

I think the idea of IceWeasel is great, as matter of fact I downloaded it from http://gnuzilla.gnu.org/download/ just the other day. It is exactly the same as Firefox 1.5.0.7, but it already has a couple of security fixes.

IceWeasel also includes some privacy protection features:
1. Some sites refer to zero-size images on other hosts to keep track of cookies. When IceWeasel detects this mechanism it blocks cookies from the site hosting the zero-length image file. (It is possible to re-enable such a site by removing it from the blocked hosts list.)
2. Other sites rewrite the host name in links redirecting the user to another site, mainly to "spy" on clicks. When this behavior is detected, IceWeasel shows a message alerting the user.

A fork of Firefox isn't going to touch the amount of people that use IE. IceWeasel ftw!!

So let me get this straight, you make vague comparison between 3 cases of unrelated law (trademarks, copyright and patents) in a manner supportive of a question and then fail to ask a question?

Since there was no intentional point to your comment, the unintentional point will have to suffice. Even although you didn't make direct use the phrase, the grouping is possibly a symptom.

This is brilliant. I can imagine some sort of program which could archive all your files and configuration information, and then.. perhaps some sort of compression could be applied to allow for greater portability. Great idea! Someone should try implementing this for Linux.

This is brilliant. I can imagine some sort of program which could archive all your files and configuration information, and then.. perhaps some sort of compression could be applied to allow for greater portability. Great idea! Someone should try implementing this for Linux.

Any code that went back into the tbird base would need have the standard mozilla tri-license (GPL, LGPL, MPL), so that would not affect Debian. However, Thunderbird and Seamonkey (and presumably Sunbird, Camino, etc.) have the exact same logo and trademark problems as Firefox. Just as Firefox will become IceWeasle, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey will likely become IceDove and IceApe.

somebody on the Debian mailing list suggested "Iceweasel" and it stuck.
Actually, GNUzilla and IceWeasel are existing GNU projects to make FREE versions of Mozilla and FireFox. The name IceWeasle did not come from the Debian group alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing_Pla tform_Alliance
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html

"Valid for any third party" means that anyone who has the offer is entitled to take you up on it.

If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer.

The reason we require the offer to be valid for any third party is so that people who receive the binaries indirectly in that way can order the source code from you .

The only way to only distribute the source to Wii owners is to include a copy of the entire source on some media WITH the distribution of the binary. That means including a CD with every Wii that has the source code for the entire GPL'd project.

The relevant portion of the GPL:

3) a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

The only other commercial option is to provide access to the source to "any third party" that requests it.

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

You're wrong. Only people who receive the binaries have the offer to receive the source code. "Any valid third party" means someone who gets the binary indirectly from someone else rather than the originator.

All you have to do is read it

It's not that hard to understand.

Anything under the GPL (or software that extensively uses GPL-software's interfaces) must have source released if it's released.

But under GPL 2, there's no guarantee that the hardware provided with the software will allow an improved version to run, which makes an end-run around FSF freedom #1. Linus Torvalds reportedly likes GPL 2 much better than the GPL 3 drafts, deliberately not caring about freedom #1 for hobbyist end users of proprietary hardware.

I like the bookstore analogy:

Scanning the table of contents, first chapter, front and back cover, and 'inside flap' summary - is akin to picking up the book in the bookstore and flipping through the pages.

As long as google gives direct links to purchase the books, the scans should increase book sales.

Anyone who is a Customer (truly wanting to buy and having the money to buy)
will buy based off of seeing the book on-line.

Google Will increase the number of buyers buying books - due to increased exposure and ready access to purchasing.

Other people just browsing around, they were never real customers - because they were just looking, and even having had seen some of the book, still have absolutely no intention of buying. No loss - because they were not going to buy anyway.

Scanning whole books and posting them as PDF files - well, that would put a dent into paper copy sales,
since some customers would prefer PDF files - imagine the average student sick of carrying 20 kilograms of books around !
One 15.4 inch screen laptop with all the PDFs would be much easier on the back...

But then we get into the whole Right To Read situation.

iTunes has had brisk sales of audiobooks - surprisingly so. People can jog or lounge with their eyes closed, sitting in a hammock. It's story time for adults - even grown ups enjoy someone reading a story to them.

Oh yes it does.

The reason the GPL3 gets picked on so much is that most people forget that the GPL is only a means to an end. It is the legal agreement that the FSF believes will promote the ideals of Free Software. All versions of the GPL have had requirements in them, and this one is no different.

In essence, people are confusing the algorithm (Free Software) with the implementation (the specific license or version thereof). The fact that the most visible people whining about it are programmers is truly some incredible irony.

Stallman explains this in Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism.

The freedom you're talking about is total freedom - which leads to fuedalism, which is not very free at all in practice. Free software is specifically about the freedom to help yourself and to collaborate with others of your choosing.

FUCK the GPL. It's a shitty, overblown, bloaty piece of shit from an extremist communist. The GPL, one would have you believe, forces you to GPL any code using any GPL code, even if the GPL code is a library. This is TrollTech's approach with Qt; and is the direct intent of the GPL's design according to Richard Stalin.

I know a lot of people who personally won't touch GPL code because they're afraid of what it will do to them. I have been told by a couple senior programmers that a lot of companies don't have a clue and won't run, look at, or modify GPL code because of what it might do to their ability to keep their own control over their own products, especially when programmers work on both GPL and non-GPL code ("don't reinvent the wheel" becomes deadly).

I would advocate the LGPL; but GNU's philosophy scares me and as a personal point of protest I would prefer someone release an LGPL-equivalent license simply for the purpose of having something out there that lets open source developers protect their code (i.e. not BSD or MIT), but also doesn't seem threatening to companies shifting a lot of code around (i.e. not GPL), that is explicitly not from the People's Republic of the Free Software Foundation.

One thing I am looking into is invalidating the dynamic linking clause in the GPLv2, to equivalate(sp?) it with the LGPL. The argument for this comes from multiple directions:

• The linking clause can be evaded by producing an identical-in-function and identical-in-ABI non-GPL version of the library, and linking to that. Users running the binary with the GPL library will link to the GPL library; but that's not the independent software vendor's fault. Carrying this argument out in reality is a pointless exercise; thus that clause is invalid.
• Similarly, the GPL explicitly allows internal use of GPL code without GPLing you internal code. Linking to the GPL code is internal use; distributing the dynamic linked binary will not distribute the GPL'd code, and gives the end user no way to run it. The end user's responsibility is to supply the GPL'd library to run the code; this is again not the ISV's fault.
• Most simply, an ABI-compatible stub library can be produced, with all functions being _exit(0). You can link with THAT and your program is non-functional; running it on a machine with the GPL libraries present makes it functional, but the ISV isn't distributing the GPL libraries.

The third argument is probably the most useful, because you can actually get away with it. You actually produce and link against a non-functional software piece. You don't distribute functional software. You don't distribute GPL software. But when the end user runs it, it links to the GPL code. If this caused the software to be GPL, then running Windows programs on Wine with a fully GPL'd libc (glibc is LGPL) would cause Wine and the Windows program to be GPL, and you could demand source code from the ISV.

The GFDL is what you are looking for.

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

Some people think it is antithetical to the purported aims of the GPL and the FSF.

Open Source Mathematica/Maple: http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
Open Source MATLAB: http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/

They work great and are free.

STFU. Dickhead.