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OSI Approves Apple, IBM Licenses
Thought the GPL was a nice license for your software project, one that fit with your thoughts about software freedom? Perhaps the BSD license was more to your taste? Well, even if you confine yourself to the ones approved by the Open Source Initiative, you can now choose from a grand total of 23 different licenses. Two new licenses have been blessed by the OSI: IBM's Common Public License Version 0.5, and the Apple Public Source License 1.2. Both may fit the OSI's definition of Open Source, but Free? Neither one uses that word. Richard Stallman isn't kidding when he says Open Source is not synonymous with Free Software. Clearly, there is nothing to stop every software company in the world from writing its own Open Source license. So here we are with at least 23, and rising.
> To the extent that he denies a software author the right to do with his code as he pleases, the man is a maniac.
And tell me how he denies any programmers of their rights? Is he somehow denying them by not letting them redistribute his software under a license not of his choosing? No, he's *granting* them rights to his software. You can argue that BSD or Artistic licenses grant *more* privelidges, but the GPL certainly doesn't *take away* rights, it merely grants more limited rights. Don't confure less positive with a negative.
> As it is, he can be a royal pain.
Has he been calling you up and bothering you lately? Has he been threatening you personally? No, he just states his mind. People seem to think that Stallman is "out to get" other software projects, but mostly people go to him and say "do you like this non-GPL license?", to which he will say "no". Big surprise there. We wouldn't hear nearly as much out of Stallman if people weren't constantly seeking his opinion.
> But the bottom line is that free code is a GIFT.
So is "free code" this amazing new concept of your's, or are you just trying dodge the phrase "free software", which was defined by Stallman himself? The gift philosophy is more or less the BSD mindset. That's great, but that's not "free software". By definition, what Stallman is pushing is "free software".
> For that matter, it's worth pointing out that the GPL actually restricts my freedom!
That is a blatant lie. Without the GPL you have no rights to the code. With it, you are granted limited rights. If the license was BSD, you would arguably have more rights, but the fact of the matter is that the GPL is *adding* to your rights. So, effectively, you are whining because Stallman isn't giving you all that you want out of him. You seem to want him to give you *his* software on *your* terms.
> So Stallman's blathering about "free" software is a little disingenuous.
Who, precisely, is more qualified to comment on free software than the man who created the term to begin with, and founded the Free Software Foundation?
> What he really means is that he (or the FSF) should dictate how we use software.
No, they are dictating how you use *their* software. Sorry if it cramps your style, but the GPL grants us a whole heck of a lot of rights.
> If he would change his focus from one of religious zealotry to one wherein he encourages developers to give gifts
He's not interested in gifts, he's interested in freedom. Not just freedom in the here and now, but *sustained* freedom. That is where the BSD and GPL camps really diverge. The GPL makes provisions to ensure *continued* freedom. You may feel that the provision is to onerous, but atleast understand it's purpose.
-Lenny
People don't become maniacs simply by having ideas about property rights that differ from yours. Nor does Stallman deny authors anything. What he does is provide a model license that gives authors the option of sharing their software in a way that ensures everyone who partakes of it must also share. This is a common virtue we push in elementary schools; it only becomes anathema, apparently, when we suggest that adults might want to voluntarily be nice to their fellow adults. Of course, people have been killed for less, but what the hell.
Stallman's use of the word 'free' can be a bit counter-intuitive, but as countless thousands of people have noted, English lacks native words for all but the crudest notions of freedom and cost-free-ness.
The GPL has its place. I don't agree with Stallman's belief that all software should be GPLed, but the abuses of "free" and "open source" software by large corporations over the past couple of years clearly demonstrate that if you give an inch to greedy, unethical suits, they'll take a mile, every time. Maybe this matters in some cases, maybe it doesn't. The GPL is available for those cases when it does.
If you want truly free software in the commonly understood sense of the word, you need to prepend these words to your source code:
The problem is that the vast majority of the people who decry the restrictions of the GPL as unfree are seldom willing to actually go that far and make their own software absolutely free. There is a lesson to be drawn from this which will probably not sit well with rigidly doctrinaire libertarians, so I leave it as an exercise to the reader.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
"Both may fit the OSI's definition of Open Source, but Free? Neither one uses that word. Richard Stallman isn't kidding when he says Open Source is not synonymous with Free Software. Clearly, there is nothing to stop every software company in the world from writing its own Open Source license."
By definition, open source has nothing to do with free. There's just plenty of people who don't mind working for nothing. Apple wants to make money, so they'll do that. If you don't like their open source model, then don't help out. There's nothing wrong with companies using open source for profit. And anyway, darwin is free, which is what's released under Apple's Open Sourece license, so there's no reason why the rest of OSX has to be free (as your post implies).
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Is someone trying to say something by linking to the Ontario Swine Institute (osi.org)?
At the moment, the links I see for both GPL and BSD point to the /. front page. It sure seems like these Perl hackers have a hard time with HTML...
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
At first I thought this was just a simple acronym mix-up, but upon further analysis, I realized it was much d eeper than that. If you check out the FAQ, the OSI is commited to helping improve Ontario's pigs in an open manner. For example, they're all about sharing source material, as especially noted in their pricing strategy -- they charge you extra if you're not sharing your source material!
In fact, they even provide some how-to in their FAQs
Of course, this project is merely Open, since the material can never be truly Free. They would like to be Free, but apparently their product relies on IP from an external source, and they just can't get their vendor to agree to the terms of the GPL. Something about "thou shalt not lie with a beast" or some such.
There are rumors He's open to petitions though.
I personally don't question the man's genius. I love Emacs, and anyone who can write a compiler (particularly one as good as gcc) is a hacker's hacker as far as I'm concerned.
But there's no way I can ever tolerate his distorted vision for the future of software. To the extent that he denies a software author the right to do with his code as he pleases, the man is a maniac.
I love free software; I love the quality of it. I deeply appreciate the time that the authors of it have invested. But the bottom line is that free code is a GIFT. It is not an obligation. It is not more ethical than proprietary software (note that this is absolutely different from the business practices of companies and individuals, which can be positively immoral). That is not where its superiority lies. The superiority is in the code.
For that matter, it's worth pointing out that the GPL actually restricts my freedom! I cannot do just anything with GPL-ed code. So Stallman's blathering about "free" software is a little disingenuous. What he really means is that he (or the FSF) should dictate how we use software. Of course, a software author has the right to release his code (if he does so at all) under whatever terms he wishes. But let's be completely honest: GPL-ed software is not literally and wholly free. It is "mostly" free (yes, I can distinguish between free beer and free speech). I can't do just anything I wish with it.
Stallman needs to get a grip. If he would change his focus from one of religious zealotry to one wherein he encourages developers to give gifts, he would be a lot more tolerable. As it is, he can be a royal pain.
Nevertheless, he is a genius.