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FSF Launches Associated Membership Program
Andy Tai writes "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has launched an associated membership program. Support Free Software by becoming an FSF associated member.
From the FSF website:
On Monday 25 November 2002, we launched the FSF Associate Membership
program. Now, you can support FSF by becoming a
card-carrying associate member.
You can find out about the rates and benefits
of membership, sign up to be an Associate Member,
login to edit your membership options, and even read briefly about some current projects of FSF.
" Seems a little odd to me, but what do i know ;)
At present, the article's links are pointing back at Slashdot itself. The full page with the links pointing correctly are here.
They will have to change their name to the Fee Sofrware Foundation.
Guess Stallman finally wants a taste of the good life. Now Stallman can pay the course fee for that round of golf with McNeally and Gates.
Perhaps you've heard of the DMCA?
If you dislike laws like that, wouldn't it be great to have an organization to help fight legal battles that might eventually bring down bad laws, or perhaps loobby to help stop them in the first place?
Well there is such an organization, it's called the EFF!! By giving money to them you aren't just helping develop free software, you are helping to pay for legal fight that make it possible to keep writing Free software.
Rather than waste any time and effort of futile boycotts, why not join the EFF instead and help an organization that is actually doing something real.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Jesus, it's amazing! $10 a month!? Everyone bitches about M$ and Windows day in and day out. Yet I'm sure IE is prob /.'s biggest browser client. How do you get that? Uh, you have to have Windows (or CX Office/Wine :). So, short of pirating copies to install, you've all bought $100 of M$ crap! Possibly on a yearly or so basis. Then people whine about $10 for a foundation that, at least tries to help distribution of code instead of locking it all up for just a few people to benefit from!
Does Stallman own all GPL code? No. Do users get to keep copyright to the code they contribute? Yes. Are you free to use pretty much any GPL code in your application *and* sell it? Yes. Just include the source.
Oh, you're right, grandma and grandpa and mom and dad and Jim VC-less research Nerd down the street will wanna steal your trade secrets and compile your latest source for the coolest Mozilla plugin, therefore, screwing you out of a fortune. Get real! The reason M$ has switched from panic mode to embrace mode is because they see Linux server and desktop shipments are on the rise. Without the GPL, the computer industry would be in worse shape than it is now. If Quicken doesn't wanna write a client because they can't innovate some way to make money on Linux, then so be it. Where they fall, others will rise.
Everyone want's freedom when it's gone or don't care about it when it's there. Well, screw that. If you don't want an IE dominated web, use Mozilla or the OS equiv. If you want a M$-less domintate office, use Open Office. If you want to have control of your own audio or video content use a GPL OS or OS X. And if you want freedom in an industry that mostly doesn't care much about your freedom, then consider a piddly, measely, $10/mo. Something you probably wouldn't think twice about paying to the latest crappy blockbuster movie out there. Jeeze, 10$..
I see alot of people complaining that the GPL isn't absolutely free, and therefore it's deceptive to call it Free Software. Perhaps, if you're willing to similarly argue that there are no free nations and no free people.
Freedom is not an absolute that you have or don't have. It's a sliding scale. On one end is "Absolute Freedom". Absolute Freedom is only interesting in the sense that Absolute Zero is interesting: useful in theory, but unattaintainable in practice. Absolute Freedom would give me the freedom to, say, murder, rob, and defraud. Relatively few people people would desire that much freedom. By accepting restrictions on themselves, they know that others who might harm them are similarly restricted. In fact, Absolute Freedom probably isn't attainable for a population of any size, someone will take that freedom to use force to remove the freedom from others.
On the other end you have an Absolute Lack of Freedom. This really requires that we all be robots or otherwise completely controlled. If you're into predestination or the absolute computability of the universe, then you might believe that we fundamentally have an Absolute Lack of Freedom. Most people don't.
So we have a sliding scale between these two points. To take a situation I'm familiar with, let's look at the United States. The vast majority of citizens of the United States feel that they are free people. Yet, we accept a large number of restrictions on our behavior. There are laws limiting use of violence; which chemical compounds we're allowed to sell and purchase; when we're allowed to vote, drink, smoke, and run for political office; electromagnetic emissions our computers are allowed to emit; pollution allowed from our cars; what we're allowed to say and where (no "Fire!" in a crowded theatre). Yet with these restrictions, and thousands more, we basically feel that we're a free people, a free society. We're nowhere near Absolute Freedom, but we're free enough. There is naturally a continuous struggle to define what is free enough. Some argue to increase freedom in some areas, others argue to reduce freedom in some areas. Yet we're free enough.
So, back to software. In much of the world, the status quo is that you cannot distribute copies of other people's software. This is implemented through local copyright laws. Most software licenses start with the restrictions of copyright law, then add additional restrictions. Clearly most software licenses are less free than the default. The GPL starts with copyright law, then offers you a deal: you can have more freedom than copyright law grants, but there are some restrictions. You have a choice with software under the GPL: you can accept copyright law, or you can accept the GPL and gain certain freedoms. Yes, the GPL restricts how you can distribute copies of the GPLed software, but it's still better than the copyright default of zero copy distribution allowed. Clearly, the GPL is more free than copyright.
Now, the GPL isn't quite as free as the BSD / MIT / X licenses, sure. But you cannot claim that those licenses acheive Absolute Freedom. Clearly not, since there is something more free than the BSD license: the public domain. In the public domain software just barely reaches Absolute Freedom. Of course, Absolute Freedom is unstable, and naturally any software of value is copied out of the public domain and incorporated into less free works. While works in the public domain cannot effectively be removed from that freedom, their mere existance supports the creation of much less free works.
If we're going to debate the meaning of Free, we need to draw a line in the continuum of Freedom and Lack of Freedom. Would you draw it at Absolute Freedom? If we're talking about Freedom in general, you'll never achieve it. In the case of software, you there is an Absolute Freedom at public domain. Very nearby is the BSD style licenses. That certainly is a very free location on the continuum. It's so free that other people take the free thing and create something non-free. While that's very free, it seems a bit unfair to some people who want spread freedom more widely. If I create something and I want to make it free, why should my work support less free works? So I'm willing to move the line up to the GPL. Clearly less free than the BSD license, it helps to ensure that my donations to things on the Free side of the line cannot be used to support things on the Non-Free side of the line.
Perhaps you feel that the GPL isn't free enough. But for many people it is free enough, and as such can legitimately be called Free software. (To be fair, some people probably feel that proprietary software is free enough. I suspect relatively few people who have ever tried to get additional legal copies of software that was no longer published, or support for out of lifespan software, or wanted to use software no longer supported on modern system, or subjected to a BSA audit feel that the software in question is particularlly Free.)
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). The FSF is charged with "getting the word out" and can do so much more effectively and on a larger scale than I can. I do my part locally, and I support the FSF (yes, I am a member) to do the same nationally. The single biggest impedement to sales (as is true with any kind of technology product or service) is ignorance on the part of the customer. Where a commercial products pimp would try to overcome this with glossy flyers, smooth talking sales people, etc...we try to overcome it with knowledge transfer, education, etc. We offer classes, lectures, etc. on Open Source and how it can truly benefit a business, interact with commercial software and such. The FSF is a very important organization, and one worth supporting (presently). As a matter of fact, when we sell a system we include a 1 year FSF membership. Just my $.02, all naysayers welcome. ER