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Ghostscript Leaves GNU
commanderfoxtrot writes "Ghostscript 7.07 has been released. However, this is the last GNU release. They will continue to make releases under the GNU GPL, but because of disagreements over censorship of the AFPL releases and the development model in the GNU release their development process has become incompatible with the goals of the GNU project as interpreted by Richard Stallman."
The GPL version is not licensed under the AFPL.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
As I understand it - it's dual licensed in the same sort of way as MySQL is. There's the GPL version and a version you can buy to embed in your Closed-Source-DRM-Widget-2003-XP that you've always wanted to make.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Mmm, nothing like being slashdotted. I'll try to comment on some factual points, though.
There is no "Artifex Public License". There is the AFPL, or "Aladdin Free Public License," but we've never claimed this to be open-source, as it's not consistent with the Open Source Definition.
Our decision separate from the GNU name has no effect on the freedoms guaranteed to our users. We've always done a GPL release within a year of the AFPL release, and will continue to do so.
The text quoted above correctly describes the AFPL versions of Ghostscript - commercial distribution is not allowed. However, commercial Linux distributions do of course distribute the GPL version.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
The Artifex license is not the point of contention, here. The Free version of Ghostscript is (and I believe always has been) GPLed. For more on the actual disagreement, see here (and its followups): http://www.ghostscript.com/pipermail/gs-devel/2002 -December/002261.html
I apologize for not getting the name of the lic. right. The quote is from the AFPL.
Again I say, I really like the GS software, and hope they make good money with it.
The issue here is muddied by the fact that GS is a wonderful app. and have contributed something very significant to the Linux desktop.
BUT [you gnu it was coming]...
At what point does a GNU project turn into just an advertisement for commercial software. Can Microsoft release the source (ugly crap that it is) to GWindows 3.1 and spam it with ads. for Windows XP?
I don't know where they should draw the line for this, but there should be a line. The fact that some GNU folk would draw it well to one side of reasonble seems consistent with their views and past behaviors. Therefore I can't fault them for not wanting this to be a GNU project.
At what point does a GNU project turn into just an advertisement for commercial software.
Who cares if it is an advert for non-free software? The GPL version is free, you get what you asked for. If you want to take that approach, when is redhat going to stop using Linux and GNU software to promote their business, plastering their name all over it those rotten brstards.
Seesh. Give them some credit for writing it and releasing it as free software.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
There's no problem mentioning non-free software in the README for a GPL'd project, and the Ghostscript guys will continue to do so. Stallman doesn't want official GNU projects doing that, so Ghostscript is leaving GNU.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It starts, "A GNU program should not recommend use of any non-free program."
I've seen many GPL programs that don't live up to that rule.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
If Stallman's dream is free software, how the heck is advertising non-free software part of that dream?
I write GPL software and I have no "fear" (except that I constantly have to explain what the GPL and Stallman really say.. to dim bulbs who get their facts from slashdot posts instead of reading the damn license for themselves).
And those GPL programs are not a part of the GNU project. The GPL does not require that you follow the GNU coding guidelines.
Am I being trolled?
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Indeed, RMS is whining his way into irrelevancy. How is going on about GNU/Linux or some subtly of the Ghostscript arrangement actually helping open source?
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
i hope everyone knows that teh bungi is a pro microsoft anti-gpl troll whos always posting negative stuff. please don't use my name in your future postings
love, peace, hope, dock
miguel
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]
So much cluelessness in such a short post. The fact that you got modded "insightful" is simply baffling. I'm convinced that there are fewer UNIX users and more Windows users on Linux than ever.
We'll start with the basics. The GPL is a license. GNU is a system with a corresponding project. Choosing the GPL for your license does NOT mean you are part of the GNU system.
The FSF is a sponsor of the GNU project. They are not the politza. They couldn't care less if your software is licensed with the GPL or not. They only care about the GNU project.
The FSF has strict guidelines about software that can be accepted into the GNU system. The Ghostscript guys have decided that they want to do things differently. No big deal. Ghostscript will still be released under the GPL. It won't affect your GNU/Linux distribution in the slightest.
If Stallman has done all that much damage to Open source with the GNU/Linux thing, then why (from a marketing standpoint) is Linux winning so much mind share compared to BSD? If you are really looking for villains, MS and SCO are much more appropriate targets.
Rather than hate the guy, I just ignore him. In the larger scheme of things, he really is a non-player frankly. Actions by heavyweights like IBM, HP, and Sun carry SO much more weight than ramblings of Stallman.
Here we have a company that could easy just release closed source software. They may even make more money that way. Instead they release the current version free for non-commercial use and the previous version GPL free.
Where the open source community should be thankful for this and applaud a potentially useful mix of semi-open source commerical software with GPL software, all that anyone can do is complain that they promote themselves in the GPL version.
Well. It's GPL. You can always remove the recommendation from the readme. The high and mighty ideology of the FSF is really really tiring.
If I agree to use the software under the GPL, I'm allowed to take GNU Ghostscript and do whatever I want with it, right? (as long as I abide by the GPL). Someone explain why this is a big deal. If I license a product to you under the GPL, the source is forever free...or not?
Vote for global prefs bug
They're getting downright fickle and biting the hands that feed them in a lot of ways. True, GPL software can exist without GNU projects, but the GNU projects "collect" the various projects under a single banner for maximum visibility by the public. If your going to have free software, it's going to have to be under a "TV" type model where companies release code for older versions as "advertizement" for their newer versions or services. RMS & Co is becomming as over-reactive as BillyG and StevieB.
On another note, after 10 years of GPL, there's a rewrite going on. With the current heavy-handed tactics, what's really going to be in it? How many more developers are they going to alienate with GPL 3.0? How hard is the FSF going to push for everyone to adopt the "new rules" or be "cenured"?
This isn't the image that the corperate world needs to see! There's finally some successful companies that live off GPL works, that businesses can look up to. Any messing with the rules now throws 10 years of businesses experience with the GPL out the window and guts the whole OSS thing!
> Stallman has done more harm to the Open Source movement than
;-)
> anyone else.
That's over the top. Granted, Stallman is an idealistic nutcase
with strange ideas and strange priorities, and he likes to shove
them down everyone's throat, but nevertheless he has actually
provided quite a bit of really useful stuff. He coordinated the
early development of some very important things: gcc (without
which we wouldn't have Linux *or* Free/Net/Open BSD in their
current forms) and a number of important filesystem tools, plus
of course Emacs, without which we would all die or (worse
have to use vim.
It's only recently, after the OSS movement gained some real
momentum in the form of lots of programmers writing code, that
RMS seems to have stopped contributing anything useful himself
and gone off into full-time-ideology mode. (Does he still write
code these days? HURD? What? Anything anyone *uses*?)
Still, even in full-time-ideology mode, he's mostly harmless.
Most folks pay more attention to other people (ESR for example),
and even the people who consider RMS as the big leader don't buy
his most inane ramblings. What harm has he done, other than
annoy people such as yourself who haven't learned to ignore him?
Yes, the GS departure is another example of how the Gnu project
is becomming irrelevant. But the Gnu project is becomming
irrelevant *mostly* because the open-source movement has gained
such momentum that it no longer needs the FSF as such. We depend
on certain Gnu software, but if the FSF evaporated tomorrow we'd
still have (and still be able to develop and improve) that
software. The FSF as an institution we no longer need, and the
reason we no longer need them is because (though RMS does not
realise it yet) they were successful.
The FSF gave people like Linus the tools they needed to create
free software. The internet gave them the ability to easily
share it. Linux attracted lots of developers and created a
critical momentum. Companies like RedHat and IBM gave the
movement enough credibility (in the eyes of suits) to force
everyone in the industry to take notice. The rest is details.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Apology accepted.
There is really no big deal to this at all. GPL != GNU. The GPL'ed version will still be just as Free. The only difference is that GS won't be an official part of GNU.
The GNU project (funded by the FSF) is a specific project which is not necessarily exclusively GPL'ed code. It can include any code that is Free as in Freedom. The FSF and RMS have set up certain guidelines for the criteria a project has to meet to be part of the GNU. They didn't suddenly decide on this. Now, you may disagree with those criteria. You may think that simply the promotion of any proprietary product in an unobtrusive manner shouldn't warrant disqualification from GNU, but you're not the one's who set the rules.
You don't like it, e-mail the FSF and explain to them why not, in a manner which doesn't boil down to the mindless rant. Every club has certain rules -- minimum guidelines for acceptance, and you should look at the GNU project as sort of a club; if you are just on the boundary of meeting those criteria, and are rejected for falling slightly short, you may naturally think that the club is being puritanical and unbending. However, "minimum standards" has to have a certain meaning.
Personally, I think that these things should be acceptably part of the GNU, so long as the ads are unobtrusive. Mention in the readme file -- aso opposed to a screen-wide pop-up -- counts as unobtrusive in my book. The definition for what counts as an unobtrusive ad should naturally be laid out. (I actually believe the GPL allows coders to, for example, mandate certain short messages be displayed on their progs...e.g., the Vi message about helping children...but, GPL != GNU).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You must call it GNU/Ghostscript...
"Proprietary software is a social and ethical problem, and the point of GNU is to solve that problem."
WTF? That just makes someone think the writer is a total nutcase fanatic, with a broad statement like that. It's an absurd claim that really isn't backed up by any facts.
Yes free software is better, but to say it's a social and ETHICAL problem is going WAY to far. It's almost communist. like say:
"Selling food for profit is a social and ethical problem, kwikimarts should be closed down"
blah blah blah (since slash seems hostile to n/t comments...)
Someday we'll all be negroes
If Richard Stallman does not want 'his' GNU-projects to mention non-free software, then I wouldn't bring my own projects to GNU either. You shouldn't act like commercial software doesn't exist or can't coexist, or force people to do so. I consider this a ridiculous restriction and bad politics.
May I quote a GNU page: "Distributing free software is an opportunity to raise funds for development. Don't waste it!"
Thanks Richard, for just wasting it.
So as a political institution, the FSF wasn't all that successful IMHO. Others seem to have taken over most of the civil rights department anyway (e.g. EFF).
Sorry, I when I wrote that, I forgot that most people here didn't know the difference between a GNU project and a GPL project. I just wanted to say that many GPL projects didn't fit the GNU coding guidelines, but I guess I said it in too few words.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
And whoever put (paraphrased):
I think that the GPL is actually a bigger threat than MS.
Is totally right.
Long live wxWindows license.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
RMS is not interested in open source.
RMS is interested in Free Software.
"Going on" about GNU/Linux or some subtly of the Ghostscript arrangement is very relevant to promoting and protecting our rights to use and modify software.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
> Actually, he does. I filed a bug report about Emacs and he
> fixed it himself.
He does? Well, then strange ideology notwithstanding he's still
the man. Emacs r0x0rz. (Okay, so I wish it were multithreaded...
but that's me being picky.)
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Like no other group ever changes it's licensing policy in 10 years.
The Government, every day.
Microsoft, every product release.
GNU, every 10 years.
(Women, every second.)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I should not recommend non-free software I should write a free equivalent.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
You know, flaming Stallman is getting to be a little bit overdone here. I think that maybe it is time to put some of these things in perspective.
Stallman's FSF is an entity with an over political purpose. To that end, sub projects that do not align themselves with that overt political purpose probably do not fit within the project and should be excluded. So Ghostscript wasn't aligned and it had to go.
Those who flame Stallman for his fanatacism or lack of current code shouldn't forget his critical early contributions - without Stallman working himself almost to death in the 80's, sacrificing money, power, time, and big fancy jobs to support his project, there would have been no base of free and open software for Linux to run. Stallman created from sratch (and in many places, single-handedly) the largest and most essential parts for a free operating environment, an open alternative to big,commercial, expensive Unix. Would Linus have really jumped into making a kernel (or had any experience with Minix) if there wasn't a widely available free and open set of libraries, utilitites, compilers, and debuggers to run on the system? Possibly, but it certainly seems less likely.
While I understand how tiresome and boring it can be to have our morals, ethics, and beliefs get in the way of our more immediate gratification, that doesn't change the fact that Stallman has done more than anyone to get free and open software where it is today. His relentless (and seemingly tireless) dedication to the cause launched free and open software for the world. That we have so many alternative licenses and viewpoints today is owed to his presenting the first so many years ago.
There is always a role (and a need) for the dedicated, single-minded project that defines a rigorous (and righteous) goal and pursues it unswervingly. I see GNU standing side by side with groups like the ACLU, Amnesty International, and the Medecins Sans Frontiers. It is so easy to forget how important free and open software is to the modern technological, economic, and now even political and social worlds that we find it easier to sneer and laugh at what seems like an anachronism. But Stallman's project is far more relevant and important to the continued success of technology than most will admit.
If free and open software marches on, then it will always need Stallman and the FSF hoisting the original colors and beating the drum to remind them of the pace, no matter how out of place or out of tune he may seem at the time.
Speaking of nutcases, lets talk about ESR, who is basically a programming libertarian (maybe even closer to a John Bircher) who has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to sell out Free Software to big companies in the name of Open-Source software. Talk about your raving lunatics, ESR has got to be one of the craziest crackpots in the community.
This is in not intended by way of a disparagement, but more properly to highlight that there are more than enough 'interesting' personalities in the Free and Open software movement to go around.
By reminding people that if they take their licenses for granted then their rights will be stripped away from them slowly over time.
By reminding people that while their are easy, short-term fixes to the problem, that we still have a long way to go toward creating a completely free and open system.
By reminding people that they need to contribute new code and update old products to keep the free and open software base that is the foundation of Linux truly free and open.
I have read the GPL manifesto let's see what it says:
"What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying onesare banned."
"Proprietary software is antisocial, so developing it is wrong. In most cases, the user of proprietary software is expected to promise not to
share with anyone else. It's wrong to make that agreement, wrong to keep it if you have made it, and especially wrong to lure someone else into making such a promise. Using part of the proceeds of this antisocial activity for a worthy cause cannot justify it."
There's plenty more.
It would seem like not many people posting here have much of an idea what RMS has gone through for his beliefs. Stallman is an atheist, but he believes fervently that all proprietary licences on software are wrong. Not like 'we have to have a choice', but like 'there should be no proprietary code'. It's a big thing to believe in in the current intellectual property-laden world, but it is this belief and not just sharing code with friends that led to the making of the GNU project. Now, you may not have the same extreme views on IP, but respect RMS and the GNU project for still doing what they said they would do - provide and advocate the use of absolutely free (as in freedom) software. Also notice the frequent use of absoulutes here. This is the way RMS is when it comes to software. There is no middle ground where some of your code is proprietary and some isn't. It's all or nothing.
Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
>If Stallman has done all that much damage to Open source with the GNU/Linux thing, then why (from a marketing standpoint) is Linux
>winning so much mind share compared to BSD?
Completely useless point, there are plenty of non-GPL software projects out there dominant their field(Apache is one that comes to mind).
But mostly (as you say) it's marketing. Like someone's (forgot who) /. sig says: Linux is for people who hate Microsoft; BSD is for people who love UNIX. There are way more of the former.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Here's another one. Mod away!
typical vi user!
:)
just kidding, settle down.
Slashdot Journal on Monopoly News
No matter what RMS-preceived wrongs are going on in the open source world, changing licensing rules now is just stupid. Businesses don't deal in grey. They want black and white, especially if the idea is new. This has been a trend on news posts for the last nine months!
realize too, for every one of these articles [there's been 3-4 this year!] that 10 other companies are reading this and reconsidering whether to jump on board OSS or not. The single enemy left of OSS is itself!
This companies example is a model for how alot of other companies could do business...and now the community is biting them back for it. There has to be compromise, and these guys seem to have found it. How does deciding years later that they aren't "good enough" for GNU look to the rest of the business world? Is this how OSS treats it's friends?
How? In particular, since GS has always been and, they are claiming, will always continue to be distributed as FREE GPLed software, why is it helpful to generate bad feelings over the authors of that software saying that there is a commercial version available for anyone that doesn't want to wait a year.
Frankly, the whole thing is churlish (and childish) in the extreme. RMS is utterly pathetic and continues to be a drag on the adoption of FREE software by alienating companies and individuals that might otherwise work with the community.
To be blunt: RMS should just fuck off and leave the rest of us to get on with the fight for programmers' and users' rights.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The GNU project is intended to be a complete Free Software system. Turning part of it into an advertisement for proprietary software isn't compatible with that.
Uh-huh. And how many movements have you started?
RMS can be a pain in the ass, sure. That's true of most idealists. But he's had more of an effect on the politics and economics of software than just about anyone.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
If there was no commitment to providing a free version later then I would agree; this is a special case. This is the clearest example of RMS simply stating that he will not tolerate programmers attempting to earn a liiving wage off their own work.
Uh-huh. And how many movements have you started?
Is it better to start a movement and then ruin it by acting like a spolit brat to to simply support the movement the spoilt brat started?
That's true of most idealists.
It's also quite true of most rich-kids that have never had to work for a living while receiving adulation for using the time to pursue their hobby.
But he's had more of an effect on the politics and economics of software than just about anyone.
And as long as that effect was positive that was fine.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
At what point does a GNU project turn into just an advertisement for commercial software. Can Microsoft release the source (ugly crap that it is) to GWindows 3.1 and spam it with ads. for Windows XP?
Why not? How would that hurt anyone?
Selling free software is good! Indeed RMS makes a lot of money doing it. The issue here was the selling of non-free software.
i AM sorry, but a lawyer cannot be both fascist and communist, nor is communist evil.
why (from a marketing standpoint) is Linux winning so much mind share compared to BSD?
1) BSD had a lawsuit right when it had released a complete product. it was right about this time that Linux was created, in fact in the great flame war with Tannenbaum he talked about that he created Linux because Minix wasn't good for him, and BSD (I think at that time, Net/386) had the clouds over it. A lot of people soured on BSD because of that, not for technical reasons. It will be interesting to see what SCO's suit does to raise *BSD awareness and interest.
2) Market share != quality, or would you say Microsoft is better than Linux because more people run it? There are external factors in any decision.
3) The biggest issue, what the hell is this Market share thing people talk about? OSes are NOT a zero sum game, especially when it comes to zero cost ones. Enough with the "My peepee is bigger than your peepee becaue I use Linux and not BSD" and do what you want. Both are zero cost, and are libre (depending on your definition of that) and both are of high quality. Get your work done and stop making yourself feel good about yourself by stating that "my high quality free X86 UNIX is better than yours".