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FSF Wants Your Vouchers
Ridgelift writes "California residents can help support the Free Software Foundation by donating their Microsoft vouchers to the FSF. In turn, the FSF will be able to convert the vouchers into hardware. There's more information here at the FSF website. With 1.1 billion dollars in vouchers Microsoft is forced to pay through the recent anti-trust court case, it's satisfying to see some of those fortunes being spent to help create good software for a change."
... but will that hardware have free-software firmware in its ROM?
didn't lindows try this? granted lindows costs more money but it's still was built on OSS so why would i donate it to the FSF and possibly not get a freePC? other then the fact that all the free pcs are most likely given out but they haven't told you how many people used that option yet.....
I think that giving these vouchers to schools that don't have computer equipment (or that have older computer equipment) and helping those children learn to use computers is a much better use of the vouchers than donating them to the FSF.
evil adrian
I think it's _slightly_ more complicated than that. If that was true, then the FSF would have beefs with Sun (the Java language does not have an independent steering committee, it's fully controlled by Sun, despite what Sun wants developers to think), IBM (makes lots and lots of proprietary software, pretty much any software firm in the world, including Red Hat (isn't the package manager or the install routine non free? I believe it's proprietary.)
I think you have it backwards. People aren't going to use software because it's 'moral'. What's moral software anyways?? It's just a tool. People are only going to use any tool if it works for them. The whole 'I use/write free software, so that makes me a good person' bit is high-minded masturbation
Do you honestly expect schools to NOT have Microsoft software? Most likely, for nearly everyone in those schools, Windows is all they're going to use in their lives. Why would schools put forth all that time, money, and effort into switching over to Linux if all that will happen is the students would be less prepared for the real world?
Could you imagine if a certain grade school decided, "Hey. I have a good idea! Let's use Linux on all our computers here.". The children learn and get aquainted with Linux then get into Jr. High - Uh oh, now the students from that grade school are way behind. So the Jr. High has to make a choice - Stick with Windows and make the students learn it, switch over to Linux and spend lots of time and money, or do a hybrid of the two - have both and either make kids learn both (LOTS of time and effort) or keep the two groups of students on seperate machines which means seperate labs, seperate computers, etc. None of these choices are very favorable to the schools, hm?
I've seen this happen with grade schools using Macs and Jr. Highs and High Schools using PCs. Most of the kids had to relearn a lot of the things they were taught on the Macs, and that was time they SHOULD have been spending learning stuff for their classes.
Or go up higher - say a university only taught classes on Linux. All the spreadsheet and database classes, all the programming classes (well, this might not be a problem), everything. How likely do you think they are to get jobs when the graduates are asked if they know Excel, Access, or Powerpoint and they say no? The hiring companies aren't going to switch OSs just so they can hire new people - they're going to hire the people who already know the programs they use.
This is the problem when most of the world uses one OS - where do you start to make the change? Businesses don't want to because of the loss of productivity (while people relearn everything) involved combined with the lack of people in the workforce who know the programs they use. Schools don't want to because then their students won't be prepared for what they're going to be using in life. There's really not much that either can do about it without taking significant risks and costs.
In what moral code have you ever seen this? How does my not giving you *anything* equate to my not being moral? What if my belief system is different from yours, who is moral then?
/rolleyes
"Morals" are not absolutes. What may be moral in one belief system may not be in another belief system.
Where is it documented that people have the "right" to copy and distribute software and that they are being denied this "right"?
The big difference I see in software vs. material goods is that the material goods actually require work/money/time/materials to duplicate where software/electronic things do not. Anybody can copy a file. Not everybody can copy an automobile or airplane and have it work as good as the original, not would they because it requires more of them than being able to click a button and have it duplicated. Yet... I don't see people complaining about not being able to copy and distribute their own Ford Escorts. It is very easy and costs practically nothing to duplicate and redistribute software/electronic things.
The other thing is that so many people want everything for free. It seems some children were never taught how to "do without". When I grew up, if I didn't have the money to buy something I wanted, I simply did without until I either saved up the money to get it or decided it wasn't worth it. Even if something was affordable, we had to make decisions whether it was worth having or not. Something that was practically free may not have been worth the money spent on it so we didn't buy it. Many folks today have grown up having no such concepts and simply "want", many times, it doesn't even matter if they need the thing or will even use it. They just want it to have it.
I sometimes wonder what planet/reality some folks are from...
I'm against this, as I'm against the vouchers. I got my claim form in the mail the other day, and the choices it gave were basically "Accept the settlement, write an objection to the court, attend a hearing to state your objection in person, or do nothing (and thus waive all further rights)".
As these vouchers represent accepting the settlement, donating them to a worthy cause doesn't satisfy my problems with the settlement, namely that they are to be redeemed for hardware (much of which comes bundled with more Microsoft products).
I can't say I agree with an antitrust remedy that increases the sales of the monopoly that is being punished.
-transiit
Stallmann's moral vision ... I bet the only software he'll be sending machines is that which is licensed under the GPL, not any kind of BSD-style license ... (XFree, GNOME [LGPL]) are also those most in need
yes, and since hiring dyslexic Bradley Kuhn, RMS has gone from Stallman to Stallmann. (see above comment.)
Do you not know that it was Stallman that started GNOME? and it was FSF that wrote the LGPL? and it's FSF that are hosting the Xouvert project to help XFree? and that it was Stallmans idea to change ogg vorbis from GPL to BSD license?
RMS was once asked, since there is a free software song, would there ever be a GNU song?
He said no, GNU is not the point, Free Software is the point.
People like misinterpretting him, or finding small flaws, but don't ignore that he's dedicated his life to giving freedom to computer users.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Will you speak for yourself, please. Just because you consider software only a tool, doesn't mean everyone does.
There are people who use software because it's moral, and I'm one of them. Software is not a tool for me, it's knowledge. I am a scientist. If I discover something, I publish it. That way other people can learn from it. I guess you know how the thing works.
Of course I use software (as a tool) as well. Just as I use knowledge. I also don't use scientific discoveries if I am not allowed to find out how and why they work. I'm not saying I will open every device I use. But I definitely want to be allowed to.
Imagine a society where it would be acceptable that knowledge is "owned" and discoveries are secret. You think the microwave oven (using quantum mechanic theory) would have ever been developed? I think not.
Most people know how they can make or break the world. Most of the time it is only about little things, but for some people (CEO's of large companies) it can be about very big things.
I want a better world, and I'll do two things for that: I don't do things that harm my ideals (like using non free software), and I tell others they shouldn't either. I know it won't make much of a difference, but it will make a difference.
And besides, I wouldn't want to live in a world where my friends know, or even think, that I would put a little personal gain above my ideals.
RMS 'fires' Lead Hurd Dev over license dispute.
http://lists.softwarelibero.it/pipermail/discuss io ni/2003-November/008465.html
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 11:33:16 -0800
From: tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
Subject: What's up with the GFDL?
To: gnu-prog-discuss@gnu.org
X-Spam-Level:
Richard Stallman is pushing an anti-free license for documentation.
By that, I mean, a license for documentation which, if it were used
for software, would unquestionably be understood as unfree.
There are many negative consequences of this action:
1) The Debian Project, which is committed to free software, cannot
distribute GFDL'd manuals as part of the Debian system. This is
ironic in the extreme, because RMS used to complain that Debian was
too loose about distributing non-free things. Now Debian is too
tight for him.
2) It is not possible to borrow text from a GFDL'd manual and
incorporate it in any free software program whatsoever. This is
not a mere license incompatibility. It's not just that the GFDL is
incompatible with this or that free software license: it's that it
is fundamentally incompatible with *any* free software license
whatsoever. So if you write a new program, and you have no
commitments at all about what license you want to use, saving only
that it be a free license, you cannot include GFDL'd text.
3) The FSF solicited public comment on the GFDL, but this seems to
have been a deceptive enterprise. The goal seems to have been to
garner public support for it, and that simply failed. So the FSF
does not trumpet that little public comment, and has issued no
explanation of why such a widely unpopular documentation license
should be used.
4) RMS has now "dismissed" me as Hurd maintainer because I have
publicly spoken against the GFDL, saying that a GNU maintainer must
support and speak in favor of GNU policies. If this is really
RMS's reason, then it means that he demands the right to control
the speech of every GNU volunteer when it comes to GNU project
policies. He wants not merely to set the direction, but also to
require that each and every one of us publicly support a GNU policy
when asked to.
I do not know what the right response is. I believe perhaps the best
thing to do is to create structures for GNU project volunteers to
express their opinions so that we can even find out what the GNU
project thinks. Heretofore, RMS has been an able spokesman, but when
he disregards the comments of volunteers (even when explicitly
solicited), works against free software, and attempts to control the
speech of GNU volunteers in talking about such issues, something has
gone very wrong.
I suspect that nothing will happen, and the sad result will be that
while free software will continue to thrive, the GNU project will
die. I do not know what would prevent that.
Thomas
Technical Addendum
- ------------------
The incompatibilities of the GFDL with free software are not
controversial. There are two central problems.
First, GFDL'd manuals can contain "invariant sections" which cannot be
changed or removed. This is a restriction on modification which isn't
permitted for free software licenses. Moreover, it is not a trivial
restriction or one that imposes minimal costs. Invariant sections can
be very large, and the pieces of a GFDL'd manual that one wants to
copy might be small. (For example, a description of how to use a
single function, if copied from the Emacs manual, requires the
inclusion of many kilobytes of extraneous text from invariant
sections.) Such restrictions are not allowed in free software
licenses.
Second, there are restrictions on what formats a GFDL'd manual can be
distributed in,
It's unclear to me exactly how these vouchers work. From the site, it claims that you must "exchange your vouchers for cash by submitting proof of purchases you made after July 18, 2003." Now if I buy a $1000 computer, I can clearly get my $26 back from the voucher, but if I buy a $1000 computer, can I trade in 38 vouchers and get $988 back? This isn't made clear, and if not it seems these vouchers are going to be somewhat useless to the FSF.
It's also not clear that the vouchers are transferrable. Can I sell them? On eBay? That's also going to hurt the FSF, cause I sure as hell am not giving them a $26 voucher if I can get $25 for it on eBay.
So, instead of getting the money back for the software you didn't want (or ask for) in the first place, you turn around and give it to someone else? Right ... I think the FSF can find their own funding. If you really want to support someone, then donate your money to an OSS project that you actively use instead of the FSF. This makes a hell of a lot more sense to me.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
The FSF doesn't deny anyone anything.
Every time they threaten someone with a lawsuit they deny them something.
This is important because without the GPL I could very well have my work stolen in the traditional sense. Example: I write a foo processor called FooFu-- and release it as public domain. Bar, Inc. takes my freely shared source and creates a competing software called Footsy, but refuses to release source code. Any attempt on my part, even though I am the original author, to use their derived work would violate federal copyright law. So what the GPL does is make it possible for me to share my work without my having to worry about it being taken this way.
Yes, the GPL does prevent that. But so does a completely proprietary license. And so does so does the Creative Commons Share Alike license. Between the three, I like the Share Alike license the best. Only the Share Alike license allows you to copy and distribute software without restriction.
I live in Canada, but during the time period listed I bought a laptop while I was in grad school in California. As I read the settlement document, I'm eligible for a claim as long as I certainly purchased the computer "for use in California". So, am I reading this right ? Am I eligible for a claim even if I live outside California (and the U.S.) now ?
The reason I ask is that website allows you to have a claims package mailed, but you have to specify a state, which makes me wonder whether a) out-of-country-claimants are ineligible, or b) whether the form was just poorly designed.
Any thoughts ?