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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."
Turn justice into poetic justice =)
The FSF primary goal is *not* to create good software. It is to create *moral* software - software for goodneighbourliness and sharing - the fact that it is good (high quality/few bugs) - is a welcome - but secondary effect.
FSF's beef with Microsoft is not that it produces poor software - but that it produces non-Free software.
EFF
Attn: MS Voucher
454 Shotwell St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
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
Something tangible like 273 software packages? Little items like Glibc, GCC, Bash, and the GIMP.
Note that these are GNU packages, meaning that they are provided by the FSF. There are thousands more packages that are merely distributed under the terms of the GPL/LGPL.
-Peter
So this Kuhn guy is dyslexic?
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.
The reason for this is because we really don't teach computing fundamentals. We teach computer technology through rote memory. Go ahead, pick up any Windows application textbook. You will find many enumerated lists on how to accomplish Task A, with lots of pretty graphics with pointing arrows. By the time the student is done with such a book, they know exactly how to perform Tasks A, X, Y, and Z--and nothing more.
We are building a society of automatons, with little in the way of reasoning ability. A big shame.
The FBF (Free Beer Foundation) also wants your vouchers. In turn the FBF will be able to convert your vouchers into beer. The FBF members will then utilize the beer to stimulate debate on many of today's most devisive issues.
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
Ok how about just perjury alone. Forged video evidence was also presented in the anti-trust trial in the U.S.
Ok how about the court's decision, upheld on appeal, that the company used illegal methods to maintain a desktop monopoly?
There are also the false and misleading advertising, against palm, novell, and regarding MS-Passport. MS-Passport cannot be secure even in theory, so any claims were clearly known to be falsehoods. And since MS-Office 2003 is tied into that, expect more legal action.
Then there have been a series of fines regarding patent infringements. The most recent being from SPX.
Where I come from, all that's called lying or stealing.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
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,
satisfying to see some of those fortunes being spent to help create good software for a change
Classic (unnecessary!) Slashdot editorializing in a news report.
Hint: News has an impact of its own. Ending every story with an inflammatory spin, one that's often misinformed, is not needed.