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Eben Moglen — GPLv3 Not About MS and Novell
Linux.com's Joe Barr was recently able to sit down with Professor Eben Moglen at the San Diego Red Hat Summit and discuss the GPLv3 and what it means beyond the Microsoft/Novell deal on video. "Professor Moglen explains briefly about GPLv3's work on globalization of the software license, preventing harm to others by members of the community, and the most contentious in earlier drafts, DRM."
Go to hell, communists. You democrats are trying to destroy the United States' only hold over China: They need Microsoft software. When they can get crappy free solutions to do the same, the United States will just continue to become indebted to China and other countries. And it will be all your fault, you Hillary fanboys. For the sake of national security, free software efforts must become against the law. Besides, free software destroys our free market, creating monopolies, by selling at excessively low prices. Would Microsoft get away with giving away free products to take competitors' market share away? No. Neither should these ****ing tree-hugging, Prius-driving free software zealots. The captcha is appropriately "planking."
I am guessing the theory was that if they broke it up that more people would come back to read it. More pageviews = more ad revenue?
God I hope not, the "news" with 5 pages of 2 paragraphs each is bad enough as it is. Now if the news sources think that spacing the article out over time will help, we can pretty much kiss the usefulness of the web goodbye.
This pretty much guarantees I will not be reading anything from linux.com now.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/758004/0000 95013407012375/0000950134-07-012375.txt
The FSF has as much as said that they will target the Microsoft-Novell deal. http://gplv3.fsf.org/rationale, and since it's not a matter of "if" GPLv3 becomes more than a draft, as much as it is "when"...
The current draft of GPLv3 can affect Novell's biggest source of cash - Microsoft. (and may also affect SUSE gaining more market share in the enterprise) If the final GPLv3 impacts the patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell, Novell has big problems. And (IMHO) increasing SUSE acceptance among enterprise customers suffers a setback.
I said that the GPL is not about Open Source, because most people I know (also many non-computer guys) think of Open Source as having the source code available somewhere. They mostly don't care whether that's the case or not. They do not know that the trademark "Open Source" meant originally Free/Libre Software. They do not know that it is their freedom which is at stake here. Even Bruce Perens one of the founders of the Open Source movement said that It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again. We should listen to him!
No, "open source" is not about software freedom and it never was. The open source development methodology has to do with writing more reliable software, more quickly, and at lower cost. To understand why this misses the point the free software movement raises, consider this excerpt from "Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software":
I'm glad open source proponents use the GNU GPL and help secure software freedom for the users of those programs, I'm also glad open source proponents work together with free software activists on a variety of issues. I'm even glad that people go into depth on how to make money and license software under free software licenses (most notably: the GPL and LGPL). But these business-oriented discussions are not the most critical issues—human rights for software users and building community are more substantial issues. The open source movement was defined in part to get away from the "freedom talk" free software activists engage in, thus it's no surprise that when some people talk about "open source" they're not calling attention to freedom very much. Some open source proponents, such as Eric Raymond, want to talk about what the two groups have in common which means often talking about only the open source movement's values. The organization founded to champion open source's values, the Open Source Initiative, has considerable work to do to reframe the debate such that software freedom is an important part of that movement, assuming they want to make that a goal in the first place.
Digital Citizen
Huh? Even if MS gave away their code with a purchase of MS Windows, you couldn't change the code and distribute it. With GPL, I could download your code that you charge for, and then give it to everyone I want without fee. You cannot do that with proprietary code. Heck, end-users are not even allowed to OWN the code/software they buy from a proprietary vendor. They just get to use/license it.
Everyone keeps thinking the GPL is about developers. However it is not. The GPL is about users and their freedom with the software. Say it over and over in your heads people... The GPL is about users.
BSD-style licenses basically say I don't care about what you do and I don't care if you restrict users of derivatives works of this code.
GPL-style licenses basically say you can create derivative works, you can distribute those works. However, you cannot restrict the rights of the users of this work from doing the same. BSD does NOT provide for that when it comes to derivative works.
So, in a nut shell, if you don't care who does what with the code, BSD or (even better IMO) LGPL can help you there. However, if you care about the users of your work the GPL is a good bet.
Me personally, I write code for users not developers. I enjoy writing code and having someone say that it came in handy and helped them. Those are the people I want to see have rights that copyright just doesn't provide.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.