It's not in any current Debian distribution (I ran find on my Debian mirror). If it was in an older distribution, it was probably the BSD-licensed version.
There's no non-free software on the Debian Official CD. If you want to use the non-free stuff, you have to get a non-free CD from your CD distributor that's separate from the Official CD, or you have to download it. In either case, the words "non-free" are staring you in the face.
The Debian Social Contract was not written to eliminate non-free software from the face of the earth, but to keep it out of Debian's "main" directory. The contrib and non-free directories aren't an official part of Debian.
Try Omirr, the Online Mirror Daemon, or Rsync. Both are free software.
This would not have happened if you were using Debian, because Debian considers the license of each package for compliance with the The Debian Free Software Guidelines, the document that later became the Open Source Definition.
The OSD was originally written as the Debian Free Software Guidelines. It was originally meant to allow Debian to classify what belonged in its all-free system. Up until then, we'd allowed all GPL, BSD, and Artistic license software. Of course, we wrote the OSD to continue to allow that software.
I personally think the GPL is the best open license, because it keeps the software open. Nobody can take it private and use your work without contributing to the community as you did. That's fair to the free software developer. That's why I use the GPL on my own software.
If you want to get people to change what they are doing, one of the most important things you can do is stop complaining once they've done what you want.
Troll fixed the Qt license and I immediately endorsed it. I think the people who hate them can't be the same people who are making a big software contribution. GNOME and KDE are working together on various issues (and they have been for a long time, even before the license was resolved, though most people did not notice).
This new license is conformant with the Open Source Definition as far as I can tell. I'll defer to the public discussion that will soon be carried out on the license-discuss mailing list, but I don't see any show-stoppers. Early discussion on the Debian-legal list has concentrated on GPL compatibility (it isn't) rather than problems in OSD conformance.
I'm really glad to see that IBM is working with the free software community. I had the opportunity to review and comment on a few pre-public-announcement drafts of this license, and the IBM staff was very cooperative in changing the license to meet the community's needs.
This and the Apple license are important because we are working out how the deep-pockets corporation can participate in Open Source without running rough-shod over the free software community. In both cases, problems with the licenses were aired in public forums and the corporations responded positively.
The source of this story isn't connected with AOL or Netscape at all. Like many others, I got taken in by this story, posted a knee-jerk reaction, and made a bit of an ass of myself as a result. Sorry Mozilla and Netscape.
Ignore the story, it's from someone at Sun who I'm told is more than a bit of a turkey, isn't connected with decision-making at AOL and Netscape, and spoke out of place. Hopefully someone at Sun will have a quiet talk with him.
Sorry, Mike, I did get taken in by the "AOL" mention. However, given that Sun is in some sort of partnership with AOL and Netscape, I'm a bit worried - I guess you can see why.
This is a publicity ploy. Netscape made a non-working product Open Source and then wondered why nobody wanted to fix it for them. Now that the Mozilla product is close to being finished and actually attractive for a contributor to work on, they'll put it under the Sun Community Source License and then will claim that the SCSL made a big difference and is superior to the Open Source model. But had that broken software been released under the SCSL rather than the NPL in the first place, it would have gotten the same big yawn from the free software community.
Netscape can stop making contributions of Open Source code, but they can not take back what they've already contributed. Open Source developers will continue to use that, and will place their contributions under the MPL, preventing Netscape from reselling them under another license. The result will be an Open Source browser that competes with Netscape's own product.
Advertising how Linux has taken on the identity of its company, a French company will place adds reading "Linux is Bull!". A computer graphics magazine will publish an article on the Hell Computer Graphics ("hell" is German for "light", they make scanners and prepress stuff) and how they use Linux in an article entitled "Linux goes to Hell!".
If you read the Evan Leibowitz article in Zdnet, you probably noticed his tone. Very angry and negative. It's been this way for years. OK, I've had some nasty outbursts, but with him it's a constant thing. Nothing positive to contribute.
He, and some of the more ignorant commenters on/., don't like that we use the law to enforce fairness, with things like certification marks and the GPL, just as some people use it to enforce unfairness. Too bad, we'll keep on doing it.
Well, I do consider myself an authority on this topic, since it was my darned idea to go for the trademark. I'm just trying to inject some information, from someone who was there, into the noise.
The term "Open Source" was suggested by Christine Petersen at a meeting (or was it a beer party? I wasn't there) at VA Research. ESR pitched it to the assembled pundits at the first O'Reilly free software summit (I didn't go). ESR called me up that day or the next day or something, and recruited me. I suggested the trademark because of what had happened to the word "hacker". Now watch how "Open Source" gets abused, it won't be pretty. We couldn't afford legal help, so I did the papers myself. Spent $250 out of my pocket to apply. It was a cheap mistake, I guess.
There's some more history in my "Open Sources" paper here.
A number of licenses have been certified as "Open Source" already. If your software uses those licenses (and no other licenses), it's certified. The BSD, X11, GPL, LGPL, Apache, NPL, MPL, APSL 1.1, QPL 2.0, Artistic, and several others have been certified.
Yes, having worked on projects like Debian, where 200 people collaborated to make a Linux distribution with software from at least 1000 other people, I'd understand that.
Sorry if I attempted to take all of the credit or something. It wasn't my intent.
Just in case you think I sold out too, do you have a problem with the later version of the APSL, 1.1? I thought it was a pretty big impovement over 1.0.
I am not on the board of either SPI or OSI, mostly because this way I can say what I want:-)
I'd assume OSI, not SPI, would trademark "OSI Certified". SPI isn't involved any longer - their only claim to involvement, the fact that I filed the registration for the "Open Source" trademark while president of SPI, just evaporated. I doubt they mind. They can have an "SPI Certified" if they want. Maybe I should have "Bruce Certified":-), given that I'm the main author of the Open Source Definition.
Too bad we couldn't afford legal help when this all started. Aside from the hot air, all it cost was $250 (out of my pocket) and a few hours of paperwork.
It stands for Open Source Initiative. Take a look at this link for an explanation of the Open Source concept and an annotated version of the Open Source definition. How do their beliefs differ from those of the community? Not having surveyed the community, I couldn't say for sure. My main beef with them has been that the phrase "Open Source" led us to concentrate less on the freedom part of Free Software. I'm not alone in that, that might be part of the "community" difference.
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce
Bruce
The Debian Social Contract was not written to eliminate non-free software from the face of the earth, but to keep it out of Debian's "main" directory. The contrib and non-free directories aren't an official part of Debian.
Bruce
This would not have happened if you were using Debian, because Debian considers the license of each package for compliance with the The Debian Free Software Guidelines, the document that later became the Open Source Definition.
Thanks
Bruce
I personally think the GPL is the best open license, because it keeps the software open. Nobody can take it private and use your work without contributing to the community as you did. That's fair to the free software developer. That's why I use the GPL on my own software.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Troll fixed the Qt license and I immediately endorsed it. I think the people who hate them can't be the same people who are making a big software contribution. GNOME and KDE are working together on various issues (and they have been for a long time, even before the license was resolved, though most people did not notice).
Thanks
Bruce
I'm really glad to see that IBM is working with the free software community. I had the opportunity to review and comment on a few pre-public-announcement drafts of this license, and the IBM staff was very cooperative in changing the license to meet the community's needs.
This and the Apple license are important because we are working out how the deep-pockets corporation can participate in Open Source without running rough-shod over the free software community. In both cases, problems with the licenses were aired in public forums and the corporations responded positively.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Yuk yuk. Now put the original home page back, please.
The source of this story isn't connected with AOL or Netscape at all. Like many others, I got taken in by this story, posted a knee-jerk reaction, and made a bit of an ass of myself as a result. Sorry Mozilla and Netscape.
Ignore the story, it's from someone at Sun who I'm told is more than a bit of a turkey, isn't connected with decision-making at AOL and Netscape, and spoke out of place. Hopefully someone at Sun will have a quiet talk with him.
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Netscape can stop making contributions of Open Source code, but they can not take back what they've already contributed. Open Source developers will continue to use that, and will place their contributions under the MPL, preventing Netscape from reselling them under another license. The result will be an Open Source browser that competes with Netscape's own product.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Does it make me more productive? Maybe not. It lets me get away when I'd otherwise be tied to the office.
Bruce
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Bruce
He, and some of the more ignorant commenters on /., don't like that we use the law to enforce fairness, with things like certification marks and the GPL, just as some people use it to enforce unfairness. Too bad, we'll keep on doing it.
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
There's some more history in my "Open Sources" paper here.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Sorry if I attempted to take all of the credit or something. It wasn't my intent.
Bruce
If you want this, you should personally insist on GPL-ed software. But even Richard Stallman tolerates other forms of free software.
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
I'd assume OSI, not SPI, would trademark "OSI Certified". SPI isn't involved any longer - their only claim to involvement, the fact that I filed the registration for the "Open Source" trademark while president of SPI, just evaporated. I doubt they mind. They can have an "SPI Certified" if they want. Maybe I should have "Bruce Certified" :-), given that I'm the main author of the Open Source Definition.
Too bad we couldn't afford legal help when this all started. Aside from the hot air, all it cost was $250 (out of my pocket) and a few hours of paperwork.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce