Better is a very subjective term here. The MPL is a descent license in its own right, but is does hamper code exchange with the "rest" of the world who uses (L)GPL. But AFAIK if you ask you as usually permited to relicense any code you need for a project under the GPL. Hopefully in the future they will decide to GPL it outright.
RMS has stated that the QPL can be considered to be free software at least in theory, although he does not applaud the QPL or the use of software released under it. The reason is that while technically fitting the description, it doesn't "fit" in the real world. The QPL aims at protecting the copyright of Troll Tech, while true free licenses aims at allowing you to use and share the code. The QPL demands for patches and the fact that they get rights with your code that you don't get with theirs makes it not truly free.
Another non-Stallman point here is that since Qt is a library, the QPL should give rights comparable to the LGPL, not the GPL.
Here is a cut and paste from the newest copy of the QPL available from the Troll Tech homepage: 3. You may make modifications to the Software and distribute your modifications, in a form that is separate from the Software, such as patches. The following restrictions apply to modifications:
a. Modifications must not alter or remove any copyright notices in the Software.
b. When modifications to the Software are released under this license, a non-exclusive royalty-free right is granted to the initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer.
RMS has aknowledged that the QPL might fit the wording, but not the spirit of free. I recently read a mail by RMS on the WindowMaker list were he pointed out that using Qt was not advised behaviour due to the licensing issue.
As for ESR he will testify that anything is free as long as he gets his name on print.
Since I, and obviously others don't think it is free, "everyone" definetly don't think Qt is free.
Great to see another release from the Linux company that truly works for the community. While many of the other distributions are starting to add proprietary "Open Source" additions (like Caldera's Lizard), Redhat fights and upholds the values of the Linux community by relasing all their stuff under the (L)GPL. I hope the rest of the linux community do like me, and shows their support of this stance by buying this release.
Looking forward to trying out the new GUI installer.
According to some comments I seen in the trade press, M$ new system can't produce CD standard audio, unlike MP3. As bandwith and storage prices fall, I would guess that sound quality will be more important than file size. Hence, M$ will have yet another failure on their hands. (The next one is called Windows2000)
As mentioned by another replier this view has been expressed on the Harmony list, but I have also seen it in license dicussions here on Slashdot. (Please don't ask me to find you a link:-) And thanks for bothering to correct my name in your next posting:-) As for your suggestion that I back my claims with examples, I will do this if I do any more opinion pieces.
I am not trying to make any choices for you, I am just pointing out some possible implications of those choices. Netscape is a very difficult case, because supporting their development is important in order to make sure MS doesn't get control of the browser market, which in turn would make it easier to do what they outlined in the halloween documents, decomoditize standards. To their defense I can also mention their release of some source code under the GPL. On the other side, I truly feel that they started the developement I critize in the article, and their own licenses are not without implications.
As for anyone taking the position I mentioned in the article, you should read the Slashdot backlog of earlier license discussions.
My hope for the article was to get people thinking about the implications of this development and make these implications part of their decision process when coding or using software.
Because of the reason I gave about keeping internet standards free I use Netscape myself, but that is also the only piece of software I use that is covered by such a license.
I never get it why some people claim the the free software ideals are socialist in nature. Personally I consider myself placed somewhere in the realms libertarianism and objectivism, and much prefer Ayn Rand over Karl Marx. To me having a free OS is a vital part in keeping a steadily more digital world free, and beeing oppresed by a megacorporation isn't any better than beeing hounded by government. If you follow the logic of those who want to brand us socialist, you might say beeing opposed to slavery is anti-capitalistic because it reduces somebodies property rights. So go on RMS, you might be a little to idealistic even for my tastes sometimes, but an ideal has to be clear and strong or the world not just dilutes it, but destroys it.
I am sorry to say this, but KDE era is now completely over. Those of us who read the interviews with the Gnome and KDE developers in Linux Journal, know that KDE has a lot of catching up to do. CORBA, TrueType, anti-aliasing, xDND, language wrappers are all things in GNOME today, but only planned KDE. And even their LGPL toolkit effort stranded, and with a proprietary toolkit in the bottom it can never be anything for the majority of the Linux community than a distant second choice. And before anybodu claims otherwise, a patchware license will never be anything but a pale shadow of true free software licenses like LGPL, GPL and BSD.
There is a ocean of difference in importance between the license of a single app, and the license of the basic toolkit used for the whole UI. Most of us can live with using some apps based upon proprietary licensees, but we can't accept those impurities so make their way into the core of the operating system, and the UI is very much a part of that core.
The opensource initive looked at the beginning to be a great way to introduce the concepts that had made Linux into what it is to the world. But in the end it just ended up giving companies which made their own bogus "open-source" licenses an excuse. I respect Bruce for not beeing willing to endorce all these fake licenses, like the so called open source licenses of Jini or Qt. Mr. Raymond on the other hand seems to be happy as long as he gets to read his name in the paper every day.
I bought Caldera 1.2, because I wanted the Netware support and the StarOffice cd. I had a few things that I didn't like. a) A soon found out that the netware client didn't have a graphical interface in the standard edition and the documentation left much to be desired, which caused me to spend quite a few hours fidgeting with those textfiles before I actually got it to work. b) As a relative newbie at the time (and probably still:-) I like to use RPM's to install my software, but as I soon discovered most RPM's out there is made for RedHat and Libc6 so I ended up having to compile everything myself. Unlike SUSE they hadn't bothered to set up their system to enable the use of most RedHat packages. c) I found LISA, the Caldera setup tool, troublesome to use, as far as I remember LISA didn't even allow me to set norwegian keyboard. I admit that since I had gotten used to RedHat before I started using Caldera I might be predisposed, but then again when testing SUSE later on I thought YAST was very good. d) At that time I didn't think about it, but later I have come to question wether Caldera actually want to participate in making free software like Linux a success or just leech the work of others. Both RedHat and Suse I see contributing to free software projects like Xfree86 and Gnome, but all software comming from Caldera is closed-sourced or under special licenses. The few exceptions seems to be a few patches to the IPX support. The only "high" profile contribution from Caldera seems to be the COAS project, but it seems that it has all but stopped due to the fact thar Caldera again expected everybody else to do the hard work so that they could reap the benefits.
Caldera is probably a ok choice from a technical viewpoint if you are setting up a server for a small office or something, but as a system for use on a home system I can't say i want to recommend it. Due to my questions about Caldera's principal views on software licenses and free software I recommend that people look elsewhere in anycase.
Slashdot Mirror
Better is a very subjective term here. The MPL is a descent license in its own right, but is does hamper code exchange with the "rest" of the world who uses (L)GPL. But AFAIK if you ask you as usually permited to relicense any code you need for a project under the GPL.
Hopefully in the future they will decide to GPL it
outright.
RMS has stated that the QPL can be considered to be free software at least in theory,
although he does not applaud the QPL or the use of software released under it. The reason is that while technically fitting the description, it doesn't "fit" in the real world. The QPL aims at protecting the copyright of Troll Tech, while true
free licenses aims at allowing you to use and share the code. The QPL demands for patches and the fact that they get rights with your code that you don't get with theirs makes it not truly free.
Another non-Stallman point here is that since Qt is a library, the QPL should give rights comparable to the LGPL, not the GPL.
Here is a cut and paste from the newest copy of the QPL available from the Troll Tech homepage:
3. You may make modifications to the Software and distribute your modifications, in a form that is separate from the Software, such as patches. The following
restrictions apply to modifications:
a. Modifications must not alter or remove any copyright notices in the Software.
b. When modifications to the Software are released under this license, a non-exclusive royalty-free right is granted to the initial developer of the
Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any
other license(s) of the initial developer.
These packages are part of GNOME, you can get RPM's or Debs from the GNOME ftp site.
Go to http://www.gnome.org and follow the Ftp link.
RMS has aknowledged that the QPL might fit the wording, but not the spirit of free.
I recently read a mail by RMS on the WindowMaker list were he pointed out that using Qt was not advised behaviour due to the licensing issue.
As for ESR he will testify that anything is free as long as he gets his name on print.
Since I, and obviously others don't think it is free, "everyone" definetly don't think Qt is free.
These widgets are Gtk wrappers.
Great to see another release from the
Linux company that truly works for the community.
While many of the other distributions are starting
to add proprietary "Open Source" additions (like Caldera's Lizard), Redhat fights and upholds the values of the Linux community by relasing all their stuff under the (L)GPL.
I hope the rest of the linux community do like me, and shows their support of this stance by buying this release.
Looking forward to trying out the new GUI installer.
According to some comments I seen in the trade press, M$ new system can't produce CD standard audio, unlike MP3.
As bandwith and storage prices fall, I would guess that sound quality will be more important than file size. Hence, M$ will have yet another failure on their hands. (The next one is called Windows2000)
As mentioned by another replier this view has been expressed on the Harmony list, but I have also seen it in license dicussions here on Slashdot. :-) :-)
(Please don't ask me to find you a link
And thanks for bothering to correct my name in your next posting
As for your suggestion that I back my claims with examples, I will do this if I do any more opinion pieces.
I am not trying to make any choices for you, I am just pointing out some possible implications of those choices.
Netscape is a very difficult case, because supporting their development is important in order to make sure MS doesn't get control of the browser market, which in turn would make it easier to do what they outlined in the halloween documents, decomoditize standards. To their defense I can also mention their release of some source code under the GPL.
On the other side, I truly feel that they started the developement I critize in the article, and their own licenses are not without implications.
As for anyone taking the position I mentioned in the article, you should read the Slashdot backlog of earlier license discussions.
My hope for the article was to get people thinking about the implications of this development and make these implications part of their decision process when coding or using software.
Because of the reason I gave about keeping internet standards free I use Netscape myself, but
that is also the only piece of software I use that is covered by such a license.
I never get it why some people claim the the free
software ideals are socialist in nature. Personally I consider myself placed somewhere in the realms libertarianism and objectivism, and much prefer Ayn Rand over Karl Marx.
To me having a free OS is a vital part in keeping a steadily more digital world free, and beeing oppresed by a megacorporation isn't any better than beeing hounded by government.
If you follow the logic of those who want to brand us socialist, you might say beeing opposed to slavery is anti-capitalistic because it reduces somebodies property rights.
So go on RMS, you might be a little to idealistic even for my tastes sometimes, but an ideal has to be clear and strong or the world not just dilutes it, but destroys it.
Proprietary toolkit and proprietary browser closed source browser. A perfect and revealing fit.
I am sorry to say this, but KDE era is now completely over. Those of us who read the interviews with the Gnome and KDE developers in Linux Journal, know that KDE has a lot of catching up to do. CORBA, TrueType, anti-aliasing, xDND, language wrappers are all things in GNOME today, but only planned KDE. And even their LGPL toolkit effort stranded, and with a proprietary toolkit in the bottom it can never be anything for the majority of the Linux community than a distant second choice. And before anybodu claims otherwise, a patchware license will never be anything but a pale shadow of true free software licenses like LGPL, GPL and BSD.
There is a ocean of difference in importance between the license of a single app, and the license of the basic toolkit used for the whole UI. Most of us can live with using some apps based upon proprietary licensees, but we can't accept those impurities so make their way into the core of the operating system, and the UI is very much a part of that core.
The opensource initive looked at the beginning to
be a great way to introduce the concepts that had made Linux into what it is to the world. But in the end it just ended up giving companies which made their own bogus "open-source" licenses an excuse. I respect Bruce for not beeing willing to endorce all these fake licenses, like the so called open source licenses of Jini or Qt.
Mr. Raymond on the other hand seems to be happy as long as he gets to read his name in the paper every day.
I bought Caldera 1.2, because I wanted the Netware support and the StarOffice cd. I had a few things that I didn't like. :-) I like to use RPM's to install my software, but as I soon discovered most RPM's out there is made for RedHat and Libc6 so I ended up having to compile everything myself. Unlike SUSE they hadn't bothered to set up their system to enable the use of most RedHat packages.
a) A soon found out that the netware client didn't have a graphical interface in the standard edition and the documentation left much to be desired, which caused me to spend quite a few hours fidgeting with those textfiles before I actually got it to work.
b) As a relative newbie at the time (and probably still
c) I found LISA, the Caldera setup tool, troublesome to use, as far as I remember LISA didn't even allow me to set norwegian keyboard. I admit that since I had gotten used to RedHat before I started using Caldera I might be predisposed, but then again when testing SUSE later on I thought YAST was very good.
d) At that time I didn't think about it, but later I have come to question wether Caldera actually want to participate in making free software like Linux a success or just leech the work of others. Both RedHat and Suse I see contributing to free software projects like Xfree86 and Gnome, but all software comming from Caldera is closed-sourced or under special licenses. The few exceptions seems to be a few patches to the IPX support. The only "high" profile contribution from Caldera seems to be the COAS project, but it seems that it has all but stopped due to the fact thar Caldera again expected everybody else to do the hard work so that they could reap the benefits.
Caldera is probably a ok choice from a technical viewpoint if you are setting up a server for a small office or something, but as a system for use on a home system I can't say i want to recommend it. Due to my questions about Caldera's principal views on software licenses and free software I recommend that people look elsewhere in anycase.