Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:27:42 +0100 From: Paul Robinson <paul@akita.co.uk> To: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@blarg.net> Cc: Stephen McKay <mckay@thehub.com.au>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RMS: A threat to society? Message-ID: <20010919222742.B43466@jake.akitanet.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <disndi53bf.ndi@localhost.localdomain>; from swear@blarg.net on Wed, Sep 19, 2001 at 01:32:52PM -0700 References: <20010912215547.98067.qmail@web20806.mail.yahoo.com> <01091219512600.11358@proxy.the-i-pa.com> <20010912225428.A9675@citusc17.usc.edu> <4.3.2.7.2.20010913021952.045974f0@localhost> <4.3.2.7.2.20010913185102.0497c9e0@localhost> <15266.22869.722204.601040@guru.mired.org> <3BA3248D.5E47FDC9@mindspring.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20010918092037.046e2a90@localhost> <200109191347.f8JDl5i21378@dungeon.home> <disndi53bf.ndi@localhost.localdomain>
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On Sep 19, "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@blarg.net> wrote: > Www.gnu.org says regarding "free software": "...you always have the > freedom to copy and change the software, even to sell copies." And > it claims that "The freedom to improve the program, and release your > improvements to the public,..." is protected by the GPL "for everyone". OK, the issue here is that GPL does genuinely give you those freedoms, except there are extra catches. Mainly, you have to dish out the source code. There are plenty of reasons as to why that is restricting - we don't need to go over that. However, they aren't technically lying at this point. Just obfuscating the restriction by not presenting it at the same point in the article. > They may even use the term "free" in the same context. Do we need to go over "free beer" and "free speech" again? :-) > That's dishonest. I'm not saying it's dishonest to misuse the word > "free" in "free software"; that word can mean anything (or nothing). This is not a new argument, but is one that will run and run. We're here because we use BSD, and we know it's free in a sense that we understand and the company lawyers like. My personal take on this is that we (here on the freebsd- lists) are probably here because we've decided we don't like Linux and GNU for a variety of reasons. I'm not sure if our energies are best spent arguing like they do over on various GNU and Linux lists. We know we're right. :-) Somebody came up with a quote the other day that "Linux is for people who hate Windows, FreeBSD is for people who like Unix" - I'd like to add at the end (although it loses it's poetic catchiness as a result) "GNU is for people who don't mind not being liked" > Free men might not > have the freedom to drive on the wrong side of the road and free > software might not have the freedom to be used in closed-source > software, but freely redistributable software has no such terms and > conditions. Someone who implies differently (and isn't merely confused > himself) is trying to pull one over on you. I'm British so I do have the right to drive on the 'wrong' (in fact the 'left') side of the road. :-) You are right about the difference between free software and freely redistributable software though. I think their argument boils down to 'credit where credit is due', mixed up with a lot of frankly barmy socialism. Still, like I say, if it wasn't for GNU who would we complain about? They're just jealous because we got the OS based on code that wasn't written by a load of left-wing, socialist, idealistic thinking hippies.... what's that... *Berkeley* you say? Ohhh... I see... hmph. -- PR To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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