Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 21:02:24 -0400 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, "Jasper O'Malley" <jooji@webnology.com> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Producing non-GPLed tools for FreeBSD Message-ID: <v04011703b252de7162fa@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <199810202131.OAA01284@dingo.cdrom.com> References: Your message of "Tue, 20 Oct 1998 16:15:15 CDT." <Pine.LNX.4.02.9810201605110.13084-100000@mercury.webnology.com>
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At 2:31 PM -0700 10/20/98, Mike Smith wrote: >> On Tue, 20 Oct 1998, Mike Smith wrote: >> >> > The hypocrisy comes from misleadingly calling this "free". >> >> I don't think it's misleading at all. The software costs nothing, >> and the source is available to anyone who wants it. Sounds pretty >> free to me. > > If it were free, I could do anything I liked with it. As it has > restrictions attached to it, it's not free. Is there a mailing list for discussing word definitions? Could we take this pointless discussion to that pointless mailing list? How about useless-pendantics@freebsd.org? If we're going to talk about actually WRITING some code, then I can understand why this is in hackers. That is how this thread started, but it has rapidly degenerated into yet-another-religious-war, and it seems to me that such pointless exercises could go elsewhere. I would just as soon say "the software is free but encumbered, and in such a way that I do not like it". While someone might want to pull down a dictionary and argue the meaning of the word "free", I think everyone with one ounce of sense will understand what is meant by that sentance. Instead of arguing the definition of free and pissing people off by throwing around words like "hypocracy", let's just drop it and get back to writing code. It seems to me that the vitriol stirred up by words like "hypocracy" should be reserved for more worthy targets, such as "innovative" microsoft. No matter what definition of "free" you want to use, if microsoft continues to eat our lunch then nothing will be free. --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or drosih@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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