Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Well, "free" is an overloaded term in English.  As I stated elsewhere in 
> this (or a similar) discussion, "free" is "gratis" but it *also* is 
> "libre".  FSF talks about "Free" in the "Libre" sense, not the "gratis" 
> sense.

  I understand what the FSF is talking about. However, I strongly disagree
in two counts:

1) That there's only one possible "correct" interpretation for the concept
   "free software" and that any software not following that interpretation
   to the letter is "not free".

   This is exactly what the FSF (and many OSS groups) are advocating:
   They want to completely own the word "free", and any software which
   does not conform to their strict definition must not be called "free".
   This goes as far as calling software like POV-Ray "not free".

2) That their definition of "free" has anything to do with freedom (as
   in "libre"). The OSI has a much more liberal view on this than the FSF
   but they still have a rather restrictive meaning. Especially the FSF
   definition of "free" (regardless of which dictionary entry you want to
   use) has little to do with freedom, as their GPL license is extremely
   restrictive and limits the freedom of usage of the program quite a lot
   (for example you can't take a portion of a GPL software and use it in
   another software which uses a different license, even if it's an
   OSI-approved license).

   I do understand *why* the GPL has such restrictions. I just disagree
   in them using the word "free" to describe it.

  The only licenses in common use which I know of which are truely free
by all possible definitions of the word are the BSD and the MIT licenses.
("Public Domain" is not a valid license, no matter what people claim.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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