Alessio Sangalli <ale### [at] manowebcom> wrote:
> but any plan to make POV-ray free software? What is the problem?

  Will people PLEASE stop using the term "free software" to mean what
the FSF has distorted it to mean? Pretty please?

  "Free", in common parlance, means "you don't have to pay anything to
use it". Period. POV-Ray *is* free. You don't have to pay anything.

  Just because a random political movement called FSF has taken a word
used in common parlance and distorted its meaning until it has basically
nothing to do with the original meaning doesn't make it correct.

  (The same could be said about "open source". "Open" in common parlance,
in this context, means "you can look at it, you can access it, you can
get it, you can modify it". In contrast, "closed" means that you don't
have any kind of access to the source code. The OSS has gone and restriced
the use of "open source" to a much more limited set of cases.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
| Alessio Sangalli <ale### [at] manowebcom> wrote:
|> but any plan to make POV-ray free software? What is the problem?
|
|   Will people PLEASE stop using the term "free software" to mean what
| the FSF has distorted it to mean? Pretty please?
|
	I agree completely that the FSF has usurped the term "free" for its
own political and marketing goals, but don't do the same thing yourself:

|   "Free", in common parlance, means "you don't have to pay anything to
| use it". Period. POV-Ray *is* free. You don't have to pay anything.
|
	That is actually the twelfth (!) definition in my dictionary
(Collins Cobuild). The first eleven definitions deal with free as in
"freedom" (i.e not a prisoner or not restricted) or free as in
"available" (i.e "Is this seat free?").

|   Just because a random political movement called FSF has taken a word
| used in common parlance and distorted its meaning until it has
basically
| nothing to do with the original meaning doesn't make it correct.
|
	You are quite correct: some of the restrictions imposed by the GPL
(and even more in its version 3) mean that it doesn't fit any of the
meanings of "free" in my dictionary anyway.

|   (The same could be said about "open source". "Open" in common
parlance,
| in this context, means "you can look at it, you can access it, you can
| get it, you can modify it". In contrast, "closed" means that you don't
| have any kind of access to the source code. The OSS has gone and
restriced
| the use of "open source" to a much more limited set of cases.)
|
	I agree.

		Jerome

PS: In answer to Alessio's question ("What is the problem in
changing POV's license?"):

~ - Some parts of the code were written a long time ago by people who
are no longer available, so the POV-team can't ask them for their
permission to change (which permission is required both legally and
ethically);

~ - POV 4 is a complete code rewrite and will probably have a new
license which AFAIK won't be GPL, but may fit the FSF's definitions
of "free" and "open" (or not, this is for the POV-team to decide and
I'm not privy to their discussions).

- --
+------------------------- Jerome M. BERGER ---------------------+
|    mailto:jeb### [at] freefr      | ICQ:    238062172            |
|    http://jeberger.free.fr/     | Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr   |
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> |   "Free", in common parlance, means "you don't have to pay anything to
> | use it". Period. POV-Ray *is* free. You don't have to pay anything.
> |
>         That is actually the twelfth (!) definition in my dictionary
> (Collins Cobuild). The first eleven definitions deal with free as in
> "freedom" (i.e not a prisoner or not restricted)

  Which doesn't make sense with software, because a program is not a person.

  Can you say, for example, that a book is "free", according to those
definitions? What would that even mean? That it's not imprisoned?

  No, if you say that a book is free, it means you don't have to pay for it.

> or free as in
> "available" (i.e "Is this seat free?").

  Again, it doesn't make too much sense in relation to software. What would
it mean for a software to be "available"? With physical objects it makes
more sense because there's only one of it, and someone may have reserved
it for himself, so it's not available to others.

  The only stretched meaning for "available" with respect to software
would be as a synonym for "in distribution". In other words, the
software in question is being distributed, and not kept closed somewhere
where people don't have any access to it. Again, "free" doesn't describe
that situation at all.

  Even if you say "freely available", that usually means, in common parlance,
that you don't have to pay for it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp  wrote in message <487885c7@news.povray.org>:
>> but any plan to make POV-ray free software? What is the problem?
>   Will people PLEASE stop using the term "free software" to mean what
> the FSF has distorted it to mean? Pretty please?
> 
>   "Free", in common parlance, means "you don't have to pay anything to
> use it". Period. POV-Ray *is* free. You don't have to pay anything.

I agree with you to some extent, but not all the way. Consider the three
following sentences:

1. "Will POV-Ray become free?"
2. "Will POV-Ray become Free Software?"

The first means "free of charge", you are absolutely right.

The second, on the other hand, makes a reference to some specific and well
known notion "Free Software". A few people tried to define this notion; the
FSF was the first as far as I know, and all definitions say roughly the same
thing, including the right to commercially redistribute the software.

Everyone is entitled to take a word or several, flash it in front of its
product, and hope that people will accept it. If enough people take on this
word for long enough, its meaning becomes ipso facto the said product.

For example, if you read somewhere "I intend to vote democratic", you will
not answer "that is just silly, no candidate intend to abolish democracy, all
are democratic: you will immediately understand that means "I intend to vote
for the Democratic Party", and there is only one Democratic Party (in a
given political context).

When you encounter the words "democratic" and "republican" about USA
politics, it means the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, although
Democrats are republicans and Republicans are democrats.

Well, that is the same for "Free Software".

Two more sentences:

3. "Will POV-Ray become Free?"
4. "Will POV-Ray become free software?"

The sentence #3 is obviously a shorthand for "Free Software", the capital F
makes it absolutely clear.

The sentence #4 is just lazy spelling for "Free Software". If you have a
bucket of blue paint in hand, you say "this door will become blue", or
maybe "this door will become a blue door", but never "this door will become
blue door".

>   (The same could be said about "open source". "Open" in common parlance,
> in this context, means "you can look at it, you can access it, you can
> get it, you can modify it".

I find that one far fetched. In common parlance, "open" applies to a door or
a box, and that has nothing to do with software source code. The nearest I
can see is a book (if it is open, you can read it; but if it is not, you can
open it), but that does not get us much farther.

In this particular case, there is absolutely no doubt that "Open Source" is
a trademark.

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Alessio Sangalli wrote:
> but any plan to make POV-ray free software? What is the problem?

Get a clue by first reading the relevant newsgroups and you would not have 
to troll around with already answered questions: First, POV-Ray is free 
unless you apply your definition of "free software" (whatever it may be, you 
choice, so it is as random as that of everybody else), second, a GPL 3 
relicensing will happen in the future as was already said before.

So what exactly is your problem??? - I can tell you: You did not _read_, but 
just want to cause arguments about the definition of "free software".

*plonk*

	Thorsten, POV-Team

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Nicolas George <nicolas$george@salle-s.org> wrote:
> The second, on the other hand, makes a reference to some specific and well
> known notion "Free Software". A few people tried to define this notion; the
> FSF was the first as far as I know, and all definitions say roughly the same
> thing, including the right to commercially redistribute the software.

  Personally I do not agree with their definition, and I find their
hijacking of the word "free" for their own purposes preposterous.

  The word "free" doesn't change its meaning if you attach the word
"software" to it (in the same way as it doesn't change meaning if you
attach the word "book" to it). The word "free" doesn't change meaning
if you start writing it with a capital letter.

  What the FSF has done is that they have completely redefined the meaning
of the word, and they have been bullying everyone to stick to *their*
definition of it, rather than the real definition.

  Their comparison to "free speech" is absurd and ridiculous, and doesn't
really apply to software licenses (at most it could apply to the contents
of the software, not how it's distributed).

  It wouldn't bother me so much if there weren't so many people brainwashed
by the FSF who roam the internet bullying and outright attacking any free
software which does not conform to *their* definition to the letter. The
most preposterous thing they do is that they say "this is not free software"
from programs which are perfectly free.

> >   (The same could be said about "open source". "Open" in common parlance,
> > in this context, means "you can look at it, you can access it, you can
> > get it, you can modify it".

> I find that one far fetched. In common parlance, "open" applies to a door or
> a box, and that has nothing to do with software source code.

  I was talking in the *context* of software. When you say "open source",
the "source" part is referring to the source code of the program, and
naturally "open" means "for everyone to see".

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp  wrote in message <4878c2d7@news.povray.org>:
>   The word "free" doesn't change its meaning if you attach the word
> "software" to it

Yes it does: since there was no common use of this particular pair of words
before the FSF, it becomes a trademark.

>   What the FSF has done is that they have completely redefined the meaning
> of the word

So do most commercial companies and all politic parties in the world.

>   Their comparison to "free speech" is absurd and ridiculous

Fortunately, there is no such comparison. This has been explained to you
twice in the last few weeks.

>   I was talking in the *context* of software. When you say "open source",
> the "source" part is referring to the source code of the program, and
> naturally "open" means "for everyone to see".

No. Before the Open Source Initiative, it meant nothing. "For everyone to
see" was spelt "available", not "open".

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Nicolas George wrote:
> For example, if you read somewhere "I intend to vote democratic", you will
> not answer "that is just silly, no candidate intend to abolish democracy, all
> are democratic:

Actually, to be precise, none are democratic, or you wouldn't be voting 
for politicians.  If you want to make the example work, say "I'm voting 
republican" and answer "nobody wants to abolish the republic." </nit> ;-)

> I find that one far fetched. In common parlance, "open" applies to a door or
> a box, and that has nothing to do with software source code.

Sun used "Open" for a long time to mean many things, and it basically 
meant "we'll give you the specs so you can reimplement it on your 
operating system."  Much the same way that .NET is "open".

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Warp wrote:

>   Will people PLEASE stop using the term "free software" to mean what
> the FSF has distorted it to mean? Pretty please?


Those are terms with a very well know meaning in the software scene.

Warp, are you a POV-ray developer?

bye
as

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Thorsten Froehlich wrote:

> So what exactly is your problem??? - I can tell you: You did not _read_, but 
> just want to cause arguments about the definition of "free software".
> 
> *plonk*

Thorsten, I hope you didn't really banned me. I have the utmost respect
for POV-developers (the person that enlightened me on POV-ray was Dan
Farmer in the mid nineties. Don't know if he's still among the
POV-developers). As a non native english speaker I might have sounded
too harsh or something. I was expecting an answer like Jerome's, I know
POV-ray was born before the GPL and the widespread internet usage for
software downloads, so the peculiar license that sets terms for the cost
of the media on which the program is shipped etc.

Now, you just said POV-4 will be GPLv3. Jerome said he thinks it won't.
Any better place to ask or *read*? Is the code for POV-4 available
somewhere to review and help with the effort?

bye
Alessio

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