Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> but just want to cause arguments about the definition of "free software".

It worked. ;-)

-- 
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 in message <487e5c30@news.povray.org>:
>   They should understand that some people want to contribute to the free
> software world, but they might really not want anyone making money from
> their hard work.

And the people who try to limit commercial uses should stop and think two
minutes about what money could be made from the software they are
distributing, and realize that in most cases, their condition is totally
useless and counterproductive.

>   The author has all the moral, ethical, philosophical and legal right
> to prohibit people from making money by selling his hard work he is
> himself distributing for free.

Legal, yed. Moral, ethical and philosophical, I do not agree.

>   I would really like you to say the FSF that!

I am not currently trolling with the FSF.

>   Wrong. I still think the software can be considered free, as in freedom,
> as in libre (and of course as in no-cost) if the author doesn't want anyone
> making money by selling it.

And I do not think so.

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Jim Henderson  wrote in message <487e4670$1@news.povray.org>:
> It's worked for software publishers for quite some time...

I try avoid shareware as much as possible. Could you explain in what sense
it "works"?

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> 	Well, AFAIK that particular aspect of the GPL has never been tested
> in court.

That is true, but that should not prevent people from reading the law, and
trying to understand it.

>	    But this is precisely what the GPL forbids. In particular,
> if I take a GPL DLL and if I write a program that uses this DLL,
> even if my program does not contain any outside code itself, I must
> release it under the GPL

... and as far as I understand the law, there is absolutely no case for the
source code of the program in this situation. For the binary, on the other
hand, even shared libraries come with declaratives headers, which are under
GPL too.

The argument of the FSF lawyers here is that the program needs the GPL
library, it does not work without it. But the whole principle of the
copyright laws is to consider software as a work of art. There is no need
for a work of art to work.

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On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:37:22 -0400, Nicolas George wrote:

> Jim Henderson  wrote in message <487e4670$1@news.povray.org>:
>> It's worked for software publishers for quite some time...
> 
> I try avoid shareware as much as possible. Could you explain in what
> sense it "works"?

Shareware authors get their software included in magazines and such 
fairly regularly - all that has to happen is the publisher asks 
permission (or the author asks the publisher to include it on a 
compilation disc).

I've seen this successfully used for many years.  Personally, I don't 
think it's too much to ask if the authors want to control distribution 
that the publishers who want to include it ask for permission.  After 
all, if I (as a website owner) want to repurpose a Magazine's content, 
I'm required by law to ask for permission unless I want to excerpt under 
fair use.  If I want to reproduce the content in its entirety, I MUST ask 
permission.

Why should software be any different if the author chooses to follow this 
standard convention?

Jim

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Jim Henderson  wrote in message <487e7d38@news.povray.org>:
> Shareware authors get their software included in magazines and such 
> fairly regularly - all that has to happen is the publisher asks 
> permission (or the author asks the publisher to include it on a 
> compilation disc).

Ok. But the point of libre software is not the freedom of the original
author, it is the freedom of other people.

Author of shareware control the diffusion of their works, that implies they
limit this diffusion. That is, of course, necessary if they want to benefit
from it. But the raw result is that the software is less available than it
could be.

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Nicolas George <nicolas$george@salle-s.org> wrote:
> >   The author has all the moral, ethical, philosophical and legal right
> > to prohibit people from making money by selling his hard work he is
> > himself distributing for free.

> Legal, yed. Moral, ethical and philosophical, I do not agree.

  He is the author of the software. He *owns* the software. Are you
saying he doesn't have the moral right to limit how his software is
used?

  To me "this software is and must always be completely free of cost,
and nobody should ever ask money for it" sounds like a high and commendable
principle. You are telling me he doesn't have the moral right to do that?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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a warning that nobody heard?






Shadow walks faster than you
You don't really know what to do
Do you think that you're not alone
You really think that you're immune to
Its gonna get the best of you
Its gonna lift you up and let you down
Hm hm hm
It will defeat you then teach you to get back up
After it takes away all that you learn to love

Your reflection is a blur
Out of focus but in confusion
The frames are suddenly burnt
And in the end of a roll of illusions
A ghost waiting his turn
Now I can see right through
Its a warning that nobody heard

It will teach you to love what you're afraid of
After it takes away all that you learn to love
But you don't
Always
Have to hold your head
Higher than your heart

You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better be hoping you're not so...
Du du du
Hope you're not alone
Hmm hmm hmm

Your -
Your echo comes back out of tune
Now you can't quite get used to it
Reverb is just the room
Problem is that there's no truth to
Its fading way too soon
Your shadow is on the move
And maybe you should be moving too
Before it takes away all that you learned to love
It will defeat you then teach you to get back up
Cause you don't
Always
Have to hold your head
Higher than your heart

You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better be hoping you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not alone
You better hope you're not so...
Du du du du du
Hope you're not alone
Hmm hmm hmmm
Better ho ho ho ho hope
Better hope you're not alone
Ho ho hmmm
Ho ho ho ho Hope

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Tom York wrote:
> Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
>> And how many contributions have there been in the past five months? - Ah,
>> yes, thousands and I missed them all :-(
>>
>> So I can show that there have been no major contributions in five months,
>> and you can show nothing about the past three years. My argument is based on
>> facts, your argument is pure speculation. - Hmm, I guess I have the better
>> argument after all. And believe me, I would be quite a bit happier if I
>> didn't have such a strong argument...
> 
> The beta source page recommends focussing on defect fixing rather than major
> submissions, as far as I remember.

Which nobody (for the major remaining bugs) has done either <sigh>

	Thorsten

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Alexandre DENIS wrote:
>  It was not
> possible with POV-Ray since source code was not available at the time I
> needed it (in 2006-2007).

Nonsense! The 3.6 final release source code has been available all long.

	Thorsten

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