Thorsten Froehlich  wrote in message <487c817d$1@news.povray.org>:
> And here you show exactly why you are not welcome: You come with the 
> attitude that you *might* consider to do something if and only if someone 
> else first does something for you.

What would you have him do instead? It is just not possible to contribute
when the source code is not available.

(And working on anything bigger than a small bugfix on an old version is
useless.)

>						Hmm, is it only me who thinks 
> that the only beneficiary using such logic is you, not the project you 
> *could* decide to contribute to?

Depends on whether he actually contributes, and the quality of said
contribution.

That is the whole point of Free Software (note the capital: I am not
speaking of "free of charge"): you give the source code (and that does not
costs you anything, if you did not intend to sell your software in the first
place); a lot of people are hugely beneficiary from that situation, but
since it does not costs you anything, that is not a problem; and sometimes
you get interesting contributions, which is so much the better for you.

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Nicolas George wrote:
> Thorsten Froehlich  wrote in message <487c817d$1@news.povray.org>:
>> And here you show exactly why you are not welcome: You come with the 
>> attitude that you *might* consider to do something if and only if someone 
>> else first does something for you.
> 
> What would you have him do instead? It is just not possible to contribute
> when the source code is not available.

Except that it is available.

<sarcasm> Of course, we have been drowning in a flood of contributions since 
the 3.7 beta source code has been available, so you might have missed the 
original post about its availability.</sarcasm>

 > (And working on anything bigger than a small bugfix on an old version is
 > useless.)

The opposite is true: To make bigger changes, you stick to a fixed working 
copy as you don't want every small change screwing up your large changes. 
Afterwards you merge your code. That is why there are branches and related 
features used when managing large source code repositories.

	Thorsten

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Thorsten Froehlich  wrote in message <487cac23@news.povray.org>:
> Except that it is available.

It is _now_. Alexandre's post was in the past tense.

The source code for the beta release, as far as I can see, has been
available since 2008-02-18, which is somewhat about three years after the
first binaries.

> The opposite is true: To make bigger changes, you stick to a fixed working 
> copy as you don't want every small change screwing up your large changes. 
> Afterwards you merge your code. That is why there are branches and related 
> features used when managing large source code repositories.

Of course, but that does not mean you must base your branch on an old
version when there is a more recent and reasonably stable one.

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On 15-Jul-08 0:48, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:33:34 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:51:59 -0400, Warp wrote:
>>>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>>> Words do have more than a single definition, typically. ;-)
>>>>   Tell that to the FSF.
>>> Well, you're the one saying you don't understand their usage....
>>   I didn't say I don't understand it. I said I completely disagree with
>>   it.
> 
> So you don't think there's any definition of "free" that applies other 
> than "free of cost"?  

No, he thinks free of cost is *one* of the legitimate interpretations of 
free.

> Interesting interpretation of the English language, that....

The interpretation of the English language that is interesting is: 'this 
is not free software because it is free (of cost)'. And the surprise is 
that there are people who speak English and think this is logical. As 
many have said before: the FSF should never have claimed free software 
as a concept. There were a couple of ways out, e.g. 'free software' of 
Free Software, both will notify that a concept is meant that differs 
from the colloquial combination of the words free and software. Even 
better would have been FSF compliant software or similar.
I have a feeling that this is a concept that was influenced in some way 
by the American copyright and patent system. At least if I read the FSF 
definition of 'free software' it feels as if it was written by a group 
of aliens without any knowledge of the Dutch (or any other European) 
copyright and patent system. Which is probably true ;). Perhaps it would 
help if Americans would understand that something they feel passionate 
about (free software, American football, country music) might be 
perceived as just another folklore thing overseas. Don't get me wrong, 
free software (in any of its various meanings) does have a role also in 
Europe, just as there is a place for the Amsterdam Admirals and Ilse 
DeLange, but why the fuss?

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On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:44:05 +0200, andrel wrote:

> On 15-Jul-08 0:48, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:33:34 -0400, Warp wrote:
>> 
>>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:51:59 -0400, Warp wrote:
>>>>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>>>> Words do have more than a single definition, typically. ;-)
>>>>>   Tell that to the FSF.
>>>> Well, you're the one saying you don't understand their usage....
>>>   I didn't say I don't understand it. I said I completely disagree
>>>   with it.
>> 
>> So you don't think there's any definition of "free" that applies other
>> than "free of cost"?
> 
> No, he thinks free of cost is *one* of the legitimate interpretations of
> free.

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.

Jim

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On 15-Jul-08 21:03, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:44:05 +0200, andrel wrote:
> 
>> On 15-Jul-08 0:48, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:33:34 -0400, Warp wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:51:59 -0400, Warp wrote:
>>>>>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>>>>> Words do have more than a single definition, typically. ;-)
>>>>>>   Tell that to the FSF.
>>>>> Well, you're the one saying you don't understand their usage....
>>>>   I didn't say I don't understand it. I said I completely disagree
>>>>   with it.
>>> So you don't think there's any definition of "free" that applies other
>>> than "free of cost"?
>> No, he thinks free of cost is *one* of the legitimate interpretations of
>> free.
> 
> 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 think we all agree on that. Including Warp, so I do not understand why 
people keep on suggesting that he does not know that.

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On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:18:04 +0200, andrel wrote:

> On 15-Jul-08 21:03, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:44:05 +0200, andrel wrote:
>> 
>>> On 15-Jul-08 0:48, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:33:34 -0400, Warp wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:51:59 -0400, Warp wrote:
>>>>>>> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Words do have more than a single definition, typically. ;-)
>>>>>>>   Tell that to the FSF.
>>>>>> Well, you're the one saying you don't understand their usage....
>>>>>   I didn't say I don't understand it. I said I completely disagree
>>>>>   with it.
>>>> So you don't think there's any definition of "free" that applies
>>>> other than "free of cost"?
>>> No, he thinks free of cost is *one* of the legitimate interpretations
>>> of free.
>> 
>> 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 think we all agree on that. Including Warp, so I do not understand why
> people keep on suggesting that he does not know that.

Because he keeps bringing cost into the discussion about what "free" 
means:

'To them "free" means "you can sell it for a price". And they don't see
any contradiction in that.'

There is only a contradiction if you assume free *only* means "at no 
cost".

Jim

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On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:21:47 -0400, Jim Henderson wrote:

> Because he keeps bringing cost into the discussion about what "free"
> means:
> 
> 'To them "free" means "you can sell it for a price". And they don't see
> any contradiction in that.'
> 
> There is only a contradiction if you assume free *only* means "at no
> cost".

BTW, that's why *most* outside the FSF refer to the software these days 
as "OSS" or "covered under an OSI-approved license"; some also call it 
FLOSS, though personally, that one sticks in my teeth for some reason.

Jim

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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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On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:38:25 -0400, Warp wrote:

> 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:

Oh, I misunderstood - I thought *you* were saying that there was only one 
definition for "free", not the FSF.  I don't disagree with your points 
from that point of view, though I think the FSF's usage of "Free" is that 
authors are "free" to not have their work incorporated into another 
product that's closed source - ie, they're free to know where their code 
is being used.  That is perhaps a bit more convoluted.

But I don't know that the GPL overrides anything that the original author 
permits - you can do plenty as long as you ask for permission.  I would 
be surprised if a court anywhere upheld that the author of a piece of 
software released under the GPL couldn't dual-license it (for example - 
and that's already done, just look at MySQL for an example of that type 
of arrangement).

Jim

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