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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>>>
>> 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:
> 
I think you misunderstood him.

> '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".

Let me try to explain his logic once more (and for the last time I 
hope). FSF rules require that you have the freedom to sell software at a 
price. There is no way that you can legally sell POV to a third party. 
Hence POV-Ray is not free software *because you can not sell it*, at 
least according to the FSF rules 
(http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) . The contradiction 
he mentions arises not because he thinks free means only at no cost, but 
because FSF insists that free *implies* that you must be able to sell 
it. He acknowledges that free has more than one meaning and complains 
that the FSF doesn't.

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PS. I didn't see that Warp also answered (I assumed that he gave up 
fighting the wind mills). If I had seen it, I would not have hit the 
Send button.

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On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:52:35 +0200, andrel wrote:


>>> 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:
>> 
> I think you misunderstood him.
> 
>> '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".
> 
> Let me try to explain his logic once more (and for the last time I
> hope). FSF rules require that you have the freedom to sell software at a
> price. There is no way that you can legally sell POV to a third party.
> Hence POV-Ray is not free software *because you can not sell it*, at
> least according to the FSF rules
> (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) . The contradiction
> he mentions arises not because he thinks free means only at no cost, but
> because FSF insists that free *implies* that you must be able to sell
> it. He acknowledges that free has more than one meaning and complains
> that the FSF doesn't.

Ah, I see - thanks for the clarification.  I did misunderstand.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
| 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).
|
	The issue here isn't what the *original* author can do. The problem
arises when somebody wants to reuse parts of the original code. The
sequence of events goes like this:
~ - You write some code and license it under the GPL;
~ - I take your code (or part of it), write some more code that
interfaces with yours and want to distribute it. Then I can't choose
the license under which I distribute *my* code. The GPL has taken a
fundamental freedom from me, just because I interface with some code
that is GPLed. Therefore I don't regard the GPL as "free" (on the
other hand, I do regard the LGPL as "free": it ensures that the
LGPLed code will remain available while not restricting my freedom
to write and distribute code that interfaces with it).

		Jerome
- --
+------------------------- Jerome M. BERGER ---------------------+
|    mailto:jeb### [at] freefr      | ICQ:    238062172            |
|    http://jeberger.free.fr/     | Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr   |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+
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On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:28:50 +0200, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:

> 	The issue here isn't what the *original* author can do. The 
problem
> arises when somebody wants to reuse parts of the original code. The
> sequence of events goes like this:
> ~ - You write some code and license it under the GPL; ~ - I take your
> code (or part of it), write some more code that interfaces with yours
> and want to distribute it. Then I can't choose the license under which I
> distribute *my* code. The GPL has taken a fundamental freedom from me,
> just because I interface with some code that is GPLed. Therefore I don't
> regard the GPL as "free" (on the other hand, I do regard the LGPL as
> "free": it ensures that the LGPLed code will remain available while not
> restricting my freedom to write and distribute code that interfaces with
> it).

Well, as a software developer, I *may* not want people to use my code in 
something they make money off of, or something that removes my copyright 
from my code, or something that is closed source.

I can *totally* understand why an author may choose to pick a license 
like this - because they want to be free to see how their code is being 
used.  BSD isn't free to see how Microsoft has implemented the BSD TCP/IP 
stack, because the MS code is closed, even though it's based on the BSD 
stack (or rather, it is the BSD stack - evidenced by behaviours of the 
stack itself that are unique to that implementation).

It's all a question of what the original author desires be done with 
their code.  I can see that maybe the FSF point of view is that the 
original author should be free to see how their code is used and to not 
have others profit financially from it.

Jim

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