>>>
>> 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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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

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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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> 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.

  That sound to me more like the code is protected by the license. Not
too much to do with freedom per se.

  Btw, no license throws away the original copyright, nor allows it to
me removed in derivative works. (Even if some license did that, it may
be legally questionable in many countries. Copyright is not something
you can get rid of easily.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:53:08 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> 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.
> 
>   That sound to me more like the code is protected by the license. Not
> too much to do with freedom per se.

It's about the author's freedom to know where their code is being used.  
Like I said, perhaps a bit convoluted in thinking, but it makes sense to 
me.

>   Btw, no license throws away the original copyright, nor allows it to
> me removed in derivative works. (Even if some license did that, it may
> be legally questionable in many countries. Copyright is not something
> you can get rid of easily.)

Sure, but it is more difficult to prove copyright infringement in 
situations where the code isn't open.

Not that it's impossible.  Just much more difficult.

Jim

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Jim Henderson  wrote in message <487cf922$1@news.povray.org>:
> BTW, that's why *most* outside the FSF refer to the software these days 
> as "OSS" or "covered under an OSI-approved license"

"The OpenBSD project produces a FREE, multi-platform 4.4BSD-based UNIX-like
operating system."

<URL: http://www.openbsd.org/ > (emphasize not mine)

"NetBSD is a free, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source
operating system available for many platforms"

<URL: http://www.netbsd.org/ >

I think they would not be very pleased to be forgotten.

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andrel  wrote in message <487### [at] hotmailcom>:
>	 FSF rules require that you have the freedom to sell software at a 
> price.

Please stop using the FSF as a scapegoat. All major Free Software actors
agree on that particular point.

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Warp  wrote in message <487cfcb0@news.povray.org>:
>    They want to completely own the word "free"

No, just the "free software" locution.

>		  The OSI has a much more liberal view on this than the FSF
>    but they still have a rather restrictive meaning.

The FSF definition and the OSI definition are very different on the
emphasis they put on various conditions, but technically, they are very very
similar. You need to search carefully in subtle licence clauses to find
licences that are OSI-approved but not FSF-approved.

>						       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

Note that the GPL is _not_ the FSF definition of software freedom. The
Definition is:

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the
  public, so that the whole community benefits.

Maybe you could tell us what definition you would use?

>    (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).

By the way, do you think that this point is a precondition to call a
software free/libre?

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