[sf-lug] Free software talk

[Rick Moen]

Quoting David Sterry (david at sterryit.com):

> I'm trying to go by the FSF's definition of free software and that
> doesn't include BSD.

Please consult http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html , at
your leisure.  Quoting:

   Modified BSD license [link]
   (Note: on the preceding link, the modified BSD license is listed in
   the General section.)

   This is the original BSD license, modified by removal of the
   advertising clause. IT IS A SIMPLE, PERMISSIVE NON-COPYLEFT FREE
   SOFTWARE LICENSE, compatible with the GNU GPL. [...]


   Original BSD license [link]
   (Note: on the preceding link, the original BSD license is listed in the
   UCB/LBL section. This license is also sometimes called the "4-clause
   BSD license".)

   THIS IS A SIMPLE, PERMISSIVE NON-COPYLEFT FREE SOFTWARE LICENSE [...]

Emphasis added, in both cases.  (This _is_ a page that FSF's had posted
pretty much since God was in knee-britches, by the way.)


I happen to have been involved with FSF for, well, decades, and FSF has
_always_, consistently and clearly, classified not only BSD but also all
other classic permissive licences (MIT/X11, Apache Licence v 1.x, QPL
1.0) as free software licences.

I don't know what you _thought_ FSF had said to the contrary, but I can
assure you that FSF has never, in its entire existence, asserted that
good permissive licences are non-free.



> In addition I realize there are many motivations for writing free
> software but I liked the idea that it was close to music since that
> was most novel to me.

Well, the reason I stressed the extreme diversity of underlying reasons
-- including, as my final two examples, business models that quite
frankly use copyleft to support proprietary-software business models -- 
is that I get really, really tired of people speaking as if free / open
source software is inherently some sort of gentleman's hobby and/or
charity ideological cause.

Sorry, but that's bunk, and the world really should have gotten over
that in March 1998, when Netscape Corporation went MPL (with a brief
transition from the short-lived NPL licence) and suddenly the entire
business world was willing to admit that it was already using Linux and
other free code for..., well, damned near everything.


> Incidentally, that concept actually came out of a quick thread on the
> FSF internal forum.  If you're a member of the FSF(I just joined), I'd
> encourage you to go there and participate in their(for some reason)
> private forum since it's sorely lacking in attention for an org of
> 7000+ members.

Well, er, I sincerely hope you will go back and correct FSF's
comprehension of its own founding documents.  ;->