[sf-lug] the real free software...

[Michael Paoli]

> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:57:00 -0800
> From: Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu>
>
> We are going to have a visitor on campus today. From Microsoft. His
> job is "...to work with the brightest minds at schools throughout
> Northern California to make sure they have what they need to succeed
> with technology". In honor of this visit and the "free software" he's
> going to raffle off, I've set up my own raffle page. Take a look!
> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/608

Might want to tweak those descriptions a slight bit.
Sure, it's about freedom - and typically also free as in
beer, ... but typically not quite
"you can do whatever you want to do with it"
... e.g., such as GNU licensed software - can't
typically change it, complile it, sell the binaries
thus created and not make the source code (including the
changes) available for free.  GNU is more about preserving
the freedom.  On the other hand, BSD type licenses
typically come a bit closer to
"whatever you want to do with it" (e.g. one typically
could sell binaries as noted above, without giving away
the source) ... but there are likely still some limitations.

Reference to the Open Source Initiative's Open Source Definition
may be useful - it would likely apply to most or all of the
noted software:
http://opensource.org/docs/osd