From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,18b00985106487ae X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-04-01 08:48:08 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!newsfeed3.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!border1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 10:48:07 -0600 Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 11:48:07 -0500 From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Licensing issues (Was: [Announce] Mneson : persistent untyped References: <83I9c.25796$w54.167855@attbi_s01><40681380.4080901@noplace.com> <40696000.9030109@noplace.com> <406AB931.60402@noplace.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.128.39.153 X-Trace: sv3-gqg6udjtZQGdWQ/KwQ30z5IO8E6+AFZb4FZJZ6KtmXwG0vvnUhEizxPBGIPSr02At823hkP2+zReN0m!438AX2t/NkP3eaMbZuhrRGhgS0nMzgVHcAchWXGFyWT3TDDV6qzkN6sGygtMjw== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6701 Date: 2004-04-01T11:48:07-05:00 List-Id: Marius Amado Alves wrote: > Actually the first important website was the FSF's. There's really no > difference between free software as per the FSF and open source as per the > OSI. When you ask the parties they say there's a "political" difference. > What that means exactly I was unable to ascertain. Maybe the FSF was not > willing to promote the OSD. Maybe OSI did not want to be a part of FSF from > the start. So there's two separate institutions now. The political difference is that FSF intends/wants to create a world where you can use only free software. The OSI focuses on free/open alternatives to parts of the unfree software landscape. Right now there is very little difference in practice between the two, but before the LGPL (library Gnu public license), there was often a contamination effect if you used Gnu tools to create your (commercial) software. In theory this can still happen. In practice, almost all free software tools now use the LGPL (or the GNAT/Ada equivalent that allows generic instantiation) on any files where this could be an issue. So it is still the case that you can create FSF "free software" tools that cannot be used to create commercial software. The OSI rules deprecate this possibility. However, as was said, the two get along just fine in practice. Very few people intentionally "take advantage" of this greater freedom (or more restrictive licensing, you choose the connotations) offered by the FSF policy. -- Robert I. Eachus "The terrorist enemy holds no territory, defends no population, is unconstrained by rules of warfare, and respects no law of morality. Such an enemy cannot be deterred, contained, appeased or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed--and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the business at hand." -- Dick Cheney