Re: [fsf-community-team] A first exercise

[Brandon Lozza]

Dennis,

Excellent article although I have one correction to make. When you
mentioned the freedoms granted by the GPL you stipulated that the
software cannot be changed. This is an error as that is one of the
freedoms granted by the GPL license. The only catch is that if you
redistribute your changes you also have to provide the source code for
those changes. Other than that the article was great.

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Marcel Ribeiro Dantas
http://ribeirodantas.com.br/ <address@hidden> wrote:
> It's hard to understand some of the free software concepts if you start with
> the wrong leg. At first, the fact of GNU GPL follow a copyleft license
> format, it already answer every question this guy might have. So, IMHO, the
> explanation of the copyleft concept would help him to understand GNU GPL
> better, besides help him in future questions about copyright and
> duties/rights about a free software developer/user/customer.
>
> So, independently of the reply we should send, Copyleft is the concept we
> must focus on.
>
> Att. Marcel Ribeiro Dantas
>
> 2009/12/17 James Phillips <address@hidden>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 07:49:34AM -0500, Holmes Wilson wrote:
>> > Hey everyone,
>> >
>> > Here's a good example of something we'd like this list to respond to.
>> > People often send FSF emails pointing to blog posts that require some
>> > kind of response from the free software community.
>> >
>> > This is a particularly good example, because it's not even the case that
>> > somebody's especially antagonistic to the ideas of free software--
>> > they're just kinda lost ;)
>> >
>> <SNIPPED instructions>
>> > > *CNet blog Network* writer Dennis O'Reilly makes several erroneous
>> > > statements in his 20 Oct 2009
>> > > article<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-10378605-68.html>  titled
>> > > 'Finding the Catch in Free Software'. Most glaring among his
>> > mis-statements
>> > > is:
>> > >> The GNU GPL stipulates that the software can be used, copied, and
>> > >> distributed verbatim without limitation, though it cannot be changed.
>> > >
>>
>> From that statement I find it hard to believe he even read the GPL that
>> states in the preamble:
>> "  The licenses for most software and other practical works are
>>   designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works.
>>   By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to
>>   guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a
>>   program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users."
>>
>> I was surprised to learn he even provided a link to it. I suspect he may
>> have heard statements like mine in another e-mail that the GPL is more
>> restrictive than other OSI licences (from a developer's/distributer's
>> point of view) , and *assumed* that meant you could not modify the code.
>>
>>         From: three
>>      Subject: RE: [fsf-community-team] A first exercise
>>         Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:21:29 -0700
>>   User-agent: Web-Based Email 5.1.30
>>
>> Dennis:
>> the GNU GPL absolutely allows for and encourages changes to the
>> software.  It's one of the "Four Freedoms" that are the Pilers of the
>> GPL and Free Software.  The only stipulation to the modifications are
>> that if you distribute it to anyone else you do so under the GPL and
>> that you make the source code available to the next person just as it
>> was made available to you.
>>
>> Justin "threethirty" O'Brien
>>
>> I think this response is a good one. We may want to add a link to the
>> FSF's "Free Software Definition."
>>   Linkname: The Free Software Definition - GNU Project - Free
>>          Software Foundation (FSF)
>>        URL: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> James Phillips
>>
>> PS: We may also want to explain what the "catch" is with free software.
>> As the columnist points out, people are suspicious of deals that sound
>> "Too Good to be true." Companies such as Sun bundling otherwise free
>> software (Windows JRE) with Yahoo! toolbars does no help the image of
>> Free as in freedom software. Then there are all the GPL'ed apps that ask
>> you to agree to the terms of the GPL even though section 5 clearly says
>> the user does not have to agree. I reported that as a bug for an Ogame
>> simulator and it got fixed in the next (point) release.
>>
>> The "catch" with GPL software is that we are not directly talking about
>> "free" in the economic sense, even though the cost of distribution may
>> be low. We are talking about freedom in the flag-waving hippie sense.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Marcel Ribeiro Dantas,
> marcel at ribeirodantas.com.br
> http://www.ribeirodantas.com.br/blog
> http://identi.ca/mribeirodantas
> http://twitter.com/mribeirodantas
>
> http://code.google.com/p/dtool
>
> Projeto Software Livre - Rio Grande do Norte
> Grupo de Usuários Slackware - Rio Grande do Norte
>
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>