Open Source Archive

Richard Stallman Answers GNOME Board Candidacy Questionnaire

Eugenia Loli 2001-11-26 Open Source 1 Comment

"GNOME is not an independent software project; it is a part of the GNU system. This means GNOME does not exist just for its own success. It has a purpose: to provide the GNU system with a desktop. So while we should try to make GNOME successful (all else being equal), that's not the highest goal of the work on GNOME. If, on the other hand, GNOME and the rest of the GNU system are widely used, but mainly in combination with proprietary software, they will have succeeded only part-way, and a big task will remain ahead of us." Read the rest of the answers, and also have a read to the issue that was raised a month ago between RMS and some of the GNOME members.

RMS/Kuhn, Raymond, O’Reilly on the Freedom to Choose Licenses

Eugenia Loli 2001-11-22 Open Source 10 Comments

An interesting debate has started between important people in the open source circles. Stallman and Kuhn in their essay 'Freedom or Power?' state that: "However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom." Eric S. Raymond fights back: "In other words, Stallman and Kuhn want to be able to make decisions that affect other developers more than themselves. By the definition they themselves have proposed, they want power". Tim O'Reilly started the debate: "If Freedom Zero for developers is the freedom to offer software on whatever terms the developer sets and a user will accept; Freedom Zero for users is the right to choose whatever software they like, without interference from platform vendors who try to deny that choice."

Is Open Source Fading Away?

Eugenia Loli 2001-11-20 Open Source 11 Comments

"The revolution triggered by Linux may be slowly starting to fade. Many companies are becoming increasingly protective of their intellectual property rather than embracing open source during the economic slump. The ideological purity of the open-source software business is being diluted by a new era of pragmatism as start-ups adjust to the economic slump." Reported at ZDNews.

SourceForge Drifting

Eugenia Loli 2001-11-15 Open Source 2 Comments

"Over the past few months the SourceForge development facility, which hosts a large number of Free Software projects, has changed its policies. Features for exporting a project from SourceForge have been removed. The implementation used to be exclusively Free Software but is now based on non-free software. Finally, VA Linux has become rather underhand in their attempts to grasp exclusive control of contributors' work. SourceForge did a lot of good for the Free Software community, but it's now time to break free." Read the rest of the editorial at FSFEurope.org.

Public Domain Software – Better Than Open Source?

Eugenia Loli 2001-11-13 Open Source 42 Comments

Descriptive Quote from the OSOpinion editorial: "Open source and free software were founded on the idea that all information and knowledge should be made freely available for the benefit of all, and what is software but the embodiment of knowledge? Unfortunately, much of today's open software is not free in one important respect. The use of copyright and the General Public License (GPL) restricts its commercial exploitation."

RMS Requests GNOME Summary Cease Mention of Non-Free Software

Eugenia Loli 2001-10-19 Open Source 19 Comments

"...Some weeks ago we got a mail from Richard Stallman asking that we stop all mentions of non-free software in the GNOME summaries. The background for the request was that we had mentioned the beta of Star Office some time back. I argued that the purpose of the GNOME summaries was to promote GNOME and while our focus of course is free software I felt that it was natural to mention the availability of non-free software where the existence of such software where a clear advantage for GNOME. RMS replied telling us that he disagreed with my argument and saying that we are legitimatizing the use of non-free software by mentioning it..." This is part of the email that Christian Schaller sent to the Gnome Foundation mailing list asking the Gnome users for their opinion on how to proceed on the matter. So far, the replies are taking Christian's side and some mentioned that Richard Stallman's opinions are, simply put, extreme in this case.