Open Source Archive

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."

"...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.