UnitedLinux and "open source"

[Russell Nelson]

John Cowan writes:
 > No.  In good Gricean fashion, I am attempting to make sense of your
 > claim that the GPL is not a free-software license.  If you consider
 > freedom to include the right to redistribute under any license,
 > then the GPL is not free.  If that is not what you meant, please
 > say what you meant.

Ahhhh, I see.  No, the GPLv2 prohibits you from removing the license
display from an interactive start-up.  There's not a huge amount of
difference between this, and Larry McVoy's requirement that you not
remove the code that publishes your changes.  The first pushes RMS's
political agenda, and the second McVoy's commercial agenda.

Fortunately, the GPLv2 puts that restriction on distributors, and the
Bitkeeper license puts that restriction on users, so we were able to
say "Sorry, Larry, but you can't restrict how someone uses a program."

-- 
-russ nelson              http://russnelson.com | 
Crynwr sells support for free software  | PGPok |  Plan to be surprised.
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice |  Surprise can not be planned for.
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | +1 315 268 9201 FAX   |  Be open to new light.
--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3