UnitedLinux and "open source"

[John Cowan]

David Johnson scripsit:

> Somehow a lot of people think the imprimatur of RMS is more important than the 
> definition of Free Software. This is silly and smells of cultism.

Neither silly nor cultist, but in the common-law tradition of affording
more attention to particular judgments made (by a competent judge) under
a law than to the words of the law itself.  RMS is surely a competent
judge of what he himself meant by the FSD, and we can understand the
subtleties of his intention better by looking at how he has decided
about specific licenses than by debating the exact meaning of his
supposedly definitional words.

Of course, one may not think that the FSD is *interesting* enough to
afford it attention either way.  That's a separate question.

-- 
John Cowan <jcowan at reutershealth.com>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_
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