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

[James Phillips]

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.