Re: [Help-gsl] Re: gsl for windows

[Brian Gough]

At Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:45:09 -0500,
Rodney Sparapani wrote:
> I had never noticed that GSL takes such a stand.  I suppose it is
> not shocking since it is a GNU project after all.  However, I'm
> assuming that you mean "free" as in open source.  Am I correct?

Here is the background,

GSL is part of the GNU project -- it is the numerical library for the
complete GNU system, just as other companies IBM, HP etc have
numerical libraries for their systems.  As a consequence, we do
recommend using a GNU-based free operating system such as GNU/Linux.
The GNU project has been working since 1984 to create a complete free
operating system to give people the freedom to share and modify
software, as we think that the restrictions of proprietary software
are harmful to society.

In the GNU project the term "free software" or "free operating system"
always refers to the four freedoms of the free software definition,
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html -- to use, study, modify
and share programs.

The GNU Project generally avoids using the term "open source" as it
does not make any reference to freedom.

> This would hopefully bless my two platforms of choice:
> Solaris/OpenSolaris and Mac OS X/Darwin.  Please let me know if I'm
> wrong.

As I understand it Opensolaris is free software, and the Darwin kernel
is also, but Mac OS X itself is not.

If you are interested you can look up specific licenses at
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

-- 
Brian Gough