Re: Mathworks-hosted GPL'd software

[Sergei Steshenko]

--- On Tue, 2/23/10, Francesco Potortì <address@hidden> wrote:

> From: Francesco Potortì <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: Mathworks-hosted GPL'd software
> To: "Sergei Steshenko" <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden, "Joseph Wakeling" <address@hidden>
> Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 1:54 PM
> >> No, your memory was
> correct.  Scilab used to be released under a
> >> non-free license.
> >
> >I'd put it differently. Scilab used to be released
> under a license which
> >was considered to be non-free by a group of people.
> 
> You are out of scope here.  This is the mailing list
> for Octave, a
> program which is part of the GNU project.  The people
> behind the GNU
> project are those who coined the term "free software" the
> way it is
> commonly used nowadays.  Obviously you can define
> "free software" as you
> like, but this is not the common way things are intended,
> and with good
> reason.  Anyway, you cannot do that here.
> 
> By the way, apart from very specific cases mostly referred
> to past
> events, defining a license as "free" according to the FSF
> is the same as
> defining a license as "open surce" according to OSI. 
> And in fact the
> Scilab licence was not open source either.  Do you
> want to redefine that
> term too?
> 
> >I as an end user couldn't care less 
> 
> So why entering into these discussions here, where people
> do indeed
> care?  Unless you just want to start a flame,
> obviously...
> 
> -- 

Had the

"Scilab used to be released under a non-free license"

been written as

"Scilab used to be released under a non-free license as defined by FSF",

I wouldn't have replied.

I don't like monopolizing the notion of freedom by any group of people
though.

Regards,
  Sergei.