February 24, 2004

Free Software Fascism

Leo Simmons urges you to "not use the GPL or LGPL for software you write". He gives some reasonable justification for his policy. Not sure I agree, but he has his reasons. One of the comments below his post is the funniest thing I've read in a long time, though:

"How many succesful Open Source businesses do you know are based around ASL licenses?"

I point the poster to Orixo for a start.

There's been too much discussion as a result of FSF "denouncing" the ASF license. All incredibly dull - I say let the evangelists and pragmatists do what they like - but I will link to one more denouncement of FSF before trying not to take sides. Adrian writes: "the Free Software Foundation has redefined the term "free" to suit their purposes", and follows up with a beautiful and entertaining rebuttal of a certain well-known hardline Free Software person.

Anyway - all this talk of licenses is too boring. It's enough to send you to sleep, isn't it?

Update: *sigh* the dangers of posting late at night after a glass or three of wine. The above "FSF person" statement has been modified to better reflect the truth.

Posted by savs at February 24, 2004 1:29 AM
Comments

Hardcore FSF person? Wow, that's your opinion and definitely definitely not FSF's...

Posted by: MJR at February 24, 2004 9:46 AM

To be clearer: I am not a member of a Free Software Foundation. I do not have any email address @fsf* or @gnu*. I help run a group associated with FSF Europe (but do not have any formal role in that link), I admin one mailing list @gnu.org (accident of history) and I chat with Georg Greve if I meet him at a conference. I think that's about the full extent of links. I do support some of their aims, but that's probably true of Andrew too. Hey, does that mean Andrew Savory is a "well-known hardcore FSF person"? ;-)

Posted by: MJR at February 24, 2004 10:17 AM