Discussion August 2001

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

48 participants
69 discussions

Smoothwall not free software
by Richard Stallman 29 Aug '01

29 Aug '01

I finally had time to deal with this issue: SmoothWall GPL is licenced under the GNU GPL. Portions of SmoothWall, including the installer and the ADSL management utilities, are licenced under modified licences which are available on application. No modifications to either the installation libraries or binaries and re-distribution of modified binaries based on the installer is permitted without the owners permission. The owners of this code are Lawrence Manning (lawrence(a)smoothwall.org) and Daniel Goscomb (dang(a)smoothwall.org). With those restrictions, those restricted parts of SmoothWall are not even free software any more. I should talk with the main SmoothWall developers and ask them to change this; can anyone tell me who they are, and how to reach them? Also, I'd like someone to send me some basic information about SmoothWall, so I can avoid making foolish mistakes when I write? Janet, SmoothWall should not now be listed in the Directory at all, because it is not entirely free software. I am aware of this. 0.9.8 installer was released under GPL. The COPYING file for 0.9.9 beta prefixes the standard v.2 GPL with: Does anyone have a copy of version 0.9.8? Please see if that version contains, under the GPL, older free versions of some or all of these non-free programs. If it does, could you tell me which parts of the non-free code it has, and which parts it does not have?

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Re: Smoothwall not free software
by MJ Ray 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

Richard (and others), Smoothwall developers have put basic information online at http://www.smoothwall.org/ and there has been a long thread on Smoothwall GPL/not GPL on uk.comp.os.linux that you can find via http://groups.google.com/ The main "mover and shaker" appears to be Richard Morrell, who seems to count you as a personal friend. He did change the 0.9.9beta licence back to GPL, although I am not aware of anyone with the complete source. He views the GPL as "cool but fucked" though. They have a variety of mailing lists, some of which are heavily moderated, but I doubt moderators would dare bounce you.

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[Richard Morrell <richard@smoothwall.org>] SmoothWall 0.9.9 making serious waves
by Georg C. F. Greve 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

FYI: -- Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)gnu.org> Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Brave GNU World (http://brave-gnu-world.org)

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Unesco
by Loic Dachary 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

> There is no page behind the first url given. Just kill the trailing dot. > The document source as an introduction which is to complicated. Could you explain in more words please ? I don't see what you are referring to. > Usually I classify Free Software using criteria like: > Freedom protection: high --- low > GPL MIT/PD > GPL-compatible. > > So basically you get four classes: > GPL, LGPL , MIT/PD ,other non GPL compatible > I agree it's better. Could you classify the listed licenses using your criterions ? Thanks, -- Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org 24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org 75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt

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Re: Ri:Unesco
by Loic Dachary 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

> > Just a little comment: wouldn't it help to move the list of > licenses at the bottom of the page? The second paragraph says "For > the impatients": IMHO it should be first section after the > introduction. After all the details of the various licenses are > useful only for those that already know the very basics (which you > give later in the paper). > If we move the license list at the bottom, people interested in a list of existing license will probably think it's not there. And *most* people will come to see the list and nothing else. The chapter named "For the impatient" is potentially dangerous (suggesting people not to think is a bad idea in general :-). I'm still unsure if we should keep it or not, if the advices it lists are useful or useless. That's why I did put it after the list. When it proves to be useful, agreed upon by most people, we could move it upfront. If it turns out that it's just a bad idea we will just remove it. There is the option to make two pages instead of a single one. Cheers, -- Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org 24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org 75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt

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Ri:Unesco
by smaffulli＠inwind.it 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

> > Hi, > > Unesco just published the draft document we all contributed to produce > http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_freesoft/license_info.shtml. Fantastic, that is a wonderful position to increase our visibility. > Comments, criticisms, fixes are very welcome. Although this text > is much better than the previous one, it still need peer-reviewing to mature. Just a little comment: wouldn't it help to move the list of licenses at the bottom of the page? The second paragraph says "For the impatients": IMHO it should be first section after the introduction. After all the details of the various licenses are useful only for those that already know the very basics (which you give later in the paper). Regards stef -- Stefano Maffulli aka Reed | Milano Linux User Group http://www.zoomata.com a close-up on italy | http://www.milug.org GPG key fingerprint: E052 1B13 EB1A A246 A32D D672 FD30 E9D9 C436 BDCE To err is human...to really foul up requires the root password.

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Unesco
by Loic Dachary 28 Aug '01

28 Aug '01

Hi, Unesco just published the draft document we all contributed to produce http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_freesoft/license_info.shtml. Comments, criticisms, fixes are very welcome. Although this text is much better than the previous one, it still need peer-reviewing to mature. The source of the document is at http://france.fsfeurope.org/drafts/license-info.html Enjoy, -- Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org 24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org 75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt

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Re: valinux goes propietary?
by smaffulli＠inwind.it 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

> "smaffulli(a)inwind.it"<smaffulli(a)inwind.it> writes: > > > Again, make believe it: one thing that everybody says is "sell > > services on open source (or free software)" and VA just said they > > can't. > > Did VA's background as a hardware company influence this? Is their > setup so tuned towards selling products that they can't sell services? that sounds like a good point, thanks. It still leaves exposed the question ESR backing up such a move: can we consider this as the final act of the Open Source Initiative? Is OSI over now? Shall we say it? Or who else should claim the end of OSI? > On a more general point, I think we need a "Linuxmanship"-style page > for free software. I'm off to see what's out there... any got some > suggestions? (Basic question: how do we promote free software to each > class of user? There's the business markets at each level and the > users of each type.) What do you mean with "Linuxmanship"-style page? I wrote a very little paper (in Italian, though) on why it is worth releasing new software as Free Software. I wrote it having in mind developers and explains shortly why it is not worth considering other proprietary licenses and means of distribution like free/shareware. http://www.linuxvalley.it/columns/columns.php?IdCol=109 Originally i wrote that article in English to advocate the release of a specific piece of software under the GPL. Could you explain better your idea as I am not sure I understood you, sorry. Regards stef -- Stefano Maffulli aka Reed | Milano Linux User Group http://www.zoomata.com a close-up on italy | http://www.milug.org GPG key fingerprint: E052 1B13 EB1A A246 A32D D672 FD30 E9D9 C436 BDCE To err is human...to really foul up requires the root password.

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Re: valinux goes propietary?
by MJ Ray 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

ESR has come out in favour of VA (surprise) on http://www.linux.com/opinion/newsitem.phtml?sid=1&aid=12507 As someone said, it's not worth correcting ESR's prodigious workload everywhere. I think I'll quit from themes.org (OSDN). I should have done that a long time ago, but I thought there would be something to interest me on the new t.o, launching (or not?) in August. Now, do you think I should light a fire on my way out? How?

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Re: Smoothwall not free software
by MJ Ray 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

Alex Hudson <home(a)alexhudson.com> writes: > MJR - you mentioned task-milky-milky [...] Ack! I can't remember who it was working on this, not how serious about it they were, though. I'm sure a quick enquiry on OPN's #brits might shed some light on it. Not exactly a marketing-friendly name, though, is it? ;-)

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Discussion August 2001