Subject: RE: RE: About the article From: "Didier PH Martin" <martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 15:41:40 -0400 |
HI Gees, I got it, you and some other people refer for the Word "free" from a debian definition perspective. But it remains that the word "free" could be wrongly interpreted (from your point of view) with something like "free" of charge. In North America (where I am living) "freeware" carries a "free of charge" connotation. "Open source" wasn't necessarily a word coming from the "suits" world but from people who wanted to be more clear about the fact that the source code is available. Sorry for my message having several typos and badly constructed sentences. I was too tired to notice these mistakes caused by my own idiosyncrasies. But next time, someone mention the word "free", I'll have to ask him if it is a debian "free", a suits "free" or a philosophical "free" :-) Anyway, I got the idea. I took the time and energy to read the debian manifest. regards Didier PH Martin mailto:martind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.netfolder.com -----Original Message----- From: owner-dssslist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-dssslist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Cees de Groot Sent: Monday, May 03, 1999 2:07 PM To: dssslist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: RE: About the article >This is confusing, we'll need a dictionnary if word do not mean what a >dictionnary tell us what they mean :-) > <OffTopic> Didier, Are you maybe native French-speaking? It doesn't seem to me, from your writing, that you're native English. My French isn't worth a penny, but I seem to recall that you can translate "Free" in two ways: "Libre" and "Gratuit". "Free Software", as per the definition of the term's inventor, Richard Stallman, uses "Free" in the meaning of "Libre", like in "free from restrictions on copying, use, etcetera". Read up on this - I think the file MOTIVATION in the GNU Emacs distribution (you're likely to find this with archie or ftpsearch) has a lengthy explanation of the ideas behind freeware. "Open Source" is a term, in my eyes, that has been invented to make the concept digestible by suits who couldn't cope with the fact that people actually want to share software; as such, it has been become quite contaminated in the year or so the term exists, so I think we should stick with "freeware". The difference lies in the numbers of "you may think it is open source but we've got you by your balls anyway" licenses invented by corporate lawyers at places like IBM, Sun and Apple. See the Debian Free Software Guidelines at www.debian.org for more information on the (quite strict) definition of free software. </OffTopic> -- Cees de Groot http://www.cdegroot.com <cg@xxxxxxxxxxxx> DSSSList info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist DSSSList info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist
Current Thread |
---|
|
<- Previous | Index | Next -> |
---|---|---|
Re: RE: About the article, Cees de Groot | Thread | Re: About the source library, Adam Di Carlo |
Re: RE: About the article, Cees de Groot | Date | Question concerning speedup of Jade, Frank Wegmann |
Month |