This time I'm taking your personal reply and making it public.  I hope
you don't mind.

On 2002.07.18 06:38 Richard Rauch wrote:
> You certainly set off a firestorm.  (^&

Yeah.

> 
> I haven't read the entire thread.  That's part of the reason that I'm not
> making a public reply.  (The other reason is that I think that more than
> enough words have been said in the -advocacy forum about this.)
> 
> I have only the following personal views:
> 
>  * "Free software" is not a specific term.  It's the combination of a
>    common adjective with a common noun.  If RMS (or someone else) is
>    trying to take this over as another synonym for GPL'ed software, then
>    that's unfortunate.  (There's already: GPL'ed software, Copylefted
>    software, and GNU software.  Although the last can most strictly be
>    seen to refer to only the GNU project, I think that it can also be
> used
>    loosely to refer to anything covered by the GNU license, since
>    the only difference between two such products would be the name of
>    original ownership in the copyright.)
> 
>    I.e., "free software" shouldn't be co-opted for this.  That will only
>    add to confusion.  If it's "free software" that should mean that it's
>    software that is free.

My own opinion is that it's worthwhile to have a term which means
"free to be modified", in comparison with "free of cost".  Whether
or not the GPL falls in this catagory is another issue.  I'm willing
to allow that copyleft, a restriction on terms of distribution which
ensures that the software otherwise remains free to be modified, forever,
can reasonably be included in the "free to be modified" collection.
You don't think so.  But I am willing to always write "copylefted
free software", "non-copylefted free software", and just "free software".
The copyleft term makes it easy to make the distinction, and easy to
ask if you've a question as to how somebody's using the phrase "free
software".

> 
>  * In view of the above, saying that the GPL is the "first free software
>    license" gives the very misleading impression that RMS was the first
>    person to create software that was free.

It's the old "what kind of free do you mean" problem again.  :-(

>  I gather that D.E.K. would
>    disagree with that.  And my impression is that originally, when
>    hardware was so much more expensive and so varied, the software
>    often simply wasn't seen as something that mattered so much.  An OS
>    or compiler might be heavily licensed, but lots of little bits were
>    floated around freely.  (Though TeX was probably the first big piece
>    of software to be free.)

Has TeX always had the same license?

In some sense, to my knowledge, IBM effectively produced the first
large piece of software to be free.  (Back to "what kind of free...")
They gave away all their software with their hardware, and people were free
to modify the code and they did pass their modifications around.  IBM 
didn't
tell them to stop, and if you were to pass some of that old code around 
today
I bet that IBM still wouldn't tell you to stop.

>  * My one-line summaries of GPL and Berkeley licenses would be, re.
>    derivatives:
> 
>     * GPL: I will tell you how you can distribute your work.

I would write: "I will tell you who you can distribute your work to."

Makes me think of: "If you didn't bring enough to share with everybody,
put it away."

> 
>     * Berkeley: Your work is your work.

I like Jan Grant's: "Do what thou wilt"
:-)

> That said, your condescending message to Perry makes it seem that you
> have no idea who the participants are on the NetBSD lists.  I really
> doubt
> that Perry needs your help in understanding why and how he gives away his
> work.

I don't have any idea who the participants are, and it doesn't matter.
Famous folk shouldn't be treated differently from anybody else, I don't
think they're "worth more".  I felt I was responding in kind with a 
flippent
answer to a flippent post which derided my concerns.  So I was, in turn,
flippent and condesending while making my point.  It's clear that we can't
all take this in fun, much as I would like to.  So...

I APOLOGIZE to Perry and anybody else who was affronted.  I was 
condesending,
and rude, and it was juvenile of me to respond to impoliteness in kind.
I'd like to thank Richard for pointing my behavior out to me.
My only excuse is that it appeared to be casual a forum where such language
is acceptable.

Karl <kop@meme.com>